Surfing in Kerala

Surfing in Kerala

The journey:

For those of you who know me well, you’ll know that I’m not a big fan of going anywhere by bus. However, over the past couple of years I’ve become a little better (especially when travelling in Asia as there’s often no better option) so when I was told that the bus ride to Kerala from Hassan would be 15 hours I wasn’t happy but I definitely understood that it was the best way to transport 30 girls to the beach. Initially Molly and I were told that we would be travelling by Jeep so we packed up the costumes for The Wiz into a bag and packed our clothes (including our washing!) into another as we thought we would have plenty of space for our luggage. We positioned ourselves in the Jeep with two of the smaller girls in the middle – we had lots of space and we were very comfortable. 40 minutes into the trip we stopped at the bus station and were asked to get out and get onto the overcrowded night bus to Kerala!!!

The night bus was no different to the night buses back in UK. It was filled with drunken men who thought it was fun to ‘accidentally’ touch my leg for hours on end. For me this wasn’t pleasant but it was just a part of life in India. However, when the men started to touch the girls things really started to get serious. Molly saw this first and swapped places with one of the girls so that she could try to stop it. Molly then woke me up as it was happening in multiple places on the bus so, in the end, both Molly and I spent the rest of the bus journey standing in the centre isle patrolling or moving seats to make our presence felt. The saddest part was that Sister Mary and the teacher, who had come as the designated chaperones (Molly and I were never asked to be chaperones but obviously couldn't turn off our maternal instincts!) knew that it was happening and did nothing to stop it. This is probably because it is accepted in India, however, in US and UK it’s illegal and those were the rules that Molly and I were working to.

Once we arrived in Cochin we were taken to one of the other orphanages that is linked to the Homes of Homes for some well needed breakfast (I hadn’t managed to eat dinner on the bus as my nails were too long to manage to eat the rice with my hands!!!). Molly and I borrowed the computer at the orphanage and emailed Paul to get some more money to charter a bus home to keep the girls safe.  We then piled onto the school bus and were told that we had another 3 hours of driving to the beach. I was so tired at this point that I put my headphones in and listened to some familiar music. The girls danced in the isle and were a lot happier on this bus. The journey actually turned out to be 5 hours and my top that started off white ended up grey with black speckles!!!

As soon as we saw the sea the girls’ jaws dropped – they’d never seen so much water before! All of the rivers near their boarding house are dry. They jumped off the bus and were excitedly met by Jack and Jeff from Indo Jax Surf School from Wilmington in US. We were taken to a brilliant hotel (it has a pool, A/C in the rooms and is pretty much heaven on earth compared to the 'if there's electricity then the fan will work' boarding house!) and given time to shower. This was the third best shower of my life (behind the showers after trekking in Nepal and climbing Kilimanjaro!)! And we actually have a working shower so I don’t have to shower with buckets for the next couple of days!

Surfing and the beach:

Indo Jax seem to work on all sorts of projects with autistic children, blind children and children with learning difficulties and I can see how rewarding it is for all involved. After the girls received their t-shirts, hats, nail polish and necklaces from the team they were taken down to breakfast. This was an interesting experience as none of the children had ever drunk from a mug before (they only have metal beakers at the boarding house) so they had no idea how to drink their tea. We have breakfast every day at a coffee shop run by a Cockney man who moved to India 10 years. The food is good and plentiful.

After breakfast the excited girls were led down to the beach, complete with inflatable shark, inflatable crocodile and life jackets. Some were scared to get into the water at first but most of them jumped straight in with smiles like the Cheshire Cat. The water was beautiful. Some of them needed to hold onto Auntie Jenny as we jumped over the big waves (I think at one point I had 8 girls clinging to me) and some of them were confident enough to stand on their own. None of the girls have ever learned to swim so it’s no wonder that they were a little apprehensive. A couple of the girls were taken off and taught to surf but most of the girls aren’t strong enough swimmers to learn. They are still having fun though, regardless! Johtikka, our Tinman, is fearless and managed to stand on her first attempt.

After lunch (more rice!) we went to an elephant sanctuary so that the girls could ride on the elephants. It was very sad to see the elephants as they looked really miserable. They had lost all of the traits that made them elephants (the children could go up to them as if they were trained pet dogs). Their eyes were very watery and their ears were very ragged. We had taken bananas to feed them (probably the most nutrition they’ve had in months) and I enjoyed showing the girls that they could feed them directly into their mouths, not just onto their trunks. Some of the girls tried it and the elephants seemed to be a little happier at this point.

We had dinner at The Juice Shack (that does amazing fresh juice – the Joint Relief juice being my favourite as I’m now 30 and old!) and then the girls went back to the hotel to watch TV as it’s a huge luxury to have a TV in their rooms.

Molly and I have also done some shopping and I bought some fabulous Asian trousers. I also got my nails taken off (I was shocked to see my real nails for the first time in 8 years!) and so far I haven’t bitten my nails which I’m massively proud of as it’s my worst habit! Let’s see how long I can last!

We have the first show today of The Wiz. The surfers are all really excited to see it and I have no doubt that the girls will be able to pull a good performance out of the bag. We’ve also met a nice lady called Kelsey from Australia who will bring some of her friends to watch too. Fingers crossed!

Rehearsals for The Wiz

Rehearsals

17^th April:

On the first day that we arrived in Hassan we discovered that, after surfing, we would only have 8 people left to do the musical (a musical that was chosen because it contains a lot of ensemble parts to allow us to include everyone!). The reason for this is that I have not come to work in an orphanage, as previously thought, but a boarding house. Most of the girls here are not orphans but they have been removed from their homes because of a financial reason (their parents couldn’t afford to keep them) or because one of their parents (usually their father) is a heavy drinker. Some of the parents can afford to give money to the nuns for board and schooling (around 3500 rupees per year). Other parents cannot so this is subsidised by the work that Paul does with Homes for Hope as well as a very small amount from the government. So most of the children will be going home to parents or relatives for the remainder of the summer.

So since we would be down to 8 after the surfing trip (and most of the girls don’t speak brilliant English) we decided that it would be best to do a condensed version of The Wiz.  I have written a script, we have cast our narrators who will read from the script so that they don’t have to memorise it and we have cast our lead characters who will mime out the actions described by the narrators. Most of the narrators are doing well with their English and we will continue to work with them over the coming days. We have also learned the singing to one song (He’s The Wiz) and some of the singing (the words “Can’t you feel a brand new day”) in Brand New Day. The dance to The Wiz is a little more involved than the Brand New Day dance. This is purely because of three factors – talking, talking and talking! Rehearsals are a mixture of excitement (when a tune clicks and everyone sounds great), pride (in myself and Molly as well as the children at what we are managing to achieve in a very short time period) and frustration. The frustration is mainly borne out of the fact that the children shout, talk and hit. And not just in breaks in between songs! They start talking to one another DURING the songs!!! So Brand New Day is a very easy dance purely because the children wouldn’t listen after being asked countless times over numerous rehearsals!

We have also learned the tornado dance which looks pretty good and we did our first full run through yesterday with most of the props and some of the costumes. Molly and I were busy a couple of evenings ago making 4 monkey masks (out of the leftover fur that Mum used to make the Lion costume). Molly has also made a scale version of the hot air balloon (from card, balloons and bamboo), she stuffed some green tights to act as the Wicked Witches’ legs that poke out from under Dorothy’s house when he lands in Oz and she made a medal for the Lion (when he gets his courage) and Toto the dog from balloons. We are hoping that we can create a backdrop on a single bedsheet, however, we may run out of time (plus, we’re not sure where we can hang it when we perform!).

18^th April update:

I walked out of rehearsal today to show the children that it is not ok to talk constantly during rehearsal and it is not acceptable to leave mid-way through a rehearsal or a dance (I appreciate the irony in walking out to prove that it’s not ok to walk out!). They were quite shocked when Molly explained that I had left because I was sad as I had come a long way to play with everyone and no-one was paying attention. After about 5 minutes I came back to a chorus of “sorry Auntie”. The nuns scolded the children and told them that they were lucky to have us here and that they needed to pay attention to direction. They explained that I wanted to work with them and that I was prepared to give them as much time as was necessary, however, I would only work hard if they worked hard too! The nuns want this to be a success as much as Molly and I do and, even if no-one else does, they appreciate the effort we are going to!

After this episode we had the full attention of all of the children for 30 minutes (30 minutes more than we’ve had the whole time that we’ve been here!) so we added in some more steps to the Brand New Day dance. This was 100% necessary as I was falling asleep watching it before!!! We also learned a few more lines to this song so that everyone can sing at least part of it. They are doing very well as it’s quite a fast song and they are singing in their second language. We will continue to work on this as we have some issues with singing and dancing at the same time (as is always the case!) but it’s definitely looking better.

After the morning rehearsal I spoke with Sister Mary and asked her if the children were enjoying the rehearsals as I was troubled by their attitudes. (At this point I should probably state that some children are very committed and dedicated to getting the most they can from this experience and they will ask me to help them and will study the songs on their own too). Even taking into account the fact that they are children, they are singing in a second language and they are dancing in a different way to what they are used to, Molly and I are shocked at the lack of discipline and respect for anyone/ everyone.  Sister explained that they are enjoying themselves and that this is normal behaviour for the children. Sister asked us for advise on how to get the children to be more disciplined and more respectful to adults as well as to each other. I appreciate that disciplining 90 children (the number of children at the boarding house when school is back!) must be a thankless task and the Sisters do incredibly well! Molly and I have already started to work with the children on saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and they are doing very well with this. We will work on the rest – the next challenge after we finish the show!

Update 20th:

We have painted everyone's faces today and given out all of the remaining costumes that I brought from UK. Everyone looked really good, especially the munchkins who looked very cute with their hippie facepaint.  Most of the children were happy with what they were given, however, there were a few who wanted more and one child even asked me if we would be giving them soap and painting their nails!!! I must confess that I was confused that children who literally have nothing (their parents can't afford to keep them!) could be acting almost a little spoilt. There definitely seems to be a "please sir, I'd like some more" attitude among some of the children that I struggle to understand. But this is only some of the children - the rest are very happy and appreciative when given treats. Maybe there is a good reason for this behaviour (and I have learned that some of the children have had bad times over the years) but this doesn't stop me from feeling shocked.

Nonetheless we continued with the rehearsal, did 2 run throughs (one good and one diabolical!) and then Molly and I took the afternoon off to explore the (tiny!) village.There is a little lake here so we went to sit down there to relax and regroup.We have done so much in the past week that it was nice to reflect with pride in our achievements.

It is not my intention to be negative in this blog, however, I felt that it was important to note that the attitudes of the children are vastly different to what I expected. To finish on a positive, I have recently found out that the children all pray for other people less fortunate than themselves when they pray and not for themselves. This is admirable!

My first week in India

My first few days in India – 11^th April

I was met from the plane in Bangalore by Molly, a lady who lives near Washington DC who will be working with me in Hassan. She has also quit her job and will be in India for somewhere between 3 and 6 months. She had been in the airport since 1am (my flight arrived about 8am) – she had waited so that the Salesian Sisters didn’t need to collect both of us at different times.

Just after 8.30am a nun appeared in white and helped us with our bags to a car that transported us back to the provincial house. We arrived to find some nuns on retreat (so they couldn’t talk for 6 days) and some kind hearted nuns who greeted us with chapattis and coconut sauce, fruit (lovely sweet bananas and green oranges) and tea. We were also given another snack and supper by these nuns before a well-deserved sleep.

The next day a car had been organised by one of the nuns to take us to Hassan. They had packed us a bag of goodies for the journey (chocolate cookies, peanut crunch, oranges) which was lovely of them as this will probably have come out of their own pocket. The journey in the air conditioned car was pleasant as most of the roads were (surprisingly) new and smooth and, once we found the orphanage, we were greeted by 40+ excited girls who treated us to a song (I noted that they could sing which boded well for the musical!) and helped us with our bags. Sister Mary gave us both a beautiful flower and welcomed us with a handshake and a hug. We were given coconut water (which was nice and refreshing)and shown to our room – a twin room with basic beds, mosquito nets, a desk and a balcony. All we need really! After a little while we came down to be pounced on by the girls. Each one wanted to ask questions, to hold my hand and to be close to me. They were fascinated by my camera and insisted that I take photos of them each in turn. My camera then disappeared and it only came back when the card was full and they were struggling to take more photos. I have since looked at the photos and the latter 20 have all been taken through a smudged lens – obviously someone has put grubby fingers all over it!

Sister Mary informed us that there are 42 girls here currently and 30 will join us on the surfing trip on 23rd. She also told us that most of these girls will go home after the surfing, leaving only 8. Our initial plan was to stage “The Wiz” to an audience over a one week period after 5 weeks of rehearsals with 30 girls. Now the plan has changed drastically. We have 9 days before surfing, in which time Sister Mary has asked us to teach the 42 girls as much as we can! We will learn some of the musical numbers and I will ask the girls to help to choreograph as well. I have most of the costumes already for the lead characters and, in downtime in between learning the songs, we will make masks and other costumes for the other characters. The plan (which will probably change about 20 times before we go surfing!) will be to perform the numbers we have, in costume, with a backdrop created on a sheet with the 42 girls the day before we go surfing. After we get back from surfing and the number of girls drops to 8 Molly and I will have to further plan during the surfing trip. I genuinely have no idea what we’re going to do – scary and fun in equal measure!

16^th April update:

We’ve been rehearsing for 4 days now. We have learned “He’s the Wiz” and we have learned the dance (which was choreographed during the night when my jetlag wouldn’t allow me to sleep!) and “Brand New Day” (also choreographed at 3am!). We have decided that, because we have very little time, we will do a condensed version of the story and we will have narrators who will read from a sheet of paper so that no-one needs to learn the script as it’s in their second language. We handed out the costumes yesterday to the lead characters and they were over the moon! They were very excited to put the costumes on and they all looked brilliant. It brought a lump to my throat. The lion that Mum made is a particular favourite of mine along with the Tinman costume that I borrowed from Upstage Centre. Molly and I made monkey masks yesterday for 4 flying monkeys – Molly is great at crafts and I am enjoying being creative again (even if my job yesterday only consisted of cutting out the card and fur that Molly had outlined!). Molly will work with the children over the coming days to create a backdrop (some of them are quite good at drawing) and a scaled down version of a hot air balloon and I will choreograph the tornado dance. Mary is playing Dorothy and she is working super hard. She is trying to learn the finale song and she has spent hours so far with the CD trying to memorise the words and the tune! She will be wonderful. Swetha, our little Wicked Witch, has no inhibitions so she is running up to everyone and scaring them – she’s brilliant and takes direction very well.

Aside from doing the show, the girls take a lot of naps, spend quite a lot of time praying and play with the ball (throwing and catching) for hours. Their favourite phrase currently is “Please put up, Auntie” when they’d like me to throw the ball high for them. They’re getting very good at catching it from height and getting better at saying please (they learned quickly when they realised I wouldn’t do it when I was ordered to!!!)

Molly and I were taken around the very small village where the boarding house is today by Kavitha and Jennifer. They both speak English very well so it was a pleasure to spend some time with them. We saw the schools (one for years 1-7 and one for years 8 to 10), the church and the river (or where the river should have been as it is dry season so it is just soil). The female locals were very interested in us – one lady asked us our names and volunteered her own and one lady invited us to sit on her porch to chat to her via our young translators. We made sure that we didn’t make eye contact with the men as this is seen as a sexual advance (!) and we waved at the boys who were waving and fishing in the mud. Once again they wanted us to take their photo.

We have 4 more days before we perform (and 5 more days before the 15 hour bus ride to surfing!!). Hopefully we can pull off something special! At the very least we’ve all tried hard and had a good time rehearsing!

Goodbye Wildtracks and Belize - you'll be greatly missed!

I am writing this from a coffee house in Hampstead, London after flying back in from Belize. I can’t believe how fast the past month has gone – I’ve had such a wonderful experience!

I’m happy to report that, when I left, all of the babies were doing well. Sam has grown so much in the past couple of weeks that, whenever it’s milk time, he can stretch from any of the cages and get his head in the pot of milk wherever I am standing in the room. We usually both get very messy but he looks so cute that I can’t be angry at him for long! 

Polly has also had a growth spurt and her afro looked fluffier than ever! She has been very clingy in the past couple of weeks and grumbled a lot when I tried to put her back into the play sessions. But when she would look up at me from her clinging position on my tummy and reach up to grab my nose or lips she would melt my heart and I would want to cuddle her forever! She really has got a beautiful face and I will miss her terribly!

Peanut (AKA Mr. Peanut or ‘The Nut’) has also gained in confidence over the past couple of weeks. He still complains about almost everything (and is especially noisy at milk time!) but he has become very cheeky and has learned how to play bite really well. He is a particular fan of biting ankles, underarms and wrists – all of the painful bits of the body – and when he’s offered a finger to chew on he will reject it in favour of the wrist every time! He climbed up and gave me a cuddle on my last day which was lovely as he was never much of a cuddler. I think he could sense that I was leaving! Mr. Peanut, I shall miss your grumpy face even when you're happy. You made me very happy over the past month!

Pebbles doesn’t seem to have grown at all in the past month and is still the smallest of the group. She is still a huge fan of sitting on my shoulder but, as with Polly, she would rather be off playing if I am sitting down – I think they feel too vulnerable to attack from Elliot (as do I!) when I’m sitting down. Pebbles is the only one who purrs when it’s milk time and she’s become quite an expert at lulling me into a false sense of security and pouncing when I accidentally get the pot of milk too close to the shoulder that she’s sitting on when I’m trying to move it out of reach of the others! Needless to say, I get monkey hand prints of milk on my shoulder at pretty much every feed! Pebbles has got more confident in her jumping and spatting skills and, although she won’t play with Elliot yet, she will play in the room when he is out. 

Elliot still wins the award for giving me the most war wounds over the past month! The scar on my face should hopefully fade to nothing although if it doesn't it's a great story to tell down the pub! He seemed to be getting frustrated when he was kept in the cage and the others were out playing so, after lots of supervised sessions, we became confident enough to leave Elliot and the 4 other babies out to play unsupervised. It seemed to be going well when I left and Elliot was a little calmer, however, was still prone to little bursts of frustration at times which he liked to take out on the humans! 

Izzie was so happy when Molly came back to look after her - it was lovely to see the reunion. Molly was a volunteer who was at Wildtracks at the end of last year and who saw Izzie through all of the surgeries to remove the pellets from her shattered arm. I am proud to report that I became quite proficient at getting Izzie back into her cage at night (her least favourite time of the day). Where the Howler Monkeys are pretty easy to pick up and will rarely bite hard enough to break the skin, Izzie has two very sharp teeth at the front and can puncture the skin very easily, as I experienced during my first meeting with her. However, I have perfected 'the tail swing' quite nicely now which, so long as it's done properly, doesn't cause her harm and keeps her teeth well away from my hands! She is still suffering with anxiety when she's left alone but her hand is going from strength to strength and she's using it really well when swinging.

Leoma and I have left the babies in the capable hands of Molly and Jamie, both of whom will be amazing with them. I look forward to getting the updates!

Although I was not caring for Bean, the 2 week old monkey that came in at the same time as Sinbad, I saw her a lot as Emma fed her upstairs in the nursery. Emma and Paul worked shifts to get her through some really tough times and I'm really happy to write that she is doing wonderfully well. She had grown a little by the time I left and she was growing into her face a little (she was less wrinkly as Paul and Emma had managed to get her to a point of being less dehydrated). Hopefully she will be OK now and can join the other baby Howlers once she's done her month in quarantine and grown a little.

In other news, Twiggy was successfully released and seems to have found other manatees to hang out with. I know that Zoe and Paul were a little nervous when she finally left (after a couple of attempted releases) but she seems to be doing well.

Duke gained 9 lbs this week after losing weight last week. He was very playful when I was in the pool with him on my penultimate day and had great fun swimming with 'Uncle John' when we partially drained the pool to tube feed him. He was following him around the pool. Hopefully Duke will continue to put on weight and can be released in the same way as Twiggy in the future.

Aside from Wildtracks, Jamie and I took a day-trip to Lamanai to see some wonderful Mayan temples and Leoma and I did an adventure tour of a Mayan cave network. This was incredibly interesting as we saw lots of well preserved Mayan pots along with the skulls of some of the people who were sacrificed as offerings to the Gods. After we did the cave tour at San Ignacio we went to Caye Caulker and snorkeled with stingrays and sharks along with countless beautiful fish and some stunning coral off the barrier reef. What a phenomenal way to finish a wonderful month! 

Belize has certainly won my heart and I was really upset to leave. The people are so friendly, the pace is relaxed and easy and the food (beans, fry jacks, tacos etc) is delicious. If you've never been to Belize I would suggest you do it soon - you won't regret it!

A brief news update

Wildtracks news:

• Duke was weighed on Sunday and is now 190lbs - well done, Duke and the team!
• We have tried to release Twiggy 3 times now but each time she has returned back to Wildtracks. Guess the thought of the evening banana milkshake is just too strong!
• The 4 baby Howler Monkeys, Elliot and Izzie, the baby Spider Monkey, went on a little outing yesterday. We took them to one of the cages (near the very curious Coati named Snuffles) and let them run loose for half an hour. They had a great time sunbathing and it was a huge success. Hopefully we will have time to make this a regular occurrence.
• Yesterday Sinbad, a male Howler Monkey, arrived at Wildtracks. I'm sad to report that he's not in a good condition - his eye is severely damaged, he's seizing and foaming at the mouth and has pneumonia. Paul is looking after him so hopefully he will pull through. We are still waiting for the story to be confirmed as to how he came to be in this condition but it's probable that humans are to blame - shocking if it's true!
• In slightly better news, we also had another new arrival yesterday - a 2-4 week old baby Howler Monkey. She is very tiny but is well and it looks like she has fallen off her mother. She will be raised by Emma.
• Currently the majority of the baby monkeys live in Paul and Zoe's bedroom as there is no space for them anywhere else. Wildtracks has managed to secure a grant for £10,000 (just over half of the amount needed) to build a monkey nursery which is fantastic news! The plans sound amazing (double doors will be included which will mean Izzie will escape less often!) and it will allow Zoe and Paul to get their personal space back. I'm sure this is very important to them since the rest of their home is taken over by volunteers the whole year round!

I can't believe that I will be leaving on 17th. I'm having such a great time but I'm looking forward to exploring Belize before heading home for the wedding of the year!

The baby Howlers

I have now spent a week with the baby monkeys and it’s lovely to see the progress that they’ve made in such a short space of time. Elliot, the biggest baby, still has a tendency to be a little rough when he’s playing but Peanut and Sam seem to be handling it pretty well. Peanut is still almost constantly complaining, however, he doesn’t seem too upset as he keeps moving towards Elliot instead of away from him. Sam has been provoking Elliot the past couple of days which shows that he’s gaining confidence and can hold his own in a play wrestle as he’s a little bigger than the other three, although there’s still a gulf between him and Elliot. Polly seems to have lots of energy and confidence at the start of the play session, and is certainly the fastest climber out of the three small babies, but once she gets tired she clings to my hip and won’t let go until it’s dinner time. She is very good at shouting at Elliot and gave him a good telling off yesterday to the point that Zoe could hear her in the office next door! Pebbles is the smallest baby and she is very low on confidence when Elliot is out. She will happily play with the other three when Elliot is in his cage, however, she will either sit on my shoulder with her tail wrapped round my neck or play within jumping distance of me if she’s feeling brave. Yesterday she was curled up relaxing on my knee when Elliot stealthily approached her and started to groom her. She was enjoying it (she did have about half a papaya stuck in her fur!) until she realised that it was Elliot. She jumped up, let out a deafening scream and hopped up onto my shoulder with her tail wrapped so tight around my neck I feared that I might asphyxiate! Hopefully she is due a growth spurt soon which should give her some confidence as there is a huge difference in the size of her versus Eliiot.

Peanut was also tired yesterday and, as he’s starting to trust me a little more, he curled up for a nap on my knee too. At one point I had Polly, Pebbles and Peanut curled up on my knee and Sam had stopped by for a little rest before charging off again – I was a sitting duck and the chances of concussion from Elliot landing on my head were significantly increased for that short period of time! But I survived (just!)!

Elliot has lost two teeth over the past day – it would have been better if he’d done that before biting me the other day but at least it might go some way to explaining his erratic behaviour. And, as Si pointed out, my scar would have been wonky if some of the teeth marks weren't present so I guess Elliot was selflessly thinking about how aesthetically pleasing his bite would look on my skin - thanks Elliot!

If I am the only person in the room, Pebbles and Polly will happily sit on my shoulder and on my hip respectively. However, if a better human comes along (i.e. anyone!) then they will trade me in! There is certainly a hierarchy with Zoe, Paul, Leoma and John all above lowly little me! I try not to take it personally (when they don’t jump off immediately when John comes into the room it feels like a little win!) but I will probably need therapy when I’m back in UK!

Daily routine

My day usually consists of a similar routine, with extra jobs thrown in for good measure. At 6.30am I am up and chopping fruit for the monkeys. They will be given this fruit and browse (they love prickly bush and secropia covered in ants which is great fun to hang in their cages!) and they are cleaned out. I tend to work with the 6 Howler Monkeys who can be great fun as they cling to the sweeping brush and jump on my head/ back as I clean, particularly Paz, Sparticus and Kofi. Concussion is a major concern at each feed!

I will then go and help Simon with the Curassow, big birds that are endangered and have been brought to the centre to breed. They get fruit and some bird food. I tend to stand outside the cage as I haven’t plucked up the confidence to go in yet – their beaks are huge!

I get a little time for breakfast which today was leftover pizza from last night (I’ve regressed to being a student again!) but is usually toast, peanut butter and orange juice. The toast is cooked in a pan on top of the gas stove and the water is boiled in the same way – it’s very old school! I love it!

The past couple of days I have had Duke Duty (or as Jamie says, Dukety) in the morning too, just before or after the 10am monkey feed. We alternate whether we are in the pool with him or whether we are sitting outside observing. I love my 30 minutes in the pool with him as he is getting brave with me now and playing with my ankles and knees with his whiskers. Usually I’d expect at least dinner from a man before they get that honour but I have let him skip that stage as he’s so cute! He has an inflatable boat in his pool for company (he used to have a manatee friend but sadly she passed away just before I arrived). A couple of days ago he was floating on the top of the pool, drifting down to the far end of the pool in the breeze and then swimming back to the inflatable to touch base before starting the whole process again. It was very lovely to watch. I have just done an hour long shift with him and he has eaten a lot of seagrass – so much so that we’ve actually run out!

Today I tended the banana patch just before lunch. Si helped me as he had just sharpened his machete and didn’t trust me with it (which, to be fair, was smart!). Paul has asked me to chop off all of the dead leaves and remove the flowers once all of the bananas have started to grow. I will be excited to see all of the bananas once they come through – I’m sure the monkeys will enjoy them along with the rest of their fruit.

After lunch I do the 2pm monkey feed and then head upstairs to play with the baby monkeys for a couple of hours. It’s amazing to see how much confidence the monkeys are gaining when they’re around Elliot. During yesterday’s play session the boys (Peanut and Sam) were getting on relatively well with Elliot. At one point they were all sharing the same leaves which was a big step forward. Sam was complaining a bit (which is strange as it’s usually Peanut) but he was happy enough. Funny, a man who’s happy moaning – shocking! The girls (Polly and Pebbles) were a little more scared. Pebbles lasted about 3 minutes before she was on my shoulder with her tail wrapped around my neck. I tried to put her back a couple of times but she complained a lot. Elliot tried to get her to play when I was sitting down but, once again, there were a lot of unhappy noises. Polly played for a while but then got tired and clung to my hip for the remainder of the play session. As much as it was bad for their developing relationships with Elliot, I loved the cuddles!

There is another monkey feed at 4.30pm and then it’s free time for the evening before dinner sometime between 8pm and 9pm.

All in all I’m having a great time! Paul and Zoe have created a great sanctuary and selflessly take in all animals that are in need of shelter. I’m really pleased that Belize was suggested to me and I’m so happy with the decision to come to Wildtracks – it’s a brilliant place!