Wednesday is shopping day for the volunteers. That means driving to Bethlehem, getting food for the whole next week (which turned out to be a little bit challenging – but we made it!) and getting impressions of the life in the city.
But lets start from the beginning.
This morning I went on my tour to spend time with Andy, Seeta, the tigers, Nora and Simba. I did this by bike since the distances are just too long to come home on time walking. I grabbed some curry powder (since the cats like that smell), which I put on the enrichment. The enrichment consisted of cardboard boxes filled with straw. I put some raw eggs into the pockets of my jumper and hoped not to lose them or to fall down on the bumpy drive. Afie was joining me and she just enjoyed running and chasing birds. Oh and I saw ostriches for the first time in my life. They looked impressive and ran very fast. Not so elegant, though.
First stop: Andy
Andy is a handraised lioness. Thus she loves humans and she was excited when I arrived. We had a nice cat talk and I gave her an egg. She loved it and it took this enormous animal like 15 minutes to eat the tiny egg. I don’t know how she did this…I would probably eat 20 eggs in the time she ate that one. But well. She reallly enjoyed it =)
Second stop: Seeta
Seeta is in a special enclosure since she should be brought together with two males. Now she stays in a smaller feeding enclosure next to those two guys in order to get used to them. Since she’s alone in there, she really needs the contact with people. When I arrived, she was very intrested. She followed me and as I sat down she laid down next to me – on the other side of the fence of course, which was better for me, because it seemed to me that sometimes she took me for her prey, or at least she wanted to play with me. Even though this sounds fun and cute, I think I would probably be the weaker one in that game. So it was actually ok to have a fence between me and her. I also gave her an egg – which she ignored. But she loved the enrichment and started playing with it.
Third stop: The invisible tigers
Yesterday was feeding day. So apparently all the cats were a little tired and lazy today. But the tigers are truly the most lazy ones. They did not even show up. At least they made me have a really nice bike ride with Afie. Maybe see you tomorrow, tigers! If you’re awake by then.
Last stop: Nora and Simba
Nora and Simba are at the special care enclosure since that’s what they need- special care. They were both quite lazy and did not react to me telling them I had eggs with me and throwing enrichment in their enclosure. They were like: „Seriously? I’d rather not move, eat your eggs yourself“. So I went home with one egg left and ate a banana.
At noon, John took Natasha and me to Bethlehem for the weekly grocery shopping. On our way we saw zebras and ostriches and plenty of wildebeests! We went to a really big mall and we bought pretty much everything they had. I think they had to close the store after we had left. We have food for one month now, but working with the big cats makes us hungry I guess. After shopping, we had some delicious lunch at a Café and afterwards, John picked us up. The pickup was stuffed with food since John had done some shopping for the lodge as well.
Now I’m laying here, listening to the rain. Yes, to the rain! The weather goes crazy tonight. I just hope I can say hello to the sun tomorrow morning. But I don’t know…That rain seems pretty violent to me.