So I'm able to get a little more internet than I expected! Unfortunately not enough to add photos (yet), but enough to record a little of what's been going on in my life in the past week.
Hannah and I arrived to Belize without much fanfare, we breezed through customs (the guys
loved Hannah's dreads--everyone kept calling her "rasta girl") and arrived in Sarteneja the same day. We met Paul and Zoe, the directors of Wildtracks, and all their dogs; Lucy, Sally, and Meeko right away. Hannah and I got settled in our little cabana, and got ready to wash off the long travel day. Hannah got a shower in, but as soon as I got my hair lathered up with shampoo, the water cut out. I was able to rinse the shampoo out of my hair while Hannah reached over the top of the shower curtain and dumped the contents of her water bottle on my head. This was not our last experience with waterbottle showers.
Everything here runs on solar power. The lights, the internet, and the pump that draws up well water for toilet flushing and showering. It's been a learning experience, but we've learned that you cannot flush the toilet once the sun goes down if you'd like to brush your teeth before bed. Also if you plan on taking a shower, you'd better do it right around lunch time. However, cleanliness doesn't last long!
Hannah and I are responsible for the feeding of the outdoor monkeys, the peccaries, the deer, and the feeding and entertaining of the manatee. Plus Hannah is working on designing the artwork for the visitors center (to be built...soon?) and I'm busy gathering information to beef up the Wildtracks website, which
as you can see, is woefully incomplete. There is never a dull moment around here!
All my little girl dreams are coming true--I'm working behind the scenes in wild animal care! I'm allowed to go into cages, snuggle monkeys, feed a manatee from a bottle--all things I never thought I'd
actually get to do! My days starts at 6:30am with the
howler monkey feeds, which happen again at 10:30, 2:30, and 4:30. Sultan, Nikki, and Livvy are all around a year old and are still being weaned off humans. Sultan spends the entire feeding sitting on my shoulder, his tail wrapped around my neck, drinking his milk from a syringe. Livvy and Nikki generally ignore me, except for last night. There's a "cold" front moving through, and I think they could tell the night was going to be especially chilly, because Livvy crawled into my arms like a small child and snuggled her head right under my chin! I about died it was so precious. The other 5 howler monkeys that I'm in charge of are all about 2 years old; Eden, Igor, Kofi, Minnie and Moe all
love leaves. They love papaya and leaves; Kofi actually starts purring when I bring in a huge bunch! Eden and I got off to a rough start, but now that my unicorn bun has lost its intrigue (her last feeder was a guy) she mostly leaves me alone. Minnie is my favorite of the five. When I'm bent in half sweeping up the cage floor, she flattens herself tummy-down on my back and wraps every limb she's got around my waist. When I stand up to leave the cage--she slowly lets herself slide down the slippery leg of my adventure pants like it's a fireman's pole and plops on the ground. She looks around for a moment, confused
"well how did I get here?" and then scrambles up my offered arm, bounds off my head, and perches at the highest possible place to watch me leave.
Twiggy the
manatee is my other favorite charge. She's two years old and has been at Wildtracks since she was about two weeks old. I feed her at 7:30 and 4:00 every day, a mixture of milk formula, banana, and vitamins
from a bottle, and then I swim with her for about 20 minutes. She's old enough to be living in the lagoon, eating seagrass and learning to be a wild manatee, and when she's out there I'll only feed her in the mornings and use a boat to go out and check on her. However, because of the "cold" front, Zoe decided to keep her in the largest manatee rehab pool because it can be easily heated. In the wild, Twiggy would just swim around with other manatees to find warmer waters, but since she can't leave the lagoon, it's important to keep her warm (too-cold manatees get constipated and their stomachs will twist, like horses). I'm sure she's not too fond of life in the pool, but I love that I get to swim with her! I float around on an innertube, letting her push me up and down the pool. Sometimes we race from one end to the other (I always win) and she seems to really like it when I sing Christmas carols.
Between the manatee and monkey feeds, Hannah and I feed the deer and the
peccaries on the property, as well as exercise Neto's horse Bullet (Neto is the caretaker and is away until after Christmas).
In our free time (ha ha) we read out by the lagoon, play with the dogs, and work on puzzles. It's an international place, with volunteers from Italy, Sweden, Canada, and the US. Paul and Zoe are both from England, and there's a troop of 13 boy scouts also from England here doing a service project (building new monkey cages) who keep life interesting. The food is superb, there's a never ending supply of rum and cokes, and I'm absolutely loving life.
I can't wait to see my family in 14 days, and be back in America in 22!
