One Hell of a Crappy Week!

So here is the story of quite possibly the worse week of my time here at CCF. The week started very badly when we had to euthanize on of our cheetahs, Gremlin. Sadly when Gremlin was darted for his annual work up, the dart caused a small fracture (a total fluke of an occurrence) which then grew into a more serious break of his femur. We took him to the vet and a plate was put in but after two weeks of not much improvement it was discovered that the break had got much much worse and that recovering from such a break would be extremely difficult and his quality of life would be very poor so sadly it was decided to put Gremlin to sleep, which upset us all but there was simply no other option. It was very sad to see his pen mate, Josie, all alone the next day and I will miss not being spat at by Gremlin every day when we feed, especially as he had a very distinctive spit with him poking his tongue out at me whenever he did it!

Loosing Gremlin was a big blow so I was looking forward to running our group of 4 boys who are always entertaining. It is important to note that for a cheetah run I am armed with a big spoon and a pouch of meat around my waist to give to the cats as a reward for catching the rag. The run started well with all four boys taking turns in running round the circuit and as per usual we stopped them for a break and to give the tourists the chance to get a bit closer. So I had our 1 year old brothers N’dunge and Shunga with me as well as our 2 year old ambassador cat littleC. Things were going fine but as I turned my head to answer a question from the single tourist seeing the run I felt something tug at my pouch and that something turned out to be littleC who then proceeded to put both his paws around my leg and begin pulling very hard scratching my hand and tearing my shorts in the process, I was able to quickly undo the clip on the pouch and free myself from his grip leaving littleC to enjoy his undeserved prize! My heart rate took a while to go back to normal and was left with the consolation that the tourist found the whole incident very exciting! I was obviously very lucky not to have come out of the incident in a worse state but it did mean I had to go the rest of the day flashing my boxer shorts to everyone, and it would have had to have been the day I was wearing my cheapest Marks & Spencer pair, not very sexy at all!!

The week couldn’t get any worse I thought, oh how wrong I was! My second dance with death occurred whilst we were trying to find 3 cats in the 64ha Bellebenno camp who had recently been put in there and had not shown up for feeding 2 days straight. I was in the back of the bakkie with a few other people calling for them and when we saw a cheetah down a road we had passed we called for Kate, my fellow keeper who was driving, to reverse back so I could see who it was. So she reverses back and stops, right says I, I’ll just quickly jump out and get a better look at the cat and see if its one of our missing girls. So I place my foot on the tail gate and prepare to push of and jump down, however at the exact moment I push of the tail gate the car disappears from beneath me and I find myself falling towards the floor head first……..it hurt. I was left with a bit of a headache and we failed to find the girls. Now when you bang your head like that you are not supposed to drink alcohol, which is good advice, however when you are having a party the very same day it SUCKS!!!!!!!! So I was unable to join in fully with the merriment of Rachael’s leaving party and spent most of the evening in my room nursing my head.

Rachael leaving also sucked, she has been an unbelievable friend to me the last few months, especially during my month of hell poop collecting, if it wasn’t for her wise words and support I think I would have gone insane! She also nursed me during my many ailments, including a cut toe, bad headaches, allergic reactions and the time I had bad wax build up and a mosquito in my ear, yes that’s right, I had a mosquito stuck in my ear.......deal with it! So I am going to miss her a lot :( And as luck would have it the day after she left I got injured again as I stepped on a thorn which went in so deep I couldn’t remove it with my fingers. I had to be brave and manage without Rachael and pulled it out myself with force with a pair of pliers……it hurt.

Every day since I fell on my head we have had to return to Bellebenno with as many people as possible and WALK the pen looking for these missing cats, we managed to find and lock up two of them but the third still evaded us! Walking in the African heat in grass up to your eyeballs every day is not much fun. I don’t think my feet have ever taken as much punishment!

But it doesn’t end there as this morning I woke up and found that Spots had found a way to open the door to my room and had removed various objects and lovingly distributed them all over Boskop. Whilst picking up my belongings I managed to catch my leg on a fallen spiky palm tree leave……it hurt and this time there was blood, a great way to start the morning! His haul included two pairs of flip flops, one of my boots, a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, socks, food wrappers from my bin, a comfy travel pillow, a mosquito repellent plug-in gizmo and worst of all, my case containing my ipod speakers and beloved ipod!!! Luckily Spots still has the bucket on his head and the only thing he was able to destroy was my travel pillow. The reason my door wasn’t locked is because I have lost my room key so I have had to resort to putting some wooden shelves across my door to make it Spots proof!

So there we have it, a week I will never forget! However, I can end with some good news as we managed to lock up the third cat today!! And tomorrow I am out of here and going on HOLIDAY!!!!!!!! Although the idea of going home to my boring little town of Andover for a holiday is very strange! I am really looking forward to seeing my family and friends again……. especially you Mum!!! So my next blog will be from merry old England, toodle pip!

Yes, even more interesting African wildlife!

That will teach you......or not!!!!

If a person falls asleep in the back of your car what would you do? Well, you'd draw on them in permanent marker of course!!! And thats exactly what I did when Cheri, our vet tech, decided to take a nap on the way back from cheetah feeding, the opportunity was just too good for me to ignore and the results were most ammusing. I was going to give her a moustache and beard but Rachael, our other vet tech, stopped me, saying that that would be too cruel.

So you can imagine my disbelief when the very next day Cheri decides to fall asleep in the back of the car AGAIN! Well this time there was no stopping me and I just had to give her a moustache and beard, I mean come on, she was asking for it!! As you can see the results were again, highly amusing, and if she does it a third time will I do it again? Of course I will!!!

Bucket Head

One of our boskop dogs, Spots has had a very tough time lately. For a while now spots has had a runny eye due to his eyelid facing backwards which caused irritation. Spots has also been due to have his manhood taken away. So seeing as we had plenty of vets around due to our annual work ups it was decided to take him to our clinic and have both procedures done at the same time.

But if that was bad enough we also had to take a sperm sample, so poor Spots had to suffer the ordeal of being manually ‘assisted’ by a Mexican vet in front of an audience. He was then put to sleep and the prospect of more little Spots running around was taken away forever. I sat with him while he regained consciousness and he looked a pitiful sight with a bloody eyelid and nether regions.

Too add insult to painful injury we have had to put a big cone around his neck so he doesn’t try and pull his sutures out and despite all he has gone through we just can’t help but laugh and have re-named him, for now, as Bucket Head!!

Sorry Spots, but we do love you......honest!!

An African Easter

Despite the fact we are all unbelievably busy at this time of year we still found time to celebrate Easter. We had an Easter basket hunt which I would have won if it was not for the childish actions of my fellow keeper Kate who thought it would be funny to hide my basket in a different place, the fact that I had hidden hers first is not important. I was robbed!

So I was determined to make a truly British Bull dog effort to win the easter decorating contest and as you can see my egg was head and shoulders above the competition and clearly the best decorated egg on the day, and maybe in all of history.


My egg was so good that my fellow competitors had an outbreak of insane jealousy and envy, so much so the competition aspect of the decorating was forgotten and I was denied a prize and award ceremony!! However, my egg speaks for itself and no one can deny me my glorious achievement!!

Thad

This is a blog entry I still can’t believe I have to write but sadly I have to pay tribute to a friend who is no longer with us. Thad Owens who was one of the students that came to CCF from the University of Florida died whilst swimming in the Kunene river in northern Namibia last week. This news has come as a big shock to all of us here at CCF and our thoughts are with his family and friends who must be going through an incredibly difficult time. I hope they can take comfort in the fact that Thad was one of a kind who made a huge impression on all of those he met, including me.

I remember meeting the Florida group for the first time at a cheetah run and I was a little bit nervous about talking about cheetahs in front of a big group of cocky young Americans but the first person I spoke to was Thad, a distinctive looking guy who was tall with red hair and a big beard. He introduced himself with a big smile and told me how excited he was to be in Namibia and he put me instantly at ease for the rest of the run. The students then came to Laura’s leaving party and we soon learnt that Thad was a larger than life character and a guy who definitely enjoyed a good party and the occasional drink or two!


When the students came in to CCF to help us out I was always glad to have the chance to hang out with Thad, his personality was infectious and your mood was guarantied to improve in his company. I will always remember being awoken from my sleep after another Boskop party by a rather merry Thad looming over me in the darkness as he just had to say goodnight to me before he left! As a testament to how much I liked him I wasn’t annoyed at all and just laughed :)

Although I didn’t know him for long I am very grateful we met, I have many fond memories and will always smile and laugh when I think of him.

An African Family Reunion

The Cleverley siblings were reunited two weeks ago when my lil sis, Kate, came to visit her beloved older brother. She wasn’t alone however as my cousin Ayesha also came to have some African fun. We started by spending 3 nights in Etosha where we saw Elephant, Rhino, Hyenas, Giraffe, Monitor Lizards and lots of Zebra and Springbok. Alas we were unable to find any lions. For me it was a much welcome break from collecting cheetah poo! However, upon our return to CCF there was sadly no escape from poo and Kate and Ayesha joined me on my daily feeding and poo collecting routine. Kate was also brave enough to do a bit of poo processing which basically involves putting poo in a tube and stirring it about a bit. Ayesha however, is a delicate lil flower and didn’t quite have the stomach for such a task and preferred to do some gardening instead.

Kate also learnt a valuable lesson on her first day at Boskop, do NOT let Spots anywhere near your shoes!!! Because, as she found out to her cost, he WILL destroy them! Both Kate and Ayesha proved a big hit with all 3 of our dogs, especially Timone who enjoyed being sandwiched between them on our sofa lapping up attention.

Unfortunately, they came out during our annual work ups where we examine all 47 cheetahs. Therefore I have been unbelievably busy collecting cats and bringing them to our clinic, which meant I wasn’t able to spend as much time with them as I would have liked. However, I did manage to take them to my favourite 3 restaurants in town and introduced to them the Kameldorn cheese burger, the best burger in the world!!! And most importantly I was able to introduce them to Xena the best cheetah in the world!

Despite the poor timing, Kate and Ayesha had a great time (or that’s what they told me anyway) and got to do lots of cool stuff like feeding cheetahs, habitat surveying, seeing the cheetahs run and being driven around by me in our luxurious bakkies!

I really enjoyed having them here, especially as they brought a lot of goodies from home with them including new music, dvds, polos and curlywurlys!!! Thanks sis!! I wish they could have stayed longer but it means we will have plenty to do when they come back out next year! And it wont be too long before I see them again as I’m heading home for a holiday on the 7th May. I can NOT wait to see family and friends and getting the chance to SLEEP!!!!!