Better Late Than Never

It's not my fault. I occasionally managed to get online in the last month, but it was with very limited time and a shaky connection that can't handle such complicated websites as Facebook and Blogspot. It's not my fault. Blame the Third World. This time...

I have a large number of stories. I figure the story of my trip home can wait until the next entry, and I'll try to fit the rest of my Bally Vaughan adventures into this entry. They've been separated, mostly for my own benefit.

The Donkey Soaps:
I've mentioned Fred and Crumb before. Fred is our handsome, humble, thinks-he's-a-donkey zebra stallion, with the donkey girlfriend, Crumb. They were devoted to each other. You never saw Fred without Crumb. Crumb, who was looking chubbier and chubbier... One morning I was greeted with the announcement that Crumb had given birth during the night. My head was instantly echoing with delighted cries of "BABY ZONKEY!!!!" and I bounced down to where they were hanging out. The pictures will be available soon. What I saw was a pale bundle at Crumb's feet- the bundle had humongous black-tipped ears, dark eyes, a puffy-fluffy forehead, and four little be-hoofed legs. My heart was instantly won. Naturally, Fred was hovering in the vicinity, wondering exactly what his girlfriend was doing.
The thing about donkey mares is that they don't like other equines- or much of anyone not holding food- near their babies. Our fears were confirmed when, the next day, Fred started looking for a new crowd. But no one else likes him. Crumb was the rebel in this respect. A few times a day, I saw Fred try to approach Crumb and the new baby, but he was repulsed every time.
Fred is a new man since Crumb kicked him out. He was finally accepted as a companion by Charlotte Donkey and her son Angelo, mostly because he will chase other donkeys away from a food source and let Charlotte and Angelo feast. They haven't been good for his frame of mind. Charlotte is from The Block. Charlotte has a crocodile scar on her bum. Fred has become a bitter soul. I still see him trying to follow Crumb and her daughter from time to time, and now that the baby is older, Crumb allows it for a little while, but he must still spend most of his time away.
Another word or two about the baby- for the first few days, we thought Fred must have been cuckolded, because the kid looked all donkey. But as days passed, faint shadows of stripes have become visible around her knees and her hocks. She's also grown into quite the feisty little soul- I watched her buck her dad in the nose the other day, in retaliation for being nudged out of the way. The unfortunate thing in my view is that she was named Cupcake. Cupcake the Zonkey. Poor Darlin'.
The situation has caused me my own share of difficulty. During my morning cleaning, I've acquired a sort of Donkey Breakfast Club around my wheelbarrow, where I deposit the fruit and seeds that the birds and monkeys leave behind. Fred has become a prominent member of the club, and until recently, he merely avoided me when I came out to add rubbish or move the barrow. No longer. Now I get threatened regularly with zebra kicks. I've chosen to deal with the situation in a manner inspired by Wolf Park, which after all this time is still my best source of animal advice. I have created the Rice Sack Monster, of which Fred is mortally afraid. The Rice Sack Monster is easily summoned by the waving of a rice sack in the air, and it promptly quells the zebra threat.
Poor Fred. I hope his troubles ease off soon.

Mongoose Viewing:
Our troop of free-roaming banded mongooses, which started with three rescued animals and is now 35 strong, do not often come into contact with snakes. For the most part, besides the meat set out for them by the center, they fill their bellies with foraged bugs, eggs raided from the various rescued fowl, and the occasional unfortunate chicken. But the other day, while we cleaned a lion enclosure, one of the staff came across a mid-size brown snake who seems to have mistakenly bitten his own coils, and thus killed himself. Not bright. Perhaps it's just as well he's eliminated from the gene pool. Sarah brought the neatly-looped carcass to the mongooses. They approached very cautiously. Huddling together, they formed a chirping and twitching mongoose mass, with one animal at the tip, very delicately stretching his nose out towards the snake. As soon as they ascertained that it wasn't going to fight, the troop erupted with squeals and chirrups, snatched the carcass, and vanished with it, presumably to tear it to pieces and devour.

Biting Back:
For a while, I was starting to wonder if I had somehow offended the animal kingdoms. They had suddenly become almost universally difficult. First, two baby monkeys escaped their enclosure during morning feeding. I must assume that I didn't latch the door closely when I was inside. Lucky, monkeys are social animals and these ones were young, so they didn't want to go far from their home and their companions, and were relatively easy to catch. Sarah and Colin assured me that everyone releases someone eventually. Still...
The next day, I encountered african wasps, and the differences between their venom and that of american wasps. African wasps, in addition to hurting like hell, make you dizzy and spacey for a goodly block of hours. I met them while attacking a group of branches with a cleaver (closest thing I could find to a machete. It was going well enough until the wasps showed up). To be fair, I'd been warned about the wasps living in the tree. I had just figured that I would see one and be able to retreat before they could sting me.
Other mishaps involved narrowly avoiding a kick to the head from the zorse (as soon as I saw her head rise, ears go back, and hindquaters start to spin, I ran for it, and heard her hooves whooshing behind me) and rolling down my cuff one day to find a scorpion cozily nestled inside. A tiny, grey scorpion. The way I understand it, the smaller the scorpion, the better to avoid it, but there it was, sitting on my ankle. I stayed very still until I could, in one quick motion, scrape it off with a rock, and I got away clean.
The final mishap, which looks like the only lasting damage from Africa, properly belongs to a different story. Bear with me- it's another donkey story.

The Tale of Achilles:
African farmers are not always nice to their livestock, and donkeys, because they're such tough creatures, get some of the worst treatment. There are 15 donkeys at Bally Vaughan, and those that weren't born there are all rescues from farms. Farmers call Sarah when their donkeys have been abused to uselessness, and she buys the animals and nurses them back to health. I'll leave my thoughts on paying abusers out of this story.
Achilles's story begins with a man on a bicycle who arrived at the Bally Vaughan gates with news of a donkey to sell. We showed up at the farm, and were led into a pasture, where a grey donkey was curled on his side, tied to a stake, listless and unable to stand. His ribs and hipbones stuck out under his hide. Sarah said he was one of the worst she had seen. He had obviously been sick for a long time- the bald patch that usually adorns the withers of a beast of burden had grown its hair back, and his leg muscles were wasted from lying still so long. In the creases of each leg, I found open sores, again from lying still. The sores were infested with maggots. Raw patches at each ankle told me he had been tightly hobbled.
I named him Achilles. If anyone could beat his condition, I figured Achilles would do it. The name was also in reference to the ankle wounds. As the resident volunteer, Achilles was my charge. I alternated with Colin to bring him food and water, and treated his wounds. He was given large doses of antibiotics and vitamins, and left to sleep as much as possible. He was clearly baffled at being touched and treated so gently, and fed so well. I often sat with him and talked, which at first surprised him, but he seemed to like it. He wasn't averse to music either, and would relax while I sang to him (Sarah's caracals also turn out to be music lovers). It was a strange time for him. He was wild about stock feed- it was plain he had never seen or smelled it before. I saw the farmer who sold him sniffing at the mixture, trying to work it out. Achilles gulped down enough that I started to monitor him, to make sure he wasn't overloading his system. He also got all my kitchen scraps- bananas were a great hit.
The morning after his arrival, he was looking perkier. His expression was more animated, and he was eager for his feed. I was feeling optimistic. But he went downhill that afternoon, following a long struggle to empty his bowels. He couldn't even lift his head afterwards. With a blanket under his belly, we tried to help him stand, but his legs were just too weak. I could hear Maxwell, one of the older staff members, tell Sarah that he probably wouldn't make it. Once he was relaxed again and headed towards sleep, I took an axe across the river and vented my rage on some innocent trees. The aviaries needed re-doing anyway.
I came back before predator feeding that afternoon, to check whether Achilles would drink some water. He still couldn't lift his head, but given his prone position and the accompanying constipation risks, it was important that he stay hydrated. Sarah and Colin mixed some bread and grain with water, sugar, and salt, and I hand-fed the mixture to Achilles. His lips were cut up and tender, and with his head sideways, he wasn't having an easy time of it, but he was obviously hungry again. That was how my finger wound up between his teeth. And in an instant, he was biting down. Hard. It was lucky that Sarah and Colin were there. They realized something was wrong when I requested in a tense voice that they get his teeth off of me NOW. Hard as I pulled, I couldn't get my finger loose, and I didn't want to strike Achilles. Sarah and Colin pulled on the donkey's jaw... and pulled... and pulled. I had lost feeling in my finger, and honestly, I'd given up on keeping the top segment of my middle finger. Donkeys are strong, famous for it, and after a while of struggling, I was just wishing that he'd get it over with, so I could bandage it and start healing.
But Achilles, confused, finally gave up the struggle, and I stumbled back. Sarah dressed my finger and sent me home for the last hour of the day's work. She and Colin would look after Achilles for that evening. There were deep gouges on either side of that top knuckle, and I couldn't feel half of the finger pad. On the upside, it wasn't in as much pain as it should have been.
The burst of adrenaline left a hole in my defense system- I woke up that night fevered and vomiting, neither of which were related to the finger. Mid-morning the next day, while I was still tossing with fever dreams and unable to eat or walk a straight line, Achilles died.
The next day, my fever subsided but I was still weak and woozy. My finger was healing very quickly, though even now, two weeks later, half of the finger pas remains numb. That second day of gut-recovery was a good time to cry over my donkey and generally gather strength again. The next day, I discovered that a woman with a sturdily-dressed finger wound can still use an axe to vent her tougher emotions.
I comfort myself that for the last few days of his life, Achilles had comfort, company, and dignity. But I do wish I been there for him those last few hours.

The Vervet Saga:
It's school holiday season, which means that Zimbabwean families who have the means are flooding into Mozambique for the beaches and the diving. Those of them who go into pet shops, or probably to markets, will see young vervet monkeys for sale, and not in friendly conditions. Some of them will buy these monkeys simply to remove them from their sellers (Note: this is not a recommended practice, since it just ends up funding cruelty), and as soon as they're home in Zimbabwe, they bring these cherubs straight to Bally Vaughan.
And when I say "cherubs," that isn't exactly what I mean. I think you know that.
Moe is our latest arrival. He's our first monkey in a number of weeks, so he can't go in with the other baby monkeys, because they would attack him. As for the adult troupe (who have their own babies), they should adopt him without trouble, but there is a delaying factor.
I talked about Tarzan in my last entry, the former leader of the troupe. Tarzan was finally re-captured, after many near-bite incidents, a raid on the volunteer house, and other dastardly capers. Rather than put him back with the others, where he'll clearly just escape again, we evacuated an enclosure of birds and guinea pigs, and moved Tarzan in by himself. He was miserable. No monkey likes to be by himself.
That's where Getty comes in. Getty is an adult female, missing the fingers on her left hand. For this reason, she's the only other member of the troupe who can't be released. She also exhibits great fondness for Tarzan, to the point of trying to defend him when the new leader, BigEars, bullied him. There's one hitch: Getty is extremely aggressive, and even more so in combination with Tarzan the Renegade. Unless we were willing to let them live in utter squalor, we had to devise a separate half to the enclosure, where they could be put for cleaning.
Moe doesn't know that he's waiting for an enclosure to be built. With no place to put him where he wouldn't be miserable, he runs free during the day. He usually joins me for morning cleaning rounds, turns up at herbivore-feeding time to steal tidbits, and then entertains himself for the rest of the daylight hours. He's been seen schmoozing with the wild troupe, but hasn't been adopted as we hoped. We don't have to worry about Moe disappearing, because he was clearly a pet for some time- he likes to play with dogs, and loves to cuddle with people. At the end of each day, Moe can be found at the visitor's carpark, waiting for someone to carry him back to the cafe. Monkeys do not like the dark. As the sun sets, he clings to either me or Sarah, until we roll an apple into his bed-crate.
Cuddling with Moe makes it clear what the appeal of owning a baby monkey feels like- however, in just a few weeks Moe will start to be a real monkey, with aggessive tendencies. And even at this age, he's old enough to be destructive in his curiosity. Sigh. But he's a sweet l'il duffer.
The enclosure had just been finished when I left, so Getty and Moe should be finding new accomodations soon.

I feel like this extremely long entry should be wrapping up soon, but there must be other things to share... For example, the baby marmosets, who were steadfastly clinging to their family's various backs when I first arrived, are two months old now and starting to be really good at running around on their own. Their faces are still grey instead of black. Kadiki the lioness killed a pair of geese who were stupid enough to fly into her enclosure and land right in front of her. The mongooses and the dogs continue their campaign against one another. We had some interesting meat donated lately, as well, which the larger predators got to enjoy. You see, when a wild animal seriously harms a human, it's usually shot, and the meat is parcelled out. Crocodile Man, the game control asshat who, nevertheless was kind enough to release our crocodiles, has recently brought us meat from both an elephant and a hippo. I might not like the policy of shooting animals that people should NOT have been near in the first place, but I do appreciate the expressions on our lions, hyenas, and leopard's faces when they bite into that kind of meat.

I'll write more in a day or two, just detailing the final day or two at Bally Vaughan and some of my thoughts on leaving Africa. This entry is already to long for the average attention span. I will say only that being back in the United States feels very odd.

Will crocodile stories convince you I'm not dead?

I'm alive. Thought you should know, because I'm aware that at least two people were worried enough that they managed to contact Zimbabwe, which isn't easy. Then again, I did report myself as alone in Harare before disappearing for two and a half weeks, so I guess I can't be too surprised. But I'm not dead, just far away from the internet.

Even if we had internet at Bally Vaughan, the power cuts would severely limit my time online. Now, let me stress this- ZIMBABWE IS NOT NEARLY AS UNSTABLE AS THE MEDIA CLAIMS. Several years ago, it was legitimately bad, but the real trouble is over, and Zimbabwe is trying to get back to the strong economy they used to have. Unfortunately, terror sells, so instead of trying to encourage tourism back to the country, the media prefers to speak as though the trouble was still going on. That's the truth. Spread it around, please: Zimbabwe is a fluffy, cuddly bunny.

That said, it's currently a solid third world country, and out of its previous five power centers, only about one and a half are functioning today. The defecit of power is so severe that the company will simply shut down the power to various sectors, usually during the busiest parts of the day, to ensure maximum power save-age. Mind you, the president's house always has power. I never said the government wasn't corrupt. That's the way of governments, especially in Africa.

I'm learning the art of speed-bathing, cold water being the incentive. Also, point of interest, the water is frequently quite brown. And I mean "quite" in the British sense, where it secretly translates to "REALLY FREAKIN'".

My current home is Bally Vaughan Wildlife Sanctuary, where I share the grounds with lions, hyenas, a leopard, blue duikers, a klipspringer, servals, a civet, caracals, a jackal, crocodiles, parrots, zebras, baboons, monkeys, mongooses, marmosets, and owls. Now, Bally Vaughan never turns an animal refugee away, and as I mentioned, several years ago the proverbial shit was hitting the proverbial fan. White farmers fleeing the country dropped off many of their animals here, which means we also house cows, donkeys, a horse, sheep, pigs, goats, geese, ducks, chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, and white rats. One fleeing family brought a zore! Yes, a genuine horse-zebra cross, sterile as a mule, whose temperment is so foul that she's called simply Zorse, and they're considering mounting Beware of Zorse signs for the public. See, all the equines are free-roaming, and Zorse has been known to charge for no apparent reason. A word to the wise: this behavior is apparently typical of zorses. It's the zebra heritage showing through.

Along that train of thought, we've also got an accidental zonkey (Muffin) and another on the way, courtesy of Fred. Fred is a gorgeous zebra stallion. Fred was found in a tiny paddock, up to his belly in filth, with no company besides an eldlery donkey. We suspect that Fred is unaware that he's a zebra at all. Thank whatever gods you pray too. Male zebra have been known to kill other equines by ripping their jaws off, they are that fierce and territorial. Our Zorse's father was a serial offender. Fred doesn't do that. We like Fred. Fred just wants to hang out with Crumb, the love of his life, a very homely donkey mare.

Moving away from our free-floating equine population. My morning usually starts several hours before it's supposed to, when the rescued roosters start crowing. So. Many. Roosters. Damn them. If ever there was a time to turn down an animal... They've also got a knack for knowing when your temper is fraying, which they see as an ideal opportunity to follow you around, testing the volume and timbre of their voices. The roosters get the dogs going in the morning, who in turn get the lions going, and occasionally the donkeys. It's an interesting wake-up.
If I ever express to you a desire to keep chickens, and if you are a true friend to me, you will refer me back to this passage.

Besides a pair of goats, we've had no new rescues since I arrived, but that doesn't mean there's been no excitement. I've witnessed 3 (count 'em!) crocodile captures, and one monkey netting.
Crocs: To begin with, Bally Vaughan is right on a river, full of plump fish. Recently, a crocodile moved into this river, approximately two and a half meters long, which killed my desire to go swimming, and made us very nervous about the donkeys and sheep going to drink, not to mention the dogs going to play. The wild animal control guy was summoned (he was a pompous ass, and a total disappointment from the desccription, but that's a story for another day). He "supervised" the setting of the trap in the river (a trap built by our staff and carried by our staff while he showed us pictures of animals he'd shot). But he also offered to remove two of the three crocs we were keeping, and to release them in a reserve. Our biggest croc (about 4 meters) is a registered "problem animal," meaning that he was attacking stock and people, so he can't be released- I tried to explain this to the two baby rabbits who recently escaped their cage and took up residence in his enclosure, but perhaps Shona is their first language.

Crocodile restraining is fairly straightforward. First, get something around it's neck and pull ittight against any barrier. Next, coming from behind, sit on it and clamp it's mouth shut. Crocodiles can close their jaws with amazing force (and a horrifying sound) but in opening them again, they're much weaker. One the mouth is held, tie it shut (tightly, please), then tie the wrists behind its back and the ankles behind its tail.

Fascinating to watch. Next time, I wonder if they'll let me help sit on it at least. Point of interest- crocodiles have enthralling green eyes.

As for the monkey, Tarzan is a one-armed vervet, who continuously escapes the enclousre with the other monkeys. This might be all right, except that he's a biting risk, and has been known to raid the volunteer house. Our best strategy is to feed him a jam-and-tranquilizer sandwich, then wait for him to get drowsy enough to net. We managed this beautifully the other day... but I believe he stayed inside about 24 hours. He remains at large.

We have had one death since I came- Paddington the serval was found dead one morning, and the vet says it was a snakebite. So we make a point of making a lot of noise in the tall grass.

I am the only volunteer just now. A lot of the work is familiar- cleaning, some feeding, and fixing anything I notice that needs it. When I first arrived, I worked with a New Zealand vet nurse, but she's been gone a week now, and I rely on Alice and Strauss, the cats, for company. Oh well. At least Alice catches rats. There's some sort of humane society in town that might drop off a litter of kittens for care as well.

I realized the other day that I've passed the One Month Left milestone. It's scary, because I don't know where I'm going next. I wrote a list of all the things I'll require from my next location, the topmost being monetary gain. So that limits me to the States, if I want to be legal.

Oh, it's worth mentioning- the marmosets (which are south american, and were brought over here to be pets) have an obsession with climbing inside my work shirts. Maybe it's because they're so loose? It was already all I could manage to get them all off me before I leave the cage, now they've muliplied the problem, by being inside my clothing. Jen took some pictures, and perhaps she'll post them.

Right. My online time is limited, and I don't know when I'll be back. Hopefully soon. Missing everyone.