Sometimes when the day is already busy something else happens to make the day even longer. That has been nearly every day this week. After my nice relaxing Sunday I had to jump into work the next day. Monday morning I watched another Cheetah Run with the four boys. It was a really good run this time with both Smart Man and Blonde Man running a bit. However it didn't really help me for starting observations so I went feeding instead. Meg and I had a lot of fun feeding and we teamed up opening the gates. It's a little hard to watch the angry cheetahs around you as well as open and close the gates so it is easier when one person wards off cheetahs and the other does the gate. That afternoon I was supposed to go with James on a project, but he couldn't find me because I was talking with Matti about the Angola video project. I ended up having to go over all the waypoints again checking the pictures and using my guessing abilities to help find the data for the remaining waypoints. I finally finished that at the end of the day and then Matti said that he found some of Laurie's notes that I need to go over to make sure all the data already entered is consistent with her notes. It's the project that never ends!

Tuesday I was finally able to start observations on the four boys. It was going well until all of the cats decided to go out of view. I had to run to the tower nearby and unfortunately I only found Ron, one of the cheetahs I wasn't observing yet. I started him until he also disappeared so I had to run down the tower to where I saw him disappear and low and behold all of them were there! I'll have to redo the first two, but the others were good at least. I finished early so I finished my morning doing pen maintenance. I raked all the front yards by myself. I had Meg's I-pod and had a nice time just working by myself. It's nice when you are done and everything looks good afterwards. Later I went feeding with Kate. She went to town that morning so she had to do all the feeding in the afternoon. I was supposed to meet with Diana about my schedule though and I was late. Nevertheless Diana and I were able to talk for a while in her room before dinner. I told her how frustrated I was with the video project and she said she would talk to Matti so that I wouldn't have to do anything more with it. It's not fun to work on a project that stresses you out.

I was hoping I could do observations with the boys the next morning but they had been moved into Harry and Hermione's pen and weren't visible. So I was able to go with James to look for giraffes with Meg. It was a lot of fun and we saw a few giraffe and were finally able to identify two of them (Shiloh and Gabs). In the afternoon we helped James with the construction in the campsite. We had to collect large rocks for the fireplace and things. It wasn't really hard work, but it was fun to just be out in Bellebenno. That night we all decided to watch a movie at Boskop and decided on Taken. It was really good, but perhaps not the best movie right before you go to bed or travel by yourself.

Thursday I continued with observations. It went well with the four boys in the morning because I could go into the pen with Harry and Hermione. I may have to redo them because for about 15 minutes or so they watched Carolyn train the border collie Fin nearby. Nevertheless it went well and Harry was laying right next to the boys which made it difficult, but surprisingly she didn't mind that I was there. I think at this point she is so used to me from observations. I think Little C might also have a thing for Hermione because as she was moving around the pen Little C got up and just watched her. They are so cute. Later after I finished with them I took another volunteer with me to observe the five boys out by leopard pen. We had to be dropped off there with a ladder and luckily the boys stayed nearby. There was a lot going on with them. It seems that most of the boys are fine with Cruise around, but Obi-wan seems to not want him near their group. Omdillo kind of goes away from the group closer to Cruise but he still doesn't lay next to him or anything. I think Obi-wan might feel somewhat threatened that his group and social status will change with Cruise and so he is more aggressive towards him. Cruise just backs off, but he still tries to be as near to them as he can. Hopefully I will learn more in the future. Elfie was not excited that we had to wait nearly two hours before they picked us up. It's unusual that I could finish quickly, but I just got lucky. So we had nothing to do for a long time as we sat in the sun. I didn't mind it so much, but I'll remember to take a book next time. In the afternoon I went with James to do swing gate checks. It was neat because I learned a lot more about spoor tracking, but it took 2 hours and we had to drive way out there to pick up Jacqueline's car from the mechanic on the way back. We didn't get back to Boskop till late. Meg and I had the house all to ourselves because everyone went to town for dinner and there wasn't room for us. So we decided to have an awesome night anyway with movies, dancing, and more. We ended up staying up till midnight about an hour after everyon got home.

Friday I was going to do observations, but I had to cancel because they were doing work in the cheetah pens. In the end I just went with Kate to help with feeding. She took a half day that day so I had to do all the centre feeding by myself. I'm glad she trusts me to do it. In the afternoon I ended up helping James with the campsight out in Bellebenno. They were building a small storage area that they can lock things up and is animal proof. I spent most of my time making the fire pit circle. The guys couldn't make a perfect circle so they left it to me. On our way back we got a call that two of the dogs at Boskop had been bit by what they thought was a puff adder. We had to rush there so James could ID the snake so they could give the anti-venom. Kate had rushed our pregnant Penda and Tiger to the vet in the meantime. We got there and sure enough it was a puff adder. Because Penda was pregnant she couldn't get the needed medicine to stop the swelling and came home with a very puffy face. It turns out we think she was bitten two-three times because the swelling hasn't gone down yet. Tiger may have received a dry bite since she is perfectly fine. Penda still can't really eat and so this week she may have to go back in to get more anti-venom and if needs be she'll receive the medicine even if it kills the puppies.

Saturday morning we got up early and James, Gail, Meg, and I headed to Etosha. It's about a four hour drive and I read most of the way. The area looks very different from CCF. We saw 3 black rhino, a herd of elephants, loads of different bird species, impala, springbok, wildebeest, giraffe, oryx, kudu, and more. I knew we might not see lions or anything so I was just happy for seeing rhinos and things. It was a nice drive anyway. We stopped in the middle of the park to camp and had a briie with steak and corn on the cob. It was a really nice dinner. There was a rugby game going on tv, but we just missed it because of the time difference between here and South Africa. So we went to the water hole just in time to see a rhino and an elephant show up. It was way cool. Later on we went again when there was fewer people, but nothing came. James wasn't feeling well because of a pinched nerve and everyone else was tired so they went to bed. I decided to stay by myself a little while, but after 30 min of not seeing anything and getting scared by a mongoose I decided I'd just walk back. I should have stayed though because James heard Hyena later and is pretty sure they came to the water hole.

The next day James wasn't feeling well and just slept in while us girls made breakfast. I was cutting the wood into smaller pieces to use as kindling and accidentally cut part of my finger with the axe. It was a pretty bad cut so that half of my finger nail and part of the skin underneath was taken off of my index finger. It bled for a long time and I had to ask four-five people before I found someone with a band-aid. Later I tripped on James' tent and cut my foot as well. I'm just really talented! So for most of the driving around to other water holes I had to hold my finger up to hopefully make sure it stopped bleeding and James was sleeping. Apparently he has a pinched nerve that was causing him so much pain he couldn't sleep that night and after we gave him some pain killers he could sort of sleep in the car. We didn't see anything more than the previous day really. It was still neat to see the different water holes and places. When we finally left the park it was late in the afternoon and we just stopped somewhere along the way to get gas and dinner. It wasn't until about 8:30 that we got home and we were all exhausted. It was a fun weekend though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.