A day in the life

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Almost every day that I am volunteering will be structured the same except for my one day off a week....and I have some plans for those days! Every morning I'll wake up bright and early before the sun in order to walk the cubs, feed them, clean enclosures and do some raking. Then I get to eat breakfast followed by "project time"--bush walk, maintain enclosures, build toys, check for snares, road repairs, weeding etc, and then I get to eat lunch with all the other volunteers. Finally at 2 oclock we get quality time with the animals because the animals are hand reared and so they interact with humans everyday. I'm most excited about this part of the day and it'll probably be what gets me through project time. Seaview is known for its lions, siberian tigers, white siberian tigers and leopards, so I get to play with all of them! One funny thing is about me is that I'm allergic to cats, so we'll see how that goes....I'm going to bring lots and lots of zyrtec! and just hope that big cat dander is different from domesticated cat dander.... :/

Play time lasts for two and a half hours and then I get their food ready and walk the cubs, feed them clean their enclosures and clean the cub kitchen. After a long hard day, I get to go back to the volunteer kitchen and cook dinner! what joy :P I'm sure I'll get used to it. I'll probably live off spaghetti and other things that are easy to cook or whatever's cheap on our weekly trip to the market. I don't really know what'll be available but I'll find out in 18 days! Plus volunteers have to stay at least 2 weeks so there is bound to be overlap, this also means I'll have the opportunity to meet a ton of awesome people from all around the world. There will be about 20 volunteers at one time plus all the tourists that I'll meet as they visit the park so plenty of new people to meet and a bunch of new stories to hear. It'll be especially fun because the volunteers don't necessarily have to be my age, as long as they have the money, they can volunteer.

The park is also home to wild cats, meerkats, caracals, crocodiles, a bush pig, zebras, wildebeest, impala, blesbuck, nyala, duiker, bushbuck, jackals and giraffes! Giraffes are my favorite and because they are free roaming at the reserve, Seaview showed up on my search to volunteer with giraffes 😊

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