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I'm going to have to sleep with the windows shut in the future. I was frightened to death by Rafhiki, the bunkhouse cat, jumping through the window onto my bed. I woke up with such a scardy shriek, the girls woke up to, finding me sitting up all confused staring at a black and white cat. Abi managed to grab him and get him out his room but he still returned for another quick visit in the night. Apparently a girl who stayed in our room when she was here used to leave him treats...cheers for that. The 3 of us didn't have much energy today thanks to the cat, he's in my bad books!
I finished of my AB training which is watching one elephant all day and writing down all their general behaviours, like eating, and their self directed behaviours. Human self directed behaviours can be tapping your fingernails on a surface or twisting your hair. With elephants, it mostly involves the trunk, whether they twist it or use it to touch their head or body. You can tell when the elephant is not happy as the frequency of the SDB's increases dramatically. Lisa managed to form the data for the circus elephants and when it was coming up to their turn to perform their SDB's per 30mins grew from 12 to 70 in an hour, not good!
The first shift on AB meant that I had to go to the training grounds where the guides take the opportunity when the tours aren't going on to train the elephants without distraction. This helps the elephants to become more accustomed to people and therefore, hopefully less stressed. There is a conflicting argument where that is not in the elephants best interest and they should be left to be elephants but unfortunately it helps with the tourist trade and money is needed to maintain the elephants welfare...catch 22. While they were training, Shungu got smacked on the head by one of the guides. It was not pleasant to watch at all. I was quite shocked by it. Dr Debbie went mental although her instructions seemed to fall on deaf ears. Unfortunately here, there are two types of guide constantly; Trained guides and apprentices. You can really tell the difference. Geoffrey, the head guide, is so gentle with them and gets their attention in a calm and collected way, not an aggressive and violent one. The apprentices are obviously still learning and most of them feel they have to dominate the animal to get their respect and attention. Not so at all.
There was also tourist drama around the park later. One of the guests had not listened to the guides' instructions and left her bucket till the end after swanning around taking photos. This meant that she had the only bucket at the end that was full. This creates problems with the elephants as they all rush to get the last pieces of fruit that could crush the smaller ones or even the guest. Hence the rule' feed fruit, pictures later'. She was told, apparently not in the most tactful way, to throw down her bucket as not to cause harm to herself or the elephants. She was not happy and I spotted that she wrote in the visitors book "Your guide is an a*******. He ruined a day that I was really looking forward to". She demanded to see the manager and the guide, however she didn't get any compensation or anything as she was told, probably numerous times, by the guides what to do and what not to do. All the guides were getting wound up as different guides were getting blamed every minute as the women couldn't remember the guides name. There was no harm done to the guides and the comment had to be partially tipexed out due to the 'swear' word.
Both David and Michelle left today. I'm really going to miss Michelle. She was such a laugh and her and Joan together were hilarious. There isn't anyone to replace the going volunteers yet but apparently in the next few weeks we are getting 4 new ones.
We had fajita night tonight, Abi, Charlotte and I. We all cooked it together to make our second meal to eat together. We made jelly as well but unfortunately it didn't set in time. While doing browse tonight, I managed to make friends with Tzayhi which hopefully means I'll be able to see more of the bigguns. We'll see soon.
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