June 8th, 2017

June 8th, 2017

Early rise once again, and yet another cold, cold morning. Between trying to get ourselves up and ready (which we ended up doing at 10 minutes before we had to get out of our tents) and trying to prepare ourselves for the day, we marched together towards the jeep now being full of people. 

Elephant Walk

Dressed warmer than certain winter mornings in Belarus (almost), we got to experience the thrill of peculiar animals such as elephants. Despite doing this before in our previous days, the thrill and excitement never went away even though everyone was feeling a little sleepy. Taking a few last pictures with the gentle giants and discussing the terrors of cleaning the elephants manure, there were so very many mixed feeling as to how this was going to go. Besides Anna, who proudly proclaimed that she is completely fine with cleaning those cages as she said, "somebody has to do it" and continued walking. Of course our experience with elephants didn't go all for the pleasure of our souls, but also the knowledge of our minds. The vast amount of muscles in the trunk (about 1400) and each and every hair on an elephant giving them the ability to feel the touch, truly makes these animals something gorgeous. Behind the ear being the smoothest place, the mother (Three) was one who was rescued from the wild and had a few ripples on her ear from going through plants and bushes. Their behaviors also being truly something else, with the way they show emotions through tears, smell humans and clean the leaves off of certain twigs they eat, these animals to us all seem more real than any zoo and more intelligent than as Paula said, "those ostriches! I swear, they are so stupid! I love them, but it's like a stick in a ball". We will miss these walks with these amazing giants.

Elephant House Clean Up

Continuing an amazing day, was followed up by cleaning up poop from the elephants, who were still walking with their guiding people. Both of us were absolutely unhappy with the whole idea of scooping up a big animal's poop, especially with the agonizing smell that burns your nose. Nevertheless, we weren't ones planning on ruining the trip, so we grabbed our brooms and shovels and swept away with Mr. Smalley occasionally doing some "professional" video shots of us cleaning this up. After each group finished cleaning up the floor, the small sewage and taking the poop away. Each of us cleaned each cage with water, all working as a team. I would be a liar if I said we hate each other and don't work well as a team. However, even though in the end the experience may not have been "that bad", it certainly paid off to look at the improvement and finally go to breakfast to smell the fresh air.

I love the food! Breakfast is good as always, and as cheerful as always. Enjoying the conversations we have between each other, it would seem that we all have some kind of bond between us that was made through Africa, activities and the food breaks. 

Animal Work

After that was yet another big activity, the animal work! The word "word" in the activity name is defiantly used wrongly, no work but pure happiness. First starting off with Oliver, the cheetah (ages 18) who's brother died, all of us went in to give him some attention, grabbing some very unnecessary (well for safety maybe) sticks. Olly was a truly magnificent animal, who's purring was just like any cats (size x 5). His fur as soft as a plushy toy, and attitude of an angel. It was sad to say goodbye to this big guy. 

Followed up by a leopard, who's name should be changed to "Fluffy", seeing as the guides seem to call it that the most. She showed us some crazy skills she has such as; catching food in her mouth, climbing up trees, doing poses and doing a funny face. While we weren't allowed to go in these with her due to being unpredictable, we still enjoyed watching her from the outside and listening to her story of how she was born too small to be let out in the wild. 

Next came the cubs that we played with once more, and played soccer with. Truly a funny bunch those are, with their clumsiness and cheeky attacks on each other. It was an awesome experience to go around with a piece of meat of a stick and help them grow their muscles by making them run around, besides the fact that it's hard to get their attention. And while playing soccer with them, the small lion cubs were strong enough to take some hits to the nose from the string kicks, those brave animals. Then we played some games in between to pass time, as well as a big human pyramid that should not be repeated EVER again. Finally, we got news that the tigers weren't coming, but the gorgeous though odd smelling lionesses were. Unfortunately, we were not able to be in the cage with them. Instead, we were watching them from our own cages. It was still amazing to see the power that those animals showed us by jumping long distance and stretching their body when they ran. Besides the naughty lioness who just wanted to rest in the sun, amazing nevertheless. 

Stream Clean Up

So lunch came, and we all got ready for what was going to be one of the most simple things turned into something else. Cleaning the stream! Everyone took saws, shovels and etc. And began cleaning away. That's was until somebody (KLAVA) threw some mud and began a mud fight, getting all our knees cut and bodies dirty with the tackling, throwing and other creative ways we found to get each other more dirty. But the getting back part wasn't as fun as we walked to our tents by foot in dirty, wet and cold clothes. Letting Bernie to first wash us down with cold water from a hose before we went in, which we did later absolutely shivering. Something to later laugh about anyways, despite the aftermath. We then cleaned up as fast as we could and headed on our way to the village. 

Village

There we experienced some unforgettable moments, none of us expected to get. Starting off with an amazing greeting of singing, juice and dancing we all already seemed pumped for this experience. First, quickly going around the shops to buy something, or at least others did we waited around for what was to come. And what came was first a lesson on the different tribes and how the came to be, with the entertaining guide who got us to say some authentic words some of which we had to click our tongue for. This was followed up by a video, in which everything that happened was visualised through the screen. After that we were taken around to see each village one by one, where their huts, leaders, language, traditions and jobs were all shown. One thing that they all had in common that you should remember is, "the more cows you have, the more wives you have. The more wives you have, the more problems you have". Whether that true or not about today's world, many would disagree with this aspect and outlook on life but it's a cool idea anyway. When going back inside, we were shown the music, dances and singing by the performers. There is no way in which anyone could put into words how truly breathtaking this performance was, even though half way through random people came in. The music was perfect and loud, the dances were unique and impressive and the signing was just beautiful! No one said a single word about it being in anyway not good, since it was perfect for us.

Last part of the trip came, the meal! The traditional food was served to us and it couldn't have been any better, both of us actually coming back to get seconds + desert. After that night, we all left felling some happiness inside us from how we bonded with our guides, with our teaches and with each other. Playing stupid but funny games such as, "broken telephone" everyone was laughing by the end of the night. That was the end of Thursday the 8th.