Tess: Easy Cleaning

A sliding door has been put between the big room of the big guys and Shege’s enclosure next door. A preferable alternative to the 7 chimps sleeping with the big guys and not being able to escape if necessary. Cherif and Gentil might not be too happy having their space invaded… But the sliding door has solved the problem. Shege is now in with Kalume, and the other 4 back with the babies. Yongesa has a go at Felista every other minute… I think they are establishing who is the alpha. Yongesa is turning into a little madam! Every time I walk past the cage, she cries for me to hug her. So I do. Then I have to leave and she screams at the top of her lungs, then chase the nearest chimpanzee and bites the leaving daylights out of it, causing the utmost havoc! I’m not sure she will have many alliances soon!Both the big boys seem to love the room next door, so cleaning it completed with ease nowadays. Getting them back into the big enclosure can be the problem now though!

Tess: Red Tails become Ten

There was a guy staying at the guesthouse from Bukavu, who revealed he had a monkey at his home and would like it to e brought to the sanctuary. True to his word, he brought an adult red tail. He was put in a cage, food was prepared, and when the food was taken to the cage…. It turned out he was smaller than he looked as the little monkey had escaped and headed off in the direction of the departing car! The sentinel worked quickly and grabbed him before he could run to far thankfully! Jimmy will be soon to join the other red tails once his quarantine period is over.

Tess: Les Tortues

After having two tortoises arrive, we also had an arrival of 2 terrapins to join the reptilian crew. And shortly after arrival of one of the tortoises, it was discovered he had a dead leg so Carmen swiftly amputated the rotting flesh… he still walks fine even with a bit of a limp!
I had an incident with big bad boy Cherif recently (for those of you who know him, Cherif is the double of Billy Styles in the animal kingdom!) I was being nicely groomed by the more gentler Gentil, and being away with the faeries was unaware as Cherif came charging up the enclosure, grabbed my head through the bars and smashed it against the metal! My own fault really! No permanent damage… well we’ll see next time I have to do something mentally taxing….

Brad Pitt give us some money will ya?

Two of the resident chimps have been having a terrible time of it at the moment. The seemingly malaria epidemic we are having has started effecting the other groups. Which is a major problem as administering medication 3 times a day for 7 days to the older chimps is a tad difficult. The workers go in with the group Pendeza is in, but catching her would be a nightmare 21 times. They learn after the first time so there would be no chance. And Shantale, in with the bigger guys is a complete no go as nobody ever goes in there.
So solitary confinement was the only option. Pendeza was fairly easy to anaesthetize and remove, but Shantale more tricky. Firstly she was hidden out of sight so we had no idea what condition she was in. Thankfully she was in the smaller room on her own, easier to remove- until two of her mates, Salamabila and Biega realised what was about to happen, dragged her through two enclosures and stood round guarding her. Clever buggers. Eventually she was anaesthetized and taken out, with minimal disturbances. Only Kytoko ended up in the group next door for a day or two, but then she was pining for her friends so she went back into her own group with ease.
So Brad, this is where we could do with a dollar or two. The two girls are in cages maybe 1m x 1m, 24 hours a day for 8 days. We simply do not have the facilities to house the sick animals away from the others to treat properly. It is heartbreaking to see them in the cages, but we have no choice if they are to get better. Halfway through and they are both still surviving. I’m sure they’ve been through worse, and they’ll be back with their buddies soon.
The cages are well wrong though. I think they’re from when the centre used to do research- they have a kind of false wall at the back with metal poles attached that come out at the front, I assume so the animal can be flattened against the front of the cage to administer whatever gruesome things they used to give them back in the day.
But soon once we have our millions we will have the proper facilities!!!

Torture Cages

Tess: Sweet Dreams

All but two of the needed hammocks are up now- Cherif can no longer steal all the hay from Gentil as they have a snugly fitting hammock each, and the 7 babies have 5 between them- all sleeping in the sky except Kanabiro and Muhungu. I think it is the princess’s wish to be up with the rest, but here adopted baby bro won’t let her go up and she’s just not strong enough to carry him all the way up there!

After the sliding door between the dormitory and feeding area of the bigger chimps broke, it was decided drastic action was needed. (The result being that the workers were unable to clean 3 enclosures. After a daring move on part of a couple of workers, the door was held to and fixed from the inside temporaily. The plan now is for the 7 chimps there to live with the two big chiefs for 4 days to fix their room properly. (The 7 chimps can go inside with the big guys during the day but feed and sleep in a different room.) They will all sleep and eat together for 4 days and 4 nights…. So far the sleeping is going ok, the extra hammocks are up and they’ve all been sleeping peacefully. The next stage is to see if the big guys will allow the others to eat in their territory….

Tess: Home sweet home…

19-04-07

We FINALLY have our house! Not tomorrow, not next week… we have it! We even have the keys! After all the deliberation for months, the tenant has finally moved out and we are able to begin our move. It turns out we got that house because the director of the CRSN has an ongoing tiff with the tenant (who workes for CRSN) so decided to move him to another house!
So the garden is gorgeous, with orange and papaye trees, some weird plant that has flowers like those paper Chinese laterns, perfect for sundowners are barbeques!
The living room is great, nice and spacious, open fireplace, wooden beams…. But as for the rest of the house…. Kinda smells like someone doesn’t know how to use a toilet properly…. Or maybe likes to get wasted and can’t find the toilet so urinates in every room in the house….. so the rest if it stinks like pee pee!!
But once it’s all fixed up it will be lovely. There’s a nice spot out back we can use for new arrivals and a quarantine area which is really useful. There are some major repairs to be done, but we won’t get the money for that for a while. But maybe we can move into it beforehand. It will be so nice to move out of the guesthouse into our own house!