Mother of three - two week special!

My roomie is away this fortnight so I have the privilege of being not only a zebra mummy, but surrogate mummy to the two lovely dogs who share our room; Lala and Jaci. 

"A dog wags its tail with its heart" - Martin Buxbaum


When my roomie was packing Lala took one look at the bags and jumped on my bed - animals can be so clever! Lala has finally stolen her way into my heart a little and gets some bed space and film watching privileges. She also chats away, making whiny and groany noises, quite often (and humorously) at just the right point in the conversation. She has also developed a bit of a jealous dislike of Benny as they have to share my attention, and barks at him whenever I am around (either that or she thinks he is a MASSIVE dog). It seems she does think a lot of me though as I have just returned from a carnivore feed to two presents - an oryx tail outside the office and an oryx testicle under my desk - I am just thankful it wasn't on my bed!

Jaci is also a really lovely dog, but generally sleeps outside. She is a real protectoress and looks after us barking at even the smallest things, and checking on us at regular intervals, a real little lioness (metaphorically for those of you wondering - you never know with this place). 

 "A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself"- Josh Billings

The two little pups Alfie and Noodle have grown already and everyone has fallen in love with them.

Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot little puppies." - Gene Hill 

Benny the baby zebra has gotten much stronger and healthier and his stomach finally seems on track, you may think this is unnecessary to mention here, but having had a bad tummy for most of his life its a real achievement and hopefully means he might be able to start going out with other animals!

He has taken to following me round quite a lot, one of the staff found him in my room sniffing at my things today, which is uber cute, but I think it is time he got some friends his own shape, or at least four legged, as he seems a little lonely.

"A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world." - Leo Buscaglia

Mr Benjamin has had a rather adventurous week,  we tested whether or not he could be in the larger chicken pen at night rather than his smaller stable, I left him out for a couple of hours as we went up to the lodge for dinner and returned to a zebra with a cut nose, it didn't seem to bother him at all, but still, we will be waiting a bit longer before trying that again. On Friday we rasped his hooves - as a mountain zebra walking on rocks etc would normally wear them down naturally, but here he doesn't get that exposure so we have to do it for him. It took four of us and resulted in a VERY grumpy zebra with only three rasped hooves. I had a lot of making up to do! That said, today he actually lay down and rolled on his belly in front of me to get a good scratch, this was followed up by a show of his strength which has finally started to kick in and he started to get a little aggressive with me, trying to push me around and boss me about, so we had our first tiff!

"A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."- Elbert Hubbard 

"A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down." - Arnold H. Glasow

[She thought from under the angry zebra]

Everyone seems to have an adopted animal at the moment, with the puppies, the baby baboon, the zebra and the mongoose it has become quite comical as we walk around the farm we seem to come in two's, which really made me chuckle as Benny and I walked past one of the wildlife guys and his puppy and one of the researchers and his mongoose.

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine." - Thomas Jefferson

There are so many unusual life moments and strange comedic times that sometimes you just have to laugh here. Most days start with a morning meeting that involves most of the staff, several children and several animals with a bubbling under current of chaos and chuckling at animal /child antics. 

"Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos." - Francis Ford Coppola

Some other particularly comedic moments of the week included the staff discussing picking up 300 Springbok heads from Gobabis to feed the carnivores over dinner, in front of a new volunteer who politely ignored us. And the discussion of feeding the carnivores turkey rolls, I couldn't help but crack a few Bernard Matthews jokes. Aside from the documentaries I think we would lend ourselves to a sitcom quite well!

"Boootiful" - Bernard Matthews


Just been on a great carnivore feed, my first since I got back, and got to throw half an oryx head (the top half, so I was lucky enough to have the ears to hang on to) over to one of our male lions. I will spare you a piccie here!

On a more serious note we have had lots of great coverage from articles on the National Geographic website to two contacts from journalists from LARGE publications, totally out of the blue today....watch this space! You should have seen me stood outside the office on the phone to the senior editor of such and such with 6 baboons coming at me and about to run into my room and trash the place!

Life is never perfect, but I am lucky enough to say that most days I am  here I am extraordinarily happy. Things don't always go to plan, there are frustrations and bad days happen, but generally life is good. 


"People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if you are fortunate. But happiness is a result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly" - Elizabeth Gilbert

Despite being on an African Wildlife Sanctuary and life being seemingly idyllic, life and death, good and bad, calm and crisis can find you anywhere. This week came a reminder (in the form of a good friends tragic news) that life is precious, to be respected, enjoyed and never feared. Some people touch your lives and your hearts and make a real difference to the make up of who you are, these people are rare and to be treasured and their loss can be unbearable.

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. "- Albert Schweitzer 

You have one life and one set of opportunities don't waste a moment of it.