Family ties

So far I’ve been having an amazing time at home.  Mom and I’ve been to the mall quite a lot to do some Christmas shopping and some more last-minute Christmas shopping.  It’s been great to be back in civilization and it’s so nice to just quickly get in the car and drive down to Starbucks for a coffee or just pop around the corner for an oh-so-much-needed chocolate and not worry about having to drive almost three hours to the nearest big town. 

On Christmas Eve my whole family were invited to the neighbours for dinner.  Annie did a splendid job catering for 60 guests.  Half of the dishes I would rather not try to pronounce (I might just say something I’m not suppose to), but basically it was some sort of chinese noodles, prawn curry, mutton curry, beef stew, chicken wings, turkey, rice, chicken and beef satay, a weird-looking green leafy thing with a buttery sauce, and some freshly sliced fruit cubes.  It was delicious!!  We were all wondering whether or not we’re getting dessert, because the table with the dessert stuff had a big pot of what looked like sweet potato soup.  When we asked Annie about it, she said that is the dessert.  She told me the name of it, but once again I would rather not try to type it.  It looked like old dishwashing water with cubes of sweet potato in it, but smelled really sweet.  I didn’t try any….I don’t eat veggies as a main dish, so why would I want to eat it as a dessert??  Well, my dad said that it tasted really nice, so I will take his word for it.

On Christmas day, after church, we drove to the nearest monorail station, hopped on the train and went to Suria KLCC for lunch.  We had a lovely Christmas lunch at Chinoz at the Park.  My dad has an amazing sweet tooth and we decided to do some restaurant hopping.  We took a taxi to Pavillion mall and after scanning the area decided to go to the Chocolate Lounge for dessert.  Cute little restaurant that serves chocolate with everything on their menu!  We then hopped back on the train to where we left the car and drove to Sunway Pyramid to find a place where we can have some coffee. 

On monday we fly to Bali for a couple of days.  I will probably have lots to tell and lots of pictures to show when I get back. 

Ciao…

home for the holidays

After a 10 hour flight I finally arrived safely in Malaysia.  It was the greatest feeling in the world to see my mom, dad and (not so little) brother waiting for my at the arrival hall.  It’s been a year since I last saw them.  I have been counting down the days since August.  Hopefully my time here will not go by too fast.  I have so much that I want to do while I’m here.  One of the first things on my list was going to Starbucks for some proper coffee and I also managed to get the second thing on my list….cinnabons!! 

I’m going to try to keep you updated on my daily activities for the time I will be here.

Ciao

just my luck

I really don’t know why things like this always happens to me.  First I got eaten alive by sandflies last week at the Augrabies Falls, and now I get attacked by killer wasps.

It probably was my own fault but still, the crazy blood thirsty insects had no need to attack me like that.  Me being the explorer I am, saw a cave on a friend’s farm and thought I will just give a quick peek inside and see what hides in there.  I haven’t even given a proper peek when I saw these killer wasps flying straight at me.  It looked like in the movies.  I could see them putting there fighter helmets on and loading their guns as they flew toward me.  And then I just felt this terrible burning sensation on my arms and back.  I almost fell off the cliff as I tried to get away from them.

My friend just saw me jumping the fence and running toward the road holding and rubbing my arm.  He first thought it was super funny, but then he saw the damage they’ve done to me.  I’m now all better thanks to some TLC and proper meds. But a mental note to myself…..NEVER go explore caves again.

Just a quick check-in

The Kgalagadi Park was great, saw Lion, Leopard and Cheetah.  Had an amazing time with my friends and dreaded coming back to the reserve after such a great weekend.  Shortly after that we went to the Augrabies Falls.  What an amazing weekend.  Quite a long drive from the reserve, but all good fun.  Obviously once again my car was the FUN bus.  We went river rafting and didn’t flip our boat once.  Go team Swiss-SA!!  whoop whoop… my arms hurt for a couple of days after that, but it was all good fun.

Now I am looking forward to my holiday back home.  Can’t wait to see my parents, it’s been almost a year since I last saw them.  Nothing better than spending Christmas and New Year’s with the family.  Ooo, and also going to Bali for a short holiday.  Now I can just count the days until I get on the plane.

ciao…

Hi, I am still here…

I’ve been terrible at keeping my blog updated over the past couple of months.  Things at work are extremely busy and my Earthwatch season is coming to an end quite soon.  I currently have my last Earthwatch group and are looking forward to a good end to a great season.  There’s only been a few absolutely terrible moments with Earthwatch, but just because some of these people expect 5-star treatment and don’t realise that this is a research station.  I have also decided to extend my contract for another year, so I will be staying at the meerkat project until the beginning of 2011.

By letting all my friends and family know about my plans for next year, my boyfriend decided to end our relationship.  It was extremely hard for me to hear and I’m still struggling to except it.

Other than that has life on the farm been great.  I’ve made a lot of new friends, not only volunteers but also local farmers.  I’ve been on some great adventures, capturing springboks as well as more gemsbok captures.  Did quad biking and 4×4 driving on dunes, went on my first hunt ever (and didn’t like it at all), ran around in the rain with lightning striking all around us.  And then there’s some nice adventures awaiting in November.  I’m going to the Kgalagadi transfrontier park with some friends and will hopefully see some cheetah and leopard.  Our volunteer trip is also around the corner and are we going to the Augrabies park.

Hope to keep in contact more often…

Capturing Gemsbok

What a rush…

It was a spur of the moment thing when I decided to join a couple of farmers for a day of catching game.  We started quite early and first I just observed the craziness.  After the farmer caught two gemsbok I decided to join them in the pipecar.  Everything happens so fast, and the slightest mistake can end up in a serious disaster.  A guy on a motorbike drives ons animal in the herd away and then the pipecar drives up right next to it.  A guy on the back has a netgun and shoots it when we’re really close to it.  As soon as the gemsbok stands still, everybody jumps off and grabs it by the horns.  My job was to inject it with a drug that calms the animal and then make a small fire to heat up the rubber tubes we put over the horns.  And once again everything must happen as quickly as possible to prevent the animal from stressing too much.

I almost got gored by a horn.  We were chasing after a gemsbok and he decided to turn around and come straight at the car.  My side didn’t have a door, so I was completely exposed.  I ended up right on top of the driver’s lap.  Luckily nobody got hurt.  The day ended well and we managed to catch 10 animals and only went home with a couple of bruises and scratches.

What a fun day it turned out to be…

what i’ve been up to

It feels like ages since I’ve last blogged.  mmm, where to start??  We went on a volunteer trip a couple of weeks ago to the Kgalagadi Park.  It was a great break from work and everybody got the chance to relax and not think about work.  We saw loads of giraffes and even saw a cheetah mom with 4 cubs.  That must’ve been the highlight of my trip.  On the day we left the park we got held up by four male cheetahs walking in the road.  They spotted a springbok, but decided that they have too many spectators and just chilled out under a tree.

I’m almost halfway through my Earthwatch season.  After then next group which I’m picking up on Tuesday I will be halfway.  Then I plan on taking some time off to visit friends and family.

It’s been really cold here in the Kalahari, and we spend our mornings freezing next to the meerkat sleeping burrows until they finally decide it’s warm enough to get up.  Parties on the farm is still as crazy as always and it’s fun just chillin’ over the weekends.

Two weeks ago we rescued a two month old meerkat pup from a couple of kids who were walking with it on a rope next to the road.  Everybody at the project played babysitter for him and made it a group effort to find food for him.  We would dig huge holes to get scorpions, run after and pounce on tree skinks and collect termites for the poor hungry guy.  Was loads of fun having little Rob around and a sad moment when we left him at the rehab centre.  But he will have a long happy life there.

Other than that there’s not much happening in my life.

What I’ve been up to lately

It’s getting harder and harder to get internet access in the Kalahari. Our group of volunteers are growing rapidly. We are now 35 people on the farm, and only one computer with internet.

Easter weekend we had our annual Kalahari Olympics.  It was well fun!  We started the day off with 60m sprints and I was surprised when I realized I’m the fastest girl on the farm.  After running 3 legs of 60m sprints it was off to the volleyball court.  Loads of action happening there.  We then had a four legged race which was extremely interesting and fun to watch.  Next on the list of events was ultimate frisbee, a super fast game and very exhausting, but also well fun.  We then split up in four groups and had four different events at the same time, limbo, long jump, rope skipping and throwing lumber.  We ended the day with a water fight.

Group one out of ten Earthwatchers are now currently here.  I’ve really been tested these last couple of days, and almost packed my bags and left.  Some of them are returning for their second or third visit and keeps on comparing me to the previous Coordinator, as if they want to tell me that I’m doing my job wrong.  But when I look pass all the troubles they’ve been giving me, has it been a good two weeks.  I’m looking forward to taking them back to Upington on monday.  Then I have a quiet week until the following tuesday.

We had a camp out on the Big Dune last night for one of the volunteer’s birthday.  It was extremely cold and not even the fire could keep us warm.  I couldn’t stay up there and freeze so I eventually went back to my room and got into a nice warm bed.  Our winter is slowly on it’s way and the mornings are quite cool now.  This will be my first winter in two years, so I’m definitely not used to the cold anymore.

So as you can see I’m not up to much…

work work work

My first group of tourist arrived and are now luckily gone again. It was two weeks of really hard work, and in between I got a terrible virus that had me in bed for three days. It’s some bug that attacks all your organs and one by one they start shutting down and you feel like a living zombie. But all is good now. We also had some excitement with two snakes. First we had a cape cobra in a tree getting mobbed by cape glossy starlings and then we had a puff adder lurking at our bathrooms. Which I was instructed to eventually catch. It was a super terrifying experience. Loads of adrenaline pumping through my veins. We eventually had to kill it after struggling for 20 minutes to catch it. It just got too dangerous. Well, now everyone is gone, and still I’m not able to just chill out for a day or two. Work, work and some more work. I’m heading off to do a first aid course this week and hopefully I’ll be able to switch off from work for a few days. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you more on what’s happening in the kalahari soon!

Chased

I’m working on a nature reserve with various game roaming the area. We are well aware that they are wild animals. But they still don’t seem bothered when we walk around in the field, except for 8 bachelor wildebeests.

Earlier this week I was at the group Aztecs doing the normal stuff, walking with them and doing weights. I was busy with lunch weights when my meerkats all of a sudden decided to run off. I thought their might be a raptor in the area, but as soon as I looked up I looked right into a lone male wildebeest. He seemed quite agitated with my presence. He started swaying his head sideways and grunted at me. Seven other males joined him and they charged me. I just grabbed all of my things and ran like the wind. They chased me for about 300 meters before deciding to leave me alone. I had to run through three torn bushes to get away and only after catching my breath realized that I ran through thorny bushes and that my legs are bleeding. My radio didn’t work either, so I couldn’t call for help and had to walk back to the farmhouse. What a terrifying experience. I officially do not like the wildebeests on the farm anymore.

That surely was an eventful morning and one that I won’t forget for a very long time.