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| Brutus and Nala - yes, I took this photo |
Hello, all! Sorry
I’ve been out of touch for a while. The
past week wasn’t so great for me (or my family) and I had this awesome blog
post all planned out, but never got around to it. My family had to put my cat down last week,
which was really hard for me since I am so far away. I’ve had Lucky since I was 7 years old and he
has always been MY kitty. Even since the
beginning, for some reason he chose me.
And I felt so horrible that I wasn’t able to be there with him when he
passed. I always thought he would be
around to nip at my kids’ heels like he did mine when I was young (and
sometimes when I was grown up, too, just for the heck of it – because he was a
cat, why the heck not?). But he lived to
be a ripe old age of 16 and I’m glad he didn’t have to suffer. It will definitely make going home hard and
him not being there to say hi when I walk in the door.
Then to top the week off I got extremely sick and had to
take two days off of work to recover.
I’m pretty sure it was a sudden bout of the stomach flu, which I haven’t
had since I was in the 4th grade.
I have fond memories of running around the hospital with Mom (when she
used to work there) throwing up in front of elevators, into the entrance of the
bathroom and then missing the toilet entirely.
It’s definitely different not having your mom to take care of you when
you’re feeling especially crappy so far from home. But my family here did a fantastic job taking
care of me. Paul and Cam sent me right
back to bed when I got up the morning after spending the whole night bent over
the toilet. Elzette brought me nausea
medication, Roman (an awesome volunteer from Switzerland) checked up on me
three times in one day, Jason brought me Sprite, and of course Karel would bend
over backwards for any need I had. He
was constantly coming to see how I was, running around to get me water and soft
drinks, making sure that I ate, and then sitting with me and talking with me
until I couldn’t stay awake any longer.
Even Paul came and checked up on me the second day of my sickness to
make sure I was eating and not throwing up anymore. He made fantastic impressions of me bending
over and throwing up, doing his best to give me a laugh and make me feel
better. My new family here definitely
puts the “fun” in “dysfunctional,” and that’s a fact!
Most of you already know this, but just in case you didn’t
see my big announcement over Facebook last week I wanted you all to know that
the lion park has offered me a full time job.
So I am currently in the process of figuring out everything I need to do
to be able to move here and live and work here.
I am terribly excited! I never
dreamed that this place would become my home and the piece of heaven I have
been searching for so long, but I’m sure you’ve been able to pick up on how
happy I am here. It had always been my
plan to come here for the experience, and then return to the US to find a job
at a similar place with this fantastic work experience under my belt. But the job happened here, in the place that
I’ve loved since I first stepped foot on solid ground, surrounded by the lions and
tigers that I have fallen in love with.
The lions and tigers that have come to know who I am, to recognize me
and my voice. They may not love me the
way I love them, but I find myself so incredibly blessed to have found this
place and a path laid so perfectly at my feet.
Now, back to the animals!
I have a few experiences to relay to you from the past couple of weeks,
so I hope you enjoy hearing about these awesome experiences that just continue
to make my cup overflow.
As you may remember, I have been working with the animals at
Chimp Haven as well as the lions. Well
there are two caracals over there that were actually hand raised by their
previous owners, but due to spotty care and inconsistent feedings/enclosure
cleanings on our end, we weren’t sure if they could handle human contact
anymore. (Caracals, by the way, are a
smaller species of big cat – not much bigger than a regular housecat, but much
more muscular and faster) Cam asked me
to go in with them to see if they could still handle being around people. This was a big step not only for me, but for
the cats themselves. It also meant a lot
to me that Cam trusts me enough to take such a big risk. First, we separated the two cats (one gets
jealous if the other gets attention, so we will never go in with both at once),
then Jan (the park manager of Chimp Haven) and I went in together. We were in and out pretty quick, because the
female we were in with gave Jan a nip and we didn’t want to push our luck. A few days later, I was told to go in on my
own. I separated the two, then took a
big breath and went in. Cindy (the nice
female) met me at the door immediately.
She rubbed against my legs just like a regular cat would, purred and
followed me around my work. She lets me
pet her along her back and sides (their fur is very coarse, similar to what a
yellow lab’s coat would feel like) and while I pet her, she stood on my feet
and my broom so I couldn’t go anywhere until she said so. Then she let me go about my work (cleaning
out the water, picking up poo, looking for bones etc.) and just sat there and
watched me. When I was ready to go, she
came back for a few more pats before going on her way. It was a truly incredible experience and I
was excited about it all day. Cam, after
hearing about my success and excitement, told me that he would like me to get
more involved with the chimps, more hand’s on.
He has told me that the chimps really like me and my presence and the
next step is for me to spend time with them face to face (through a fence of
course). So all exciting things, gaining
new experience with different types of animals.
Then this week I had an amazing experience with a couple of
the lions. I was busy at work between
fences, so basically there was just the lion fence and electric wire between the
lions and me. I was working on scraping
old names off the adoption boards by Brutus and Nala, which are two young white
lions. They were laying in the way back
of their enclosure while I was scraping away.
Nala spotted me and got up immediately, walking her way down along the
fence to stop right in front of me. The
thing about white lions is that they are quite a bit bigger than regular lions,
so Nala stands quite tall as it is. But
she is tall enough to actually arch her neck over the top wire of the electric
fence. And that was exactly what she
did. She made eye contact with me and
was just standing there watching me and smelling me. I of course greeted her and started talking
to her, she was so interested in me being so close. Her face was literally inches from me, I
could have reached through and patted her head if I wanted to (but of course am
not stupid). Then she started talking
back. Just a very soft moan in the back
of the throat, not a threatening growl or a roar. It was absolutely incredible. Then Brutus wanted to see what was so
interesting and came over to say hi, too.
The cool thing about these two is that they have blue eyes, which are so
different to look into than the yellow/amber pools of raw electric power of the
brown lions’ eyes. It is absolutely
captivating.
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| An incredible shot of Asad I took the other day |
I mean I honestly have the coolest job. I get to work with incredible animals every
day, and work FOR them. I get to be
their caregiver. And I get to have these
amazing experiences every single day.
Nothing compares to walking alongside a lion just an arm’s breadth away,
he looks over at you as you walk together, then he starts roaring and roars
until your walk together is done. That
roar reverberates through your chest, infuses you with such power and is unlike
any animal/human relationship in the world.
These are wild, fully grown, intelligent LIONS. And I get to be with them every day. It is everything and more than I ever hoped
it would be.
So, dear family and friends, I hope that you are all well
and enjoying your summer. I am
definitely enjoying my winter here in South Africa (currently sunny and 90
without a cloud in sight) surrounded by the most amazing creatures that God
could ever have created.
Yours,
~K~
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