Adventure is out there.

So, here’s the deal. I am not completely neglecting you, I swear. Our internet just has been really, really temperamental lately. (It’s a good excuse, and it’s mostly true.)

I do write up my blogs still, I just don’t always get the chance to (or remember to) post them so you can actually read them. Today is…. Wednesday, at least I think it’s Wednesday. It was sandwich day at lunch, so it’s definitely Wednesday. Oh man, I am not even half way through the week. My next day off isn’t until Tuesday!

Why is it so crazy you might ask? Well we have been running on a small staff for a few months now and have been handling it very well, if you ask me. This week however, we are very, very, VERY short staffed. Our veterinarian, Emma, along with Bart and Ashley are all away Monday-Thursday to do immobilization training. Paige and Sam are at a workshop yesterday and all day today. Nadja is out Thursday to go pick up Laurie and Tess at the airport. Bruce is in Germany all week. Mike is out Thursday and Friday for a conference…. So that leaves Becky and I plus two interns to take care of 39 cheetahs, all the dogs,  the horses, do cheetah runs every single day, behind the scenes tours, normal daily husbandry and cleaning tasks, AND make sure all of the spring cleaning gets done. I ended up stealing the two genetics interns as well so that gave us a few extra bodies at least. It’s a super busy week, but we are surviving. It’s 18h00 and I am off of work for the day, so that’s not too terrible. Only a 11 hour day today. I can tell you this though, I am extremely proud of the other staff here. Everyone has stepped up and volunteered to help out in duties that they normally are never asked to do. Everyone has been working together and this week has been going way better than I could have imagined. Have I told you how much I love the people here?

Oh oh!! I finally got my care package from home!! Mom and dad sent it out at the end of September and I got it yesterday! It has tons of Performix protein powder, clothes I had asked for, a converter connector thingy so I can hook my laptop up to a second screen, and dryer sheets!! No, we don’t have any clothes dryers, but they just smell SO good and it reminds me of home. It’s the little things. ❤

For future reference if anyone out there wants to send me a care package (which I LOVE to receive. Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge). It takes about 6-10 weeks for them to arrive here. 😉

Where do I even begin with this past week? I’ll just quote Tamara – “amazeballs!”

Seriously though, this past week might have been the best week in my life! On our way back from Damaraland and straight out of the field, we stopped in Otjiwarongo at Spar (our grocery store) and guess who I happen to run into? Nick. Haha, so it wasn’t exactly a perchance meeting, he had been planning on visiting for almost two months now, but it was great to see him! He piled in our now very packed car and we headed back to CCF. A huge storm started rolling in – the first real storm since April here! It was dark and windy with lightning strikes all around. Just so powerful and magical.

I had the day off Friday and just got to decompress from our travels and relax for a bit, which was so nice. Then everyone went to a restaurant in town called the Stables to celebrate Bart’s 30^th birthday. It was literally an old horse stable that had been converted into a restaurant and the food was awesome (not to mention the seemingly endless supply of drinks), we all had such a great time that we continued to celebrate when we got back by having a little dance party on my porch which turned into wrestling on the concrete (I still have cuts and bruises all over). I beat Tarik, but Bart just sat on me. Not fair.

5h00 Saturday morning hit HARD! Every second month, 8 people (usually interns and volunteers) are sent out to one of our properties called Bellebeno to sit in a hide at a waterhole for 12 hours to conduct game counts. They record what species they see, the sex, age class, body condition, and if the animals use the waterhole or salt licks. We only have 4 interns currently (and one already left on Sunday) soooooo that means I had to go out too. Yay. Of course, I made Nick come suffer with me and he ended up sleeping for half of it. 😛

For 12 whole hours. All day. It was hot. No phone service either. TWELVE HOURS!

Okay, maybe I am complaining a little too much, it was actually really cool to watch such amazing animals all day and I even had my first caracal sighting!! I also saw this ancient, grizzly-looking bull giraffe. He was all scared up and missing half of one of his osicones. He was just awesome! AND I got some pretty good photos too. So, while it was a rough morning and a very long day, it was pretty interesting and at least I had good company (when he was awake).

Sunday through Wednesday I worked my normal hours, but it was so nice to have a visitor to hang out with during my lunch breaks, come out on my camera trapping work at the reserve, and to have come bother me as I gave the Centre Feeding talks. Plus there was something going on every evening whether it be a game of Tac with the gang, braaiing out, or even cooking a nice dinner in Tamara’s and my new potjie (think cast iron Dutch oven over the fire).

Monday night was Halloween so everyone dressed up for dinner and Hanlie put together an AWESOME Halloween-themed spread. I had NO idea what to dress as so while sitting in the office with Ashely at 4pm Halloween day I happen to look over at Bart at his computer desk and though “hmmmm… I could totally dress as him for Halloween, now that would be scary.” So yep. I went dressed as Bart – fake beard and everything. I even won best costume! Woot woot!

Everyone came over to our place before the festivities to get ready. Samara dressed as a tacky mummy with toilet paper falling off all over the place (my house looks like it got TPed). Tamara went as a witch. Mel and Tarik had awesome face paint done by Nick and went as sugar skulls typical Day of the Dead style costumes… I know there is a fancy phrase for it, but I cannot remember it right now. Maybe when our internet comes back, I’ll look it up online.

I took off work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Holy cow! Three whole days off in a row! And it was sooooo nice, we did absolutely NOTHING on Thursday other than relax and watch movies all night. I cannot even remember the last time I spent a day watching movies and doing nothing. It was very much necessary. That night Nick hosted his soon-to-be traditional CCF Pubquiz night. Everyone grouped into teams of 3 and we struggled to answer impossible questions such as “what is the smallest species of bird found in Africa?” Tarik, Mel, and my team somehow pulled off a win! (That’s 2 wins for me out of 2 pubquizes – I am on a roll) 😉

Saturday Sam, Mel, and Tarik were all also off so we drove out to the big field and enjoyed a nice picnic lunch atop of Carl’s Hide overlooking the reserve field. We got back just in time for torrential downpours. I thought we were going to need a boat to get to Tarik and Mel’s, but luckily the rains let up and everyone gathered together for a big braai cookout to celebrate Katrin’s birthday. Katrin laid mattresses all over her living room floor, we barrowed the projector, and had a big movie night watching V for Vendetta. Almost all of the CCF staff was in attendance – it was great!

Now back to real life and normal work again. Boo. But it truly was such a fantastic week!

So I have to be careful with details here because this could lead to criminal persecution, but last week I was doing Centre Feeding (I can’t remember if I described this to you, I think I have, but it’s where we do an educational talk and feed the main centre area’s 13 cheetahs) and a family of three came up to me after my talk and showed me pictures of a cheetah cub that they had come across during their recent travels and it was being illegally detained. We met with our wildlife trafficking specialist and education manager, Nadja (she’s new and a Namibia with LOTS and LOTS of contacts, experiences, and incredible stories) and decided that we needed to take immediate action.

The next day Tarik, Nadja, Sam, Vundi (Nadja’s dog), and I hit the road and drove about 4 hours west towards the coast. The landscape is unbelievably beautiful there. It’s a true desert with towering rock mountains and sand dunes. We hit red rock and red sand as the sun was setting and the entire landscape turned into a fiery painting that you would expect in a National Geographic magazine.

We met up with one of Nadja’s old friends who let us set up camp on his farmland to spend the night. I wish I could describe the stars there, but it’s not something you can photograph or describe – you just have to experience it. We set up camp, got a little fire going, and cooked some supper. Through the night our site was visited by a heard of Mountain Zebra and you could hear their hoofbeats and snorts as they passed by. We awoke to a beautiful sunrise over the rocky hills and then packed up and hit the road.

On our way to the site of the incident we stopped at many different communities and farms introducing CCF, our missions and goals, as well as contact information for any human-wildlife conflict issues that might arise. We learned so much about the area and problems that the locals have been facing. The whole trip was an incredible, but the highlight was that we got to see truly wild desert elephants! We saw a breeding herd with cows and young and even a huge, old bull who was much more interested in eating his acacia tree than us driving past.

We made great contacts and connections and the overall mission was a great success.

Since I can’t talk about the details of the cub situation, I will use this time as an opportunity to share CCF’s page about our efforts to end the illegal cheetah pet trade. https://www.facebook.com/CCFKeepCheetahsWild/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf

I love being a part of real, on the ground conservation.