I apologise for not having written in my blog until now. This is due to the fact that I now operate on South African Time; essentially, things get done very slowly or often not at all. Although some may argue that my behaviour at home often mirrors this phenomenon, the South Africans have truly made this a way of life. Since my arrival on Sunday, nothing has been on time - and in the sweltering, 35 degree heat, I'm beginning to see why. After several dubious connections, including being accused of fraud by a ticket inspector, I arrived at the VMF (Vervet Monkey Foundation, or "Foundation" for short) late on Monday afternoon. There are approximately 24 people here, about 18 of which are a mixture of long and short term volunteers. Most are English, with several Americans, and a dismal TWO Australians; myself and Michaela Rowley from Katherine, NT. And everyone here loves animals, so it's wonderful being in an environment were people actually care about my many irrelevant (but interesting) animal facts.
I am very pleased that there are so many people here. It's almost like a school camp - except that there is a great deal of drinking, smoking and listening to music too loudly. I thought it would be a more strenuous affair, working all day and collapsing exhausted as soon as night fell but it has actually turned out to be much more relaxed. You never work more than about six hours a day; from 8 until 2 or 3, for example, with an hour for lunch and half an hour between assignments, or from 10 until 7. Often, three or hour of those hours are spent with the 8 babies, which is an absolute pleasure. The babies - Cormac, Bundu, Toulouse, Berliose, Marie, Priya, Rieshka and JJ - who poo and wee with reckless abandon all over you, are the sweetest, most intelligent animals I have ever worked with. I have been taken aback by the level of intelligence Vervets possess. They have a complex hierarchy, and about 78 to 80 sounds, the meaning of all of which have been identified by humans. Eye contact is an absolute sin (its very aggressive) and as Arthur says "possession is ten tenths of the law". That is, if a Vervet has something, and you attempt to remove it from him, be it a stick or a paw paw, you will get bitten. And they bite hard. The one issue I have faced here is that they treat via homeopathy. Although I have always been very dubious about homeopathy, I decided to research it more thoroughly upon arrival and have drawn the conclusion that it is a crock of shit. It is very frustrating, because nobody here has a scientific background, and everything with the animals is very hocus-pocus. Some of the monkeys have TB, and instead of treating it traditionally, with a antibiotics or the like, they employed homeopathy and consequently the TB has spread like wildfire and many of the monkeys now require euthanasia which makes my blood boil.
Please, please drop me a line if you get the chance. Would love to hear what is happening Down Under but I must go now because I am absolutely starving and, as it's my morning off, I think I will go and settle down with a book and recover from the obscene amount of alcohol I drank last night. Sorry mum.
Lots and lots of love,
Hannah in Africa
ps. Please bear in mind that I wrote this at 6.30am. Apologies for incorrect spelling or grammar.
