Day Four: Maintainance

Today I had early morning duty with Mia, so we were up and working at 7:30 this morning. I actually really like this time of day, because it is still very cool outside and very quiet and peaceful. I am usually up by 7 on my own anyways, so I much rather would have something to do rather than sit around and twidle my thumbs. As I've been informed, the motto for the pace of life here is "rush to wait". Things get done when they get done, and the schudule tends to be more of a guidline than an actual rule (Pirates, anyone??). So sometimes there is a lot of waiting before we actually start on a task, and a lot of thumb twidling.
So today's task of the morning was maintainance. This basically involves giving all the water buckets a good scrub and giving all the cheetah huts/houses a good wash. We finished pretty quickly, at least quicker than when we had to do slaughter duty, so we were back at the house by around noonish. After lunch, I went down to the Vaal River with my camera (who still needs to be named), and got some pretty neat photos. There was a monitor lizard who caught a crab, and he was very proud to show it off to me. He let me get so close!

Of course, at 2 o'clock, we head off for cheetah time. Today we feed the cheetahs bones instead of meat, so it did not take as long as yesterday to prepare everything. This means lots of cheetah time. I sat with Jemimah for a very long time, and she fell asleep with her big spotted head on my lap. She also drooled, which is something I didn't really expect from a cheetah. I took every chance I could to draw and photograph the animals as well. By the time I leave this place, I am pretty sure that the cheetahs will be sick and tired of hearing the clicking sound that my camera makes. One of the volunteers here has a SD card reader, so hopefully I'll be able to upload some pictures here pretty soon (EDIT: I FIGURED OUT HOW TO UPLOAD PHOTOS NOW!!)...

After cheetah time, we fed the bones to the cheetahs. After having a cheetah fall asleep on your lap, it is easy to forget that these animals are wild predators. Watching them go after the bones was a sharp reminder of that fact. It was amazing to see all the same. After that, we came back here to the house and I went back down to the river with my camera. I took a picture of a big bird that Dane later informed me was the largest species of heron in South Africa...I guess I've had a pretty good lucky day with my camera (any name suggestions? I'm getting tired of writing "my camera).
Dinner calls, so I'm off!
Over and out,
Taylor