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Published: August 17th 2009
Waking up before sunrise to animal noises, working all day cleaning up poop and dodging the monkeys peeing on you from above, eating tasteless horrible food, covered in bug bites, mopping up toilet and rain water from the bedroom floor daily, and at night checking each other´s hair for lice while the girls seperated by paper thin walls in the room nextdoor have dance parties listening to horrible music... Ah, the life of being an ARCAS volunteer.
At 5:30 am every morning we get to awaken to the noisy squawks of rescued scarlet red macaws. Occasionally we hear the loud hooting, howling and grunting of the Howler monkeys that sound like lions. We wake up at 7.00 and begin feeding animals; we are usually assigned to one or two cages but this week many volunteers have left so i have four cages! Breakfast is at 8.00 and usually quite Guatemalan, black beans and tortillas are served every meal, sometimes we get boiled eggs or soggy cornflakes. At times we get pancakes and honey or these dry (but delicious by Central American standards) pastries and a boiled plantain. Most foods have no flavor aside from if it´s cooked in sauce, there
is no salt or pepper and we do get ketchup if it isn´t gone. Afterwards we work on projects for the centre, either buildling enclosures, cleaning the sheep poo, carrying fruit up a hill, or whatever they find for us. We feed and clean our animals again at 11:00 then do a bit of cleaning or reading if we run away quickly enough the boss doesn´t put us to work! Lunch is at 1.00 and we usually get chicken, rice, black beans and tortilla or we get sheep meat (which is very tough and we see them bring the carcass in during breakfast, enough to put most off from eating it), rice, beans, and tortilla. Sometimes we get pasta with too many veggies.
It´s back to work at 2.00 giving most animals food or leaves, then we are usually off unless there is work until dinner at 6. Most days it´s awful food. Plain boiled potatoes and carrots with flavourless black beans and tortilla, or cabbage and potato soup, but some days we get these incredible empanadas with potato inside, red sauce and cabagge. that is my favorite, although others complain it would be better with chicken and cheese
Spider Monkeys
Step is among the monkeys somewhere... just not sure which one is him... inside or soemthing else, but i would rather eat that that a plateful of plain boiled veggies! Then there are several stray, mangey, parasitic infested dogs that beg for food while you eat.
We do get to alternate cages, so that is good we don´t get too bored. I´ve been in with parrots in cages who peck at your hands when you change the food. Many of these birds can´t fly or with difficulty. Some are injured, a few been attacked by a wild margay, some need new flight feathers, a lot get picked on by cage mates. There are parrots in large fenced in enclosures but they are scarier and will fly at you and attack you constantly or make cleaning difficult.
I´ve done spider monkeys which feels like working with a bunch of hyper hairy children. They steal from you, they pee on you, they poop where you have just cleaned, they use your hair as a swinging vine. Then there is the howler monkeys, very calm and docile, never bother you and only really move when you are bringing food in. There is a paca i like, which is a large forest dwelling rodent. She
Monkeys
They love the leaves is very cute adn will always go potty in the same corner which makes cleaning much easier. I also been permanently assigned to a baby deer who gets bottle fed twice a day and gets grass and veggies to eat. I love when she approaches the fence when i am coming and her little fluffy tail wags so fast it looks like a large white rabbit on her backside.
They have several cats, 3 ocelots, 3 margays, one margay kitten. One ocelot and one margay are missing a front leg so can never be released. There is also a jaguar, crocodiles, turtles, many other birds (over hundreds of parrots, and about 50 scarlet macaws, which is a lot considering there are only 300 in teh wild). Many of these animals are rescued from illegal animal trafficking. A great deal can not be released because of injuries or hostility or dependence on humans. Several cages can only be done by the staff, not volunteers, becuase the animals are too dangerous and unpredictable. But many animals do get to be released, which is great.
I really do enjoy it here, the work isn´t glamourous, can be very hard dirty and
sweaty but i absolutely love it. But this is the kind of thing i want to do anyway. There are a few vets here to ask questions to and constant vet students and i get to practice Spanish talking to a few of the staff members. But after three weeks here, it´s about ready to call it good. I wouldn´t mind staying longer but there is a sea turtle hatchery/rescue project i would like to check out and so have to leave in 3 days. Exploring a bit more of Guatemala before going to the turtles, if we don´t get held up in a bus near Guatemala City!
^Út Í Óvissuna^
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Levi Fackler
non-member comment
Hello
I can not even begin to tell you how much I miss your dumb ass. I absolutely love reading your blog even though it does make me green with envy. I have no idea why envy is green, I would think of it to be more of a maroon than anything else. We really do need to keep in contact more often. I have almost completely quit using my my-space, but e-mail should work splendidly. Miss you a lot, talk to you later.