Hi Letty!
How are you? It's getting soo hot here now I'm really jealous of the
English weather! Well, almost :)
I'm just emailing to let you know what an
amazing time I had at the zoo last month! It was without a doubt the best
experience I've ever had!! Amatar was great and let us work with the
animals we wanted to work with - I think in three weeks Wendy and I did
just about everything. The staff were friendly and the opportunities they
gave us were unbelievable!
I've been playing hands-on with Benga the
leopard cub, bottle fed honey to the sloth bears, taken Paris the monkey
for walks, washed the elephants, ridden the elephants, fed the lions and
tigers, helped to enrich some of the monkey cages, fed the sea-lions and
penguins and been up close to so many of the animals.
It's an experience that will definitely be
hard to match and I was really sad to leave. The highlight was the leopard
cub - we got to play with him just about every day and watch him grow.
I've got some great photos (including a picture of Roshan holding him and
looking terrified!!) but I've not got my CD with me so I'll email them to
you next time.
I would definitely recommend the zoo
placement for anyone who loves animals and doesn't mind getting their
hands dirty; there isn't much to do after lunch time unless you stay to
watch the animal shows or help with feeding but that's fine because a
month was still long enough to fit in everything I wanted to do and it
meant that we got to relax in the afternoons too! Perfect!
Roshan, Niranjela and all the boys at the
Ja Ela house are amazing too. Roshan and Niranjela have always been really
helpful and supportive and the boys in the house work so hard and do a
brilliant job. I really miss them now that I'm up in Kegalle (even though
Hirani and the boys here are great too!)
Anyway I'm off to clean the elephant smell
off my clothes : ) I'll email the photos soon and let you know how I get
on at the elephant orphanage
Best wishes
Jennie Elliott PS
Hi Letty!
I'm back at the internet cafe already so I thought I'd send the photos I
mentioned. There's one of Roshan with the leopard cub (looking a little
nervous!) and another one of when he (the cub!) fell asleep on my
shoulder. Soooo cute!!!
Do you think I could enter it into the
photo competition? [see
Photo Competition page for this photo - Travellers]
Thanks. Hope you like them, talk to you
soon
Jennie Elliott
Sophia Denham on her
placement at Colombo Zoo
Helenour Duke
I love working at
the zoo, and I’ve even managed to get up at 6.30 every day without fail even
despite a big night the nights before! I’ve got quite used to sleeping in
the van on the way, even with all the noise from the traffic!
The zoo is really
good we are always given something to do and its mainly interesting stuff (I
love washing the elephants in the mornings!) and the toque monkey Paris is
really cute, because we get to take him out on a chain and walk him round
the zoo which is so much fun.
What
experience do you feel you gained? Experience with animals that I
wouldn't have got elsewhere. I feel that I could probably get a job in the
zoo at home.
What was the best thing about your placement?My favourite
thing at the zoo was most definitely washing the elephants and I tried to do
that every morning.
Can you describe a typical day? (e.g Start time, morning duties, lunch
hours, afternoon duties, any other duties.... )Get there for
8.30 (leave at 7). I used to go down to wash the elephants till around 11,
or when we were doing baboon enrichment we'd go straight to the baboon
enclosure and start on that. After about 11 we used to go and eat lunch and
get a drink as got very hungry!
In the afternoons we really did what we could find. we would clean
enclosures or take out Paris the toque monkey (also very good) on his chain
(I really enjoyed that) and then set off home at any time between 3 and 5
depending on what we were doing.
Helenour Duke
A description of her days on her Zoo Placement in Sri
Lanka
We get up around 6am (which is always fun!)
and then set off for the zoo around 6:30 - 7ish, when we're ready. We get
to the zoo between about 7:45 and 8:30 depending on the traffic and the
time we set out.
When we get there, before we started our
project we would go to Nadu (assistant curator)'s office and get some work
from him. We could either request to work with specific animals or in the
aquarium or we just did what he had planned for us.
The work is generally feeding and cleaning
out the animals, power-hosing the animals' pools and such. We generally
ended up very muddy, dirty and sweaty because of the heat! but it's good
fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it.
While we are cleaning out the animals, we
do mostly herbivores and are generally in the enclosure with them and a
zoo keeper, the animals take an interest in what we're doing and come up
to say hello. Most of the time the zoo keeper ignores them so we tend to
give them a hug!
When we were cleaning out the giraffes the
other day they reached over the fence to give us kisses while we were
working! They do tend to dribble in your hair though!
Since we started our project we've been
working really hard to get it underway. When we get to the zoo we go straight down to the
supply area and get what we need for the day. This generally takes quite a
long time so a lot of patience is needed. they're very nice but the
language barrier is sometimes a bit of a problem. It took us 20 minutes to
explain cement to them the other day!
Then we go to the children's area and crack
on with building the enclosure.
Visitors tend to come and watch us working
wherever we are. Sometimes I think we're as much of an attraction as the
animals! It's hard work physically and if you want
to get a project underway you really have to push and you can't give up
but it's well worth it, and the director is lovely! I'm thoroughly enjoying it and one of the
high lights so far was being able to watch a giraffe giving birth! it was
an amazing experience and well worth sitting in the rain for 4 hours for.
Sounds like madness but it's a once in a life time opportunity that we
weren't going to miss!
We've started a project,
building a new enclosure for the rabbits and guinea pigs. we got the
posts concreted in today.. I just hope the concrete sets in the rain!
Sri Lanka is really
beautiful but a little hot at
times!
Clare Moore
on her placement at Colombo Zoo
The country is amazing ..the zoo is great and
I have fallen in love with giraffes....after our work I always go and say
hello, they love their necks scratched and you can stroke their faces and
under their chins - just amazing.
I helped wash the elephants on my first day
but slipped in their bath and fell as it was full of pooh, I think there
will be a few more falls as washing enclosures out is always slippery work.
The tuks tuks are great fun, everything is very cheap and the people here
are very friendly. Our driver Zudach is lovely, and took us home via a
different route yesterday to show us a beach, where we paddled in the sea
.......I'm just starting to get my bearings a bit now, and getting used the
warm nights .....
Thank you for your email and I'll be in touch
again soon. This is one experience and a half !!!!!
Clare Moore
Rhiannon Biss on her
placement at Colombo Zoo
May 2005 – an email from a Colombo Zoo
volunteer at the end of her 2 month placement
Hi Letty!! (a Project Coordinator for Sri Lanka). I thought I’d take
a bit of time to e-mail you my “typical day” and just about the experience
altogether at Colombo zoo and Sri Lanka
Typical Day: I’d usually get up around
6.30am (6.45 if I’m feeling lazy!) then go downstairs for breakfast etc and
wait for the bus to come, which was about 7.15. It was then about an hours
drive into Colombo, depending on traffic. So I’d recommend a book or some
music for the journey. Sometimes I would even have a little ‘disco nap’.
We’d get to the zoo in between 8.30am and 9am
and got to the curator’s office to see what jobs he had for us. He would
give us a job, which was cleaning out a particular animal, mostly the big
cats, the donkeys or sometimes washing the elephants. You can pre-arrange
with the curator if you’d like to clean a particular animal the day before
so we did this a couple of times.
It really depends on the size of the cage and how fast/slow you go as to
when you’d be finished. But at about 11am, most of the cages are cleaned and
there isn’t much else to do. You’d probably be quite sweaty by this point
anyway so it was always nice to sit in the restaurant with an ice-cold
Portello (be prepared to get addicted to these!!) or it was nice to just sit
and watch the elephants.
You can go around the zoo and ask keepers if
you can help them but as I said, it’s mostly done at this point. So, a lot
of the time, we would have a wonder around the zoo and try to come up with
enrichment ideas to spruce up some of the cages. Everyday also, we would try
to visit the monkeys in Pets Corner to play and give them some attention.
We’d eat our packed lunch at about 12.30pm and then head home or stay to
work on an enrichment project. Sometimes we’d get back to Ja-Ela about
1.30pm/2pm and have the rest of the day free (for swimming, sunbathing,
shopping, exploring, reading). You can however, arrange to stay at the zoo
late to see the shows or help with feeding for example. Often this is the
time you would work on a current enrichment program. I would say that if you
were really eager to do things, really go on at the keepers and the curator
and come up with as many ideas as possible to make your experience the best
ever.
My Experience: I’m so glad I decided
to do the zoo project in the end; I really enjoyed it and got to do so many
different things. At first I was quite worried about getting up so early but
it’s really not that bad as it’s quite cool at that time and for once,
you’re not sweating! We cleaned out the big cats quite often. It’s quite
surreal being so close to those huge jaguars with only a few bars to
separate you from them. We also washed the elephants and the donkeys and
cleaned out Pets Corner in the children’s area.
Some of the monkey’s cages in Pets Corner are
very small and have no entertainment for them so Kez and I decided to make
something for them. We went shopping in some markets in Colombo and bought
some washing lines for each monkey. We then bought things like hair
scrunches, bells, pegs and mirrors to hang onto the lines. They worked
really well and they all seemed very interested especially in the mirrors,
it’s quite funny watching them trying to figure out what’s going on!
Unfortunately, one of them, destructo-monkey Paris, bit through his washing
line so everything fell down and the mirror broke so the keepers took them
away from all the monkeys which is a shame. Hopefully in the future, someone
could re-add the mirrors to these cages in a safer manner, as the monkeys
loved them.
Also within Pets Corner, Kez and I set up a
“rabbit salon” for the day as their fur was so matted. It was really
difficult, as they haven’t been groomed in such a long time; the matted fur
was close to the skin that it made it difficult to cut. It took a really
long time but it was worth it as even though they looked a bit bald, they
were smooth to stroke again.
We also spent a number of days helping in the
aquarium. Mr. Perara is so dedicated to the animals there; you can really
see his is passionate about his job. One day, Kez and I were waiting in the
penguin’s cage for some fish to be brought along and the penguins were just
edging closer and closer to us wanting some food. We were worried they were
going to peck our feet it was so hilarious!
We did so many other things as well such as
play with the leopard cub Benga, feed the ostriches (who constantly look
angry!) and I even assisted in a post-mortem of a deer that died.
I really loved my time at the zoo and in Sri
Lanka in general. We visited some amazing, beautiful places such as
Sinharaja rainforest, got to go on safari and be a meter away from 3 wild
elephants, and climbing Adam’s Peak was such an achievement! I met some
amazing people that I will always keep in touch with. Roshan (the Travellers
Manager) has been quality and Niranjala (Travellers Assistant Manager) is
definitely one in a million with her crazy dancing! The houseboys are
amazing and so much fun on trips away at weekends.
I really will miss Sri Lanka.
Michael Coleman
on his placement at Colombo Zoo
Two or so months ago I returned from an
amazing trip to Sri Lanka, working at Colombo Zoo . I had a few e-mails from
yourself asking how things were going but for some strange reason I never
got round to e-mailing back. So I thought even though I've left it so long I
should finally give you a reply.
I had a fantastic time, probably the best
three months of my life - Roshan, Niranjala, The house, all the house boys
and our Drivers were brilliant . I couldn't believe how nice the house was,
it was a palace! Working at the Zoo was the best experience of my life, the
things we got to do surpassed what I originally thought our duties would be.
We got to get extremely close (sometimes too close, a penguin bit my thumb
but it was a great laugh) to elephants, camels, giraffes, sea lions,
orang-utans, a baby chimp and many many more. One thing that impressed me
was the variety of work we were allowed to take on, from taking samples of
droppings in the big cat cages and washing the big male lion at the end, to
actually holding a blow fish (the ones that blow up when threatened) and
feeding fish to other fish. The staff at the zoo were great too especially
the head curator, things got done faster when he was around. The Aquarium
staff especially were very enthusiastic.
I think of my time in the zoo almost everyday
which is why I remembered to send this message to you . I've made some great
friends and a few of us are going to hopefully return to travel around more
next year, Sri Lanka is a very beautiful place. I could go on for absolutely
ages but your probably very busy.
.
+44 01903 502595
