Colobus Trust

Category: volunteer | Date: May 28 2009 | By: colobus

From Anna:

So, today we are packing… the last hours at the Trust.

I tried yesterday to summarize my time here in my diary, but it was hard, and every time I finished a sentence I remembered something I’d forgotten to add. There are so many different things we have done here. Also, it’s been very interesting to follow the Trust through these months of transformation when so much has changed. Even though I’ve only been here a few months I’ve had the pleasure to see the also the staff change and grow. Some personal things to say to each and every one of you guys: Hamisi – it’s the best thing to see you teach and play with the children; you’re a whole new person when standing in front of them, talking about the importance of conservation. John – your sense of humour is the weirdest ever but when at work one can tell that you possess so much knowledge and you’re so passionate about the animals. Peter – the discussions we’ve had with you about cultural difference have given me a deeper understanding of Kenya and you’ve always had answers to all of our questions. Catherine – you’re a lovely physical (always hugging) woman singing in the office, you always dress so nice and put your hair in beautiful creations. Your advice helped us through our economical issues. Mwuitu – your cheerful personality always cheers up the whole Trust no matter if you’re dusting the floor, climbing trees or looking for snares. We always talk about you as the one with the black sarcastic humour. Mary – you taught me how to make chapattis (under cautious supervision) and Ester, I like chatting with you about everything and to hear you sing behind the shop desk. Elodie – I just said to Filip yesterday that you’re the one to always say only positive things. Loved your yoga-classes and your pep-talking with everyone during rainy days. Dipesh – even though you talk very loud and always just show up like one minute at a time(!), you’re such a funny person and I thank you for all the opportunities you gave me to write. Can’t believe how many projects you manage to run at the same time. Andrew – love you’re constant mumbling ‘yo wazzup man hows it going there mate’ and how you always eat four to five portions at lunch. You’re going to manage this place without a problem. Luciana – thank you for all your assistance, very nice to sit on your veranda and chitchat about everything. You always stick to your promises. Jared, thank you for your lovely curries, and Issa, I don’t know how you did it but you got all our white clothes white again after weeks of backpacking those dusty mud-roads.

I’ve made a lot of volunteer friends here too. I can only say that tomorrow, we are meeting up with Tom, Rona and Rachael in Nairobi to have a last night out before we all fly back to our home countries, scattered across the world. I’ll always remember my time at the Trust. GOODBYE!

From Filip:

I’m sitting in the office, the power just went and came back, it’s hot and humid, and Andrew, Peter, John and Mwitu are away on de-snaring and tree-planting somewhere. I can hear Jared making chapattis in the kitchen and the rehabilitation Vervets fighting over something. Life is exactly as it should be at the Trust, with the slight difference that Anna and I are leaving today, after working as volunteers here from February to May, with a break for travelling in the middle.

While packing yesterday, I emptied my whole wardrobe and encountered some items that left me in a kind of nostalgic mood while standing with everything in my lap, thinking about my months here and what I’ve experienced.

In the pockets of my bathing shorts lay a couple of broken shells, beautifully colored. It’ll be hard to appreciate the Scandinavian ‘beaches’, with water temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius if you’re lucky, after spending so many lunch breaks and weekends on the white sand next to the turquoise Indian Ocean with the vivid reef just outside.

Lifting my eyes, something caught my attention: my Colobus Trust-badge, attached to my cleanest shirt. I’ve been using it during the Pest Management program. It felt pretty cool to walk around in the fancy beach resorts, guided by the manager, with my badge on one side of the chest and a VIP-pass from the hotel on the other. We were monitoring misbehaving monkeys, trying to help the hotels deal with them in a sustainable way. It included meetings with general managers, hours of observation and interviews, arranging workshops and sometimes getting a free buffet…

Besides my clean shirt were my working clothes. They were brown from mud, sweaty from the hot climate and I could also spot tiny holes almost everywhere. All of these details are a reminder of so many hours of de-snaring. It was. The snares are thin and often rusty, which gives them a great camouflage in the coral rag forest. To discover them, you need to literally crawl into the bush, struggling against the thorns of the Crocodile Tree, the spiders, mosquitoes and tics of the ground, not to mention the heat from the sun, especially tough in dry season when no shade was to be found and the air was extra hot. But it feels truly rewarding to return to the Trust with a whole pile of snares in the car, knowing that you might have saved an animal from a horrible suffering and death.

To the floor. There I see the big, compact, elliptic fruit shell of the Baobab Tree, the absolutely biggest tree species in Africa. I will never forget getting stuck in a Baobab. It was on my first Colobrigding, and I was all fresh from the flight, not really knowing what the expectations on me were. Some of the staff, Anna, and I went to the highest colobridge, which needed some maintenance. The ladder was extended to its maximum length, and I climbed it together with a staff-member. Then we continued a couple of meters further up until we were about 10 m from the ground. I stayed there and the staff-member tied a rope around him and continued to the top, where he could work on the bridge while I sent him the tools. When we were done, I couldn’t find anything to grip for climbing down, so I was stuck in the big giant tree until people on the ground had stopped laughing and moved the ladder where I could climb down….        

In the darkest corner of the wardrobe was an empty box of plastic gloves, an eccentric good-bye present from Anna’s father before departing to Africa. They were meant to protect us from all bacteria, parasites, viruses etc while travelling. But on one of our first nights in the Trust an injured Sykes monkey came in. We were quickly introduced to the basic vet clinic and instructed to prepare a couple of injections, like Vitamin K, tetanus, and steroids. The only gloves around were the very thick, green gloves used for catching monkeys, not really flexible enough for our task. So we opened our box of plastic gloves and started helping out.  

Thank you everyone for an eventful and a wonderful time at the Colobus Trust,

Filip

And by the way – we climbed Kilimanjaro

Tags: experience, Goodbye, volunteer

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