Today was our official first work day at AmaZOOnico, and it was jammed packed with lots of goodness.
One of us started the day by waking up at 4:30 with the local rooster (guess who that was?), and the other woke up at 6:00 with the sound of gentle rain (after it absolutely dumped rain overnight!) We got dressed in our best work clothes, donned our rubber boots, and made our way to the fruit drop for 7am. Every Monday and Thursday about 15 local women arrive by canoe and drop off fruit they've sold to feed the animals. And it was a lot of food! We, along with our volunteer crew of 12, then slugged big bags of papayas, oranges, lychee, bananas, plantain, yucca, and a few other Amazon fruits up the stairs to the bodega - the place where animal food is prepared. It's about 100 stairs from the boat to the bodega.
With this task behind us, we headed out with our “mentors” to clean out yesterday's food compost from various animals. Phillip, a young Danish guy, showed Gayle the ropes for several different bird homes, the tortoises and turtles, the tapirs, and the wild pigs. Mia, a young British gal, guided Paul to the spider monkeys, birds, kinkajous, birds and tayras.
By 9 am we were done feeding and it was time for breakfast. On the menu today was fried plantain, eggs, and an onion tomato salsa, along with coffee and oatmeal to make porridge. because someone forgot to add us to the cook's list. Unfortunately, since we were accidentally left off of the cook's list, Gayle and Phillip were left to eat porridge. Gayle hoped that spicing it up with the sweet onion salsa would be a smart move. Sadly, she was wrong.
At 9:30 Gayle headed off with Phillip to observe her first tour. One job we have as volunteers is to give tours to the public, which is SO MUCH FUN. Once we learn the animals' stories, we'll be able to help educate visitors about the rehabilitation of various animals, and how most of the animals in the tour were pets or trafficked and are now too humanized or damaged to be released.
Paul observed a couple of tours and at noon helped prepare animal food for the afternoon feeding, and at 1 pm it was time for lunch. Chicken and rice and a cabbage salad hit the spot.
Our afternoon duties start at 2 pm, and this is when we create 'enrichments' for the animals. These are usually food based games or challenges that keep the animals active. Hum, come to think of it, this is kind of like my Geography class! This was followed by some camp chores (cleaning bathrooms, emptying garbages sweeping floors etc). At about 3:15, we completed the afternoon feeding. By 4 pm it was free time, which translates to showers, reading, blogging.
Dinner, which is another volunteer job, was enjoyed at 8 pm. We played a couple games of Uno, and then got a message that some help was needed to help unload groceries for the camp and the lodge next door. Thinking it would take 15 minutes, we said "sure".
At 9:15, unbeknownst to us, a boat arrived. Apparently we were needed to go up river, load the groceries into the boat, and THEN offload them at the camp. (that is bring them up the 100 stairs!) Guess we lost that in translation.
After unloading everything from fish, to cement, to water, to dogfood, our day was done. We fell into bed at 10:52 pm. Whew, that was quite the first day!
A few things we learned on the first day - we are going to work hard; we are going to learn a lot; and we are going to be dirty, sweaty and wet (hot, humid and rainy is the normal weather); and finally, we are going to have a blast!