Phase 2: Working my a$$ off

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Sorry for the long delay and I'm sorry there are no pictures yet but we only get 2 hours off a night and it takes 30 minutes to get here and so on. On my day off I will post some and some cool video.

We took a government bus from Bangkok down to Central Thailand. It was supposed to be 3 hours but ended up being 5-6 hours. It was a relaxing ride seeing the country side and enjoying the sites until our stop! Here we were basically thrown off the bus, our luggage thrown on the side of the road. I grab my bag and am trying to manuever it over a bike without falling and someone is trying to grab it from my hand speaking to me in Thai. I realize he's from the center but still follow my bag just in case...Then our driver takes off without one of the girls (we were traveling 3 per cab) and takes us to 7-11 (oh yes there is a 7-11 about as much as there are Dunkin Donuts in NJ or Starbucks in NYC). I was starving so I got some seaweed flavored Lays potato chips. Not bad I must say.

We arrived at the center kind of late but there were 6-7 other volunteers to greet us 3 guys from New Zealand, a vet student from Aussie, and well can't remember the others. Its taking me a few days to be able to stay up past 8 but slowly I'm beginning to socialize. No romances but its interesting to here everyone talk about life in their respective countries and such.

We started work the very next day at 6:30 am but were woken up by gibbons-I cannot really describe the sound other than extremely irritating and I love primates. My first day consisted of preparing feed for the gibbons and macaques, feeding them, giving water, and such. Some of these animals are amazing but that will be my next blog.

Gibbons have extremely long arms and I got my wrist grabbed the first day but the lady showing me around had her hair pulled out. I basically did the same job for my first two days. The next two days ending today consisted of bear duty. Again preparing feed and cleaning the enclosures, scrubbing the pools, and I also got to clean up after the civets and bintoraun (a cross between a cat and a bear). The scariest thing about the bears is as you are climbing around in their enclosure, they are staring at you from the other side of a metal gate watching you as you smell like a papaya bc you just cut their breakfast or dinner up. The "trees" in their enclosures are huge and it takes me like 10 minutes to climb up and they get up there in 5 seconds. They are really cute but I'm resisting the urge to pet them for obvious reasons.

We have a day off before X-mas which is great and then back to work for a week. I can't believe its been almost a week I've been here time is flying but I'm working hard and loving it here. Happy Holidays to everyone and I will talk to you very soon.

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