Tess: Safe house again

After all the rains and much conversing with the owner of the house, we finally received some money from him to fix the broken wall. Unfortunately the chimps had to be inside while the work was going on, as one wall was broken next to the fence, so the fence had to be removed. Yongesa, Gari and Kanabiro didn’t cause much trouble during this period, but Etaito, and obviously Shege did! We prepared enrichments for them everyday whilst they were inside, but Shege got her extra enrichment very early in the morning. As soon as the door was open by the caregiver, she used all her strength to push past and climb into the trees. Thankfully she was a little wary of all the strange people in her territory, so only observed them intently from the trees. On another occasion, she kept me prisoner in the chimps room. Realising the way she could leave the room was to use the keys, she stole them and tried with much concentration to get the key in the lock. After several minutes, she completed her task, but thankfully didn’t have the coordination to turn the key in the lock! And after escaping another time, she did not try and attack any of the workers, or try and escape over the broken wall, or try and steal any food…. But she did nick the machete and run away up the tree with it! Fortunately it did not entertain her too much and she gave it up easily.
After a few days the workers finished one section of the wall and began to pack up their tools and leave. After a quick conversation, we found out they only knew about one section of the wall, and didn’t have enough money to fix the remaining part. Luckily the owner is very helpful and responds quickly to our needs, so within no time the workers were back with money to fix the wall. So all is safe in the property now!