week 3 over

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OK Folks, it has finally happened! I have been attacked by a monkey! I must say it was quite exciting. Nadia, one of the volunteers, was attacked by the same monkey, but my attack was not as bad. She was bitten and scratched but I just had my hair pulled. This little monkey does not like females at all. This was Nadia´s last week, she is headed back home to South Africa. Kyle and I are a little upset but we got two new girls from Seattle. We are hanging in Quito with them this weekend and next we are off to Baños. We also got a few new animals this week. We got three wooly monkeys, a squirrel monkey, two turtles, and a parrot. A wooly monkey escaped and was found at a neighboring farm and the squirrel monkey escaped twice (once because of me). We cleaned out the caiman and turtle greenhouse this week and it was so fun in the beginning because I felt like Crocodile Dundee! Then it really sucked because it gets so hot in the greenhouse. The really exciting thing is that all 30 turtles and two caiman are going to be released in the Amazon next week! I now have a telephone buddy and a cleaning buddy, both scarlett macaws. They just love to hang out when I am on the phone or cleaning the cages. Antwon, a tamandura (ant-eater), loves to tip over his food bowl so we had to figure out a way to keep him from doing so. It is so complicated but with help from Leon (volunteer coordinator/head animal caretaker, New Zealand), Greg (volunteer, France), and Kyle we figured it out and now he is so happy! It took us so many tries and a couple days to figure it out. I have been in the kitchen just about everyday preparing the animal food and I can honestly say that I have almost gotten over my fear of touching dead chickens. Leon made me feed the lions and so I chucked them over with almost no problems. The lions are so funny to watch eat chickens because of all of the feathers that they get on their faces. It was a good laugh! We are trying to raise money for the three Andean Spectacled Bears that we have. They desperately need a new cage but we need $4000 to do so. If you could help out in any way it would be greatly appreciated! Andean Spectacled Bears are an endangered species and are very hard to track. They are going to be released in July hopefully but until then this new cage could help them a lot with their rehabilitation. Kyle and I miss the ocean, driving and Kraft Mac and Cheese but most of all we miss everyone! Lots of Love! Cheers!

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