Goat Devil Update: Revenge!

In my previous blog you may recall me stating my intent to get revenge on the goat devil, well true to my word revenge was well and truly mine!!!! The goat devil's stay in the pen with Amos resulted in him missing his appointment with a bath full of dip. However, the dipping was re-scheduled and I was there in person to get some justice!

At first I thought the devil had used his demonic powers to escape the pen as I was unable to find him. However, the devil was found hiding like a coward under an old bakkie canopy they use for shelter - he obviusly knew what was in store for him.

I grabbed him from underneath the shelter and pulled him over to the bath of dip and turned him over onto his back where he was quickly hoisted into the air and plunged into the dip. I then thouroughly soaked him and enjoyed his screams of discomfort!

After his dipping he looked very sorry for himself and walked away sulking, knowing that he had at last met his match! Lets hope the dipping acted like a baptism and makes him turn his back on the dark side. If he doesn't then rest assured, I will be waiting to resume battle!

4507: The Goat Devil

The creature you see above is one of our milking goats and his ear tag identifies him as number 4507. Do not be fooled, this is no ordinary goat for when you look into 4507’s eyes you are staring into the eyes of a devil……..an evil goat devil!!!!

4507 and his cohorts have been housed in a small pen designed for holding leopards near one of our cheetah pens along with Amos, one of livestock guarding dogs, who had to be removed from the goat kraal whilst some of our females were in heat (we didn’t want him mating with them just yet). So seeing as the pen was close to a cheetah pen I was tasked with feeding Amos and the goats during my daily feeding routine. I was forewarned about 4507 by our safari guide James who had a disturbing encounter with the goat devil whilst placing the goats in the pen the previous day. During the drive to the pen 4507 attacked James and tried to bit him in a man’s most vulnerable place!

With this warning in my mind I went to feed the goats for the first time. The first thing I needed to do was close a guillotine separating the goats from Amos so he could eat his food in peace. It is important to note that at this point I am now in the side with the goats (in order to collect the feeding bowl and change their water). I then handed the bowl over to a volunteer through another guillotine so they could fill it up with goat food, and it was at this moment the goat devil made his move and head butted me in the backside before jumping straight at me and onto my back. I pushed the foul beast away but back he came, grunting and trying to butt me some more. The food was finally ready so I opened the guillotine and attempted to grab the bowl when you know who jumped on me again! This time his minions joined in and I ended up being surrounded by goats as I desperately tried to pull the feeding bowl through. I eventually had hold of the bowl but my next ordeal was trying to free myself and get to a position where I could spread out the food into their feeding trough. This I was eventually able to do with some excellent dodging and weaving – Regular readers of my blog will remember that I possess ninja like skills that enabled me to overcome the ferocity of a psycho baby warthog!

I knew I was in for the same treatment the next day because when I approached the pen the goat devil was already waiting for me, standing right at the gate staring at me with evil intent! I was head butted some more and jumped on numerous times. This was the way it went for the next few days but to my horror things took a much more sinister turn and left me with no doubt that 4507 was indeed a creature from the darkest depths.

As I entered the pen I was greeted by a bloody stringy mass hanging from the guillotine and at first had no idea where it came from, however a closer inspection of the pen uncovered a poor mongoose carcass and most disturbingly it’s intestines had been removed and tied up on the fence! There could only be one conclusion drawn….the goat devil had used his satanic powers and made an animal sacrifice in order to try and get to my soul!! Later on that day a Jackal carcass was found in a tree close by our eating area and a dead hartebeest was also discovered…..coincidence? I think not!!!!!



For the last few days I have been on my guard and stopped the goat devil from carrying out any more heartless attacks. The last day I had to feed him he was especially bad, jumping on my back and trying to bite my ear off, but I had the last say as I successfully wrestled him into the back of the car and took him back to the goat kraal from whence he came. As I walked away he gave me one last evil look, but little does he know that one day soon he needs to be dipped and when that day comes I will be there to personally carry out the procedure and then true revenge will be mine!!

Goodbye General

Last week we said goodbye to one of our long term staff members and fellow Boskopian, Lazarus, aka........The General. Reasons for this nick-name should be evident from the pictures above and below. Lazarus liked to think of himself as a man of great importance here at CCF and his pimp walk has gone down as part of Namibian legend. However, in the past some concerned people have stopped him to ask if their is something wrong with his leg.

Lazarus always had conservation in his heart which is why he came dressed as an African Hunter for our ‘Predator/Prey’ theme party. So as you can see the General likes to portray himself as a bit of a tough guy, but his courage went missing one day when a small harmless bush snake came to visit our kitchen at Boskop. Upon seeing it and letting out a little scream he ran as fast as I think he has ever done in his life and locked himself in his room. He then started shouting from beyond the door begging me to kill it, like I said, conservation is in his heart! :) Don’t worry I didn’t kill it but instead opened a window and let the snake wiggle away to freedom.

Unfortunately for me Lazarus took a bit of a shine to my sister when she came to visit me in April. He is now threatening to move to England and marry her, the fact my sister already has a boyfriend doesn’t seem to bother him and is determined to become a part of my family! Lazarus, if you are reading this THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Good luck with the new job General and just to make it absolutely clear....stay away from my sister!!!!!!!

The Four Scientists

Ok, so you may have noticed that I have devoted a lot of my blog space to Xena, the Greatest Cheetah in world. However, we do have many other cheetahs and althouh they are not as great as Xena they still deserve some attention. So I thought I would start introducing you to some of our other resident cats.

The cats you see in the pic above are collectively known as the Four Scientists - the menacing looking charactor to the right is Livingston, next to him is Fossie, the cat at his feet with the big white tip at the end of his tail is Darwin and finally we have Mendel at the back. Ok, so not all of those names belong to Scientists but the name has a good ring to it!

The Scientists live in a 5 hectare pen in Bellebenno which means they have to suffer being right next door to 17 beautifull female cheetahs that they can't get too! Also, much to their annoyance the boys are on a diet at the moment as they had to be housed in a smaller pen whilst Emma, Minja and Jacomina used their pen for their training (see previous blog). This meant we couldn't exercise them as much as they were used to - the result was four very chubby scientists! So for the last couple of weeks their food has been halved and they are being made to really earn their food by running the entire length of their pen. Their new regime is working and they are slowly regaining their figures.

The four boys get on famously for most of the time; the exceptions are when it comes down to food and women! Fossie unfortunately ended up with a swollen eye after coming to blows with his coalition mates whilst competing over the attention of Rosy and Misty who had just returned from NamibRand and were being kept in the holding pen directly opposite them. He looked pretty sorry for himself for a while but he soon made a full recovery and was back to scrapping for food at the next feed.

Mendel is definitely the boss closely followed by Livingston who is the one scientist who really likes to give his keepers a hard time by acting like a right punk, coming as close as he can and hissing and spitting in their faces. Darwin is the most relaxed and often just lies down and watches the others getting all worked up trying to prove how macho they are.

So, thats the Scientists......just another 47 cats to go!

Xena: the Greatest Cheetah in the World!

Those of you who are regular visitors to my blog will know that I have a particular soft spot for a very special cheetah named Xena!

Xena used to be housed along with 3 other females Jacomina, Emma and Minja as previously mentioned in a previous blog entitled ‘One hell of a crappy week’. In that blog you may recall me talking about our failed attempt to release these girls in the big Bellbenno pen with 13 other females. However, after several months of intense training Jacomina, Minja and Emma have learnt to come when called and chase after the feeding bakkie for their food (Xena had learnt all of this many months ago!). So myself and Kate thought it was time to make a second attempt at letting the girls into the big pen and we are very pleased to say that it has been a great success! Xena of course came for feeding on the very first day, but it took the other 3 girls a couple of days to settle in, but since then they have all started to come to feed regularly and even chase after the car. So we now have 17 cats in the Bellebenno pen and Xena and co now have 50 hectares of land to play in.

Seeing as we could leave the new girls in the pen this time we could now place their name signs at the entrance to the pen but to my horror I realised that Xena was the only cat without a sign! This just would not do, there was no way I was going to stand having every other cats name at the gate without Xena’s!!! So I took it upon myself to take one of our old signs and glue on laminated letters, with an extra note informing whoever enter the pen, be they tourist or staff that Xena is the greatest cheetah in the world!

Since the move Xena appears to have ditched Emma, Minja and Jacomina who have still remained a very tight coalition and are often found together in the same area. Xena is often found in the same area with Luna, and often joins up with the other regular girls when we are running them. Xena is a beautiful runner and is not intimidated by the other girls one bit and I am sure it wont be long before she establishes herself as the top cheetah in the Bellebenno pen!

Little Matt

So my mum has ordered me to update my blog as every time she checks it the first picture she sees is the upturned car that almost killed me so I thought I’d better obey orders. Little Matt is not a nick name for a certain part of my body but is the name we gave to one of our recent volunteers who has earned this great honour of having a whole blog dedicated to him!

Now you may notice that Lil Matt is actually taller than me but the name indicates a difference in status, I am after all a rather important person around here don’t you know (those of you chuckling at that comment can go suck on a particularly sour lemon covered in paper thorns!).

Not only does he have cool name (which means ‘A gift from God’ by the way) but this young American whipper snapper has been one of those rare volunteers that we really wish we could clone as he never complained and got stuck in with whatever we asked of him and worked like a machine. His enthusiasm for the wildlife we have here was infectious although I resisted copying his desire to run after every living creature and groping it. Lil Matt unfortunately had to be pulled out of several holes where terrified animals had run to seek refuge. Alas some poor creatures failed to escape and were made to pose for a picture.

Lil Matt became the first student at Magic Matt’s Driving School! Matt has a licence but wanted to learn how to drive a manual/stick, you see in America you can pass your test on an automatic and still legally drive a manual (yes I know, but we are talking about a country that elected a man dumber than a poorly trained gibbon as president…..twice). At the beginning Lil Matt was like a nervous toddler learning to ride a bike without stabilisers but under my expert tutorage (suck on that lemon again chucklers!) Lil Matt blossomed to a road competent manual driver…..just!!! :)

Lil Matt was also the co-creator of what will soon become a cultural phenomenon – a game that requires skill, courage and cunning and goes by the name of “You’ve been Billied!” I will not go into too much detail as this requires a blog all to itself! So be sure to keep checking in on the African Adventure!

Good luck with school Matt, we already miss you and hope our paths do cross again! Just please try and stay away from creatures that could kill you and be safe on those roads! :)

An Unforgettable Weekend

The weekend in question started on Saturday the18th of July which was the day of our annual fund raising gala in Windhoek. It was an event we had been looking forward to as it gave us a chance to spend some time away from CCF and dress up in cloths not covered in donkey blood. I went to a lot of effort to pick an outfit that would dazzle and amaze and I think in the end I looked pretty groovy with pin-stripe trousers, a smart white shirt, pink tie and a black vest. However, the element that really tied the outfit together was my super cool trilby hat, and although some people who have no sense of style took a dislike to it I believe the evidence speaks for itself, the hat rocked! Remember, my sense of style has been endorsed by a man who has met the Hoff!!!

It has to be said that everyone scrubbed up rather well, especially my fellow keeper Kate who looked fantastic, whaaaa whaaaa weeee wahhhh (I can say that as we are a couple if you hadn’t already worked that out!). The evening itself went well; the food was great a few drinks were had and a lot of smoozing was done. So the next morning started positively, myself and Kate had an AMAZING breakfast at the lodge we were staying at. As well as the normal breakfast stuff - eggs, bacon, sausages etc there was also chicken wings, meatballs and mushrooms in a cheesy sauce, everything on offer was mmmmm mmmmm! After brekkie we headed back to the posh hotel where the gala was held to finish cleaning up and we were soon packed up and ready to go. The car we were in, one of CCF’s Toyota Hilux’s was scheduled to be the first car back to CCF as we had no other errands to run, so we were eagerly joined by Ryan, Rob and Leigh. Kate was driving and normally I would have offered the front seat to Rob who has much longer legs than me but I had developed a headache and didn’t want to be crammed in the back, so I declined to offer – this act of uncharacteristic selfishness would actually turn out to be a good decision for Rob!

So we headed back towards Okahandja and were looking forward to getting back and having a relaxed Sunday afternoon. However, at just before 12pm something happened that I will remember for the rest of life and is the reason why I haven’t updated my blog in a long while. We were driving on the main road at 120kph and ahead of us we could see a car of to the side of the road moving slowly, as if he was picking up speed to pull out onto the road AFTER we had passed him. But no, as we approached him he violently pulled out into the road directly in front of us; Kate had no option but to swerve to avoid him, driving onto the other side of the road and it’s a good job she did because if we had hit him then I would not be talking to you right now. Kate then corrected the car but and at that speed it was inevitable that we would start to slide and slide we did. At this point many expletives could be heard from myself and my fellow passengers. The car slid completely around and we slid of the side of the road, for a split second I thought we would just slide to a halt however, the next thing I know there is a loud crash and I am upside down. The following seconds were the scariest of my life as the car continued to tumble for what seemed like an age. We actually tumbled 2 and a half times before a wire fence stopped us and brought us to a sudden halt upside down.

Immediately after the car stopped, hanging upside down by my seatbelt, I felt unbelievable relief that I was still breathing only to have it quickly wiped out by the concern for everyone else. At this point the car was filled with shouts of: ‘Are you ok?!’ and ‘I’m OK!”. Thankfully everyone responded and we then began evacuating ourselves from the car, which for myself and Kate meant crawling along the roof and into the back of the car as our windows had been significantly crushed. As we emerged we shared a few hugs and noticed that the canopy had come of the bakkie and had thrown all of our bags and stuff from the gala all over the place. By now several cars had stopped and we were being met by very worried people asking if we were ok. Two of them happened to be a Canadian couple who are paramedics who actually saw us go of the road and had rushed to us with first aid kits. They looked at us in stunned amazement that we had all survived with only bumps and minor cuts and scratches. Looking at the car we were also amazed, one thing’s for sure if we were not wearing our seatbelts we would have been done for so let that be a lesson to everyone, wear your seatbelt!!! The front of the car where I and Kate were sitting took the most beating and if Rob had been sitting where I had been he just may have come out of it a lot worse due to him being much taller.

The rest of our CCF convoy soon joined us and more hugs were shared, we then began the process of picking up all of our belongings and I soon found my bag and discovered that my camera and laptop had taken fatal hits, but I was strangely not bothered, probably due to the fact that I felt glad to be alive to realise they had been broken. However, my ipod survived intact! Those of your familiar with my fantastic music collection and my extensive playlists for any occasion will know what a blessing to the world that is :)

Soon an ambulance arrived. I had begun to notice that my head was really hurting and noticed a lump on the right side of my head (probably caused by bumping heads with Kate). My lump was not as bad as the humdinger Kate had though as she whacked it pretty good against the window as we started to roll. So Kate and I ended up in the back of the ambulance, my head pain was probably due to the headache I had before but I was sent just in case. We ended up at Okahandja hospital where we were reminded that we were in Africa and health care is not what we are used to! We were ‘assessed’ by a ‘doctor’ who was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and appeared not too pleased to be sent to see us. After hearing our story and taking our blood pressure we were handed……paracetamal! So after that expert assessment we were picked up and made our way back to Otjiwarongo where there was a much better Medi-Clinic that was covered by our medical insurance. There we were seen by a proper doctor, Kate was given a neck brace, Rob got his foot bandaged which was badly sprained and I at this point felt much better and was given the all clear. Needless to say we were all very glad to finally arrive home at Boskop where we were welcomed by very hungry dogs. The next day was spent recuperating at Boskop where the adrenaline rush I must have had after the crash had well and truly worn of and I woke up with aching limbs, a headache and the chills, which lasted all day. Rob’s foot was hurting a lot and Kate’s neck and shoulder was causing her pain. Ryan and Leigh meanwhile were suffering from similar ailments back at CCF and all of us shared the problem of repeating the incident in our heads over and over again. However, it’s been a couple of weeks since the accident and we are all on the up, I have actually caused myself more injury outside of a tumbling car. I pulled muscles in my shoulder and neck whilst simply turning over in bed and I then stabbed myself in the head with my Leatherman whilst fixing a fence. Whether the accident was partially to blame or it’s just because I’m a clumsy idiot I’ll leave it up to you to decide!

So in conclusion, the whole experience is one I hope never to have to go through again. However, it has put things in perspective and over the last two weeks the air has smelt sweeter, the African landscape has looked more beautiful and food has tasted that little bit better. Although I’m sure it won’t be too long before human nature takes over and I’ll think the world is coming to an end when its tuna for lunch and Liverpool loose their next match! But for now, it’s GREAT TO BE ALIVE!!!!!! :)