Well, the November volunteers have jumped in with both feet and have started ticking jobs off our 'To Do' list at a great rate! We are getting toward the rainy season here so most days provide us all with a cooling shower (well, downpour is more realistic!) but that hasn't stopped the troops carrying on! Here is a brief outline of what has been achieved to date (just 10 days!):

Doris the Diva, our 6 year old Orangutan, has had even more climbing structures added to her ever increasing play area. She is suitably impressed and regularly treats visitors to her gymnastic display worthy of the Olympic Games, delivered with her winning smiles!
She also now has a red bedroom floor...and matching red hands and arms as she managed to poke through the temporary 'paint protecting partition' in her excitement!! We will be more diligent with the second coat; hopefully she may be distracted by the new climbing ladders outside...She also decided that the red broom matched her decor and so swiped that for a play, a brush of her hair and then a good chewing! Bless...

Mother and baby Orangutans, Chiam and Mamu were thrilled to have a new firehose cargo net to climb through (Mamu) and recline or rolypoly on (Chiam). The have inspected each and every nut and bolt (over 20) and are disappointed at the high standard of volunteer workmanship...they can't desproy it (yet...)! They seemed to approve of the location of it, hanging near the front of their outdoor enclosure where they can have a good gawp at the visitors in comfort; however they were not so keen on the positioning of the barrel swing hung by plastic tubing and chain...so Chiam reached through the roof, undid the nuts and bolts and now the swing can be moved wherever they fancy...the favourite spot seems to be on the cargo net. It can even act as a shelter so they can stay out in the rain! Much better than just hanging it from the roof...

Aman, our 18 year old chubby stud Orangutan delighted us all, and hopefully himself by enjoying the new firehose cargo net/hammock that the volunteers created. Having very poor sight, he needs stimulation of new smells, textures and so on to encourage him to explore his enclosure and that is exactly what happened. He even sat up on one of his old platforms, that we have never seen him use, thanks to a nice new chunky rope link. Great stuff! The new structures help all the orangutans to gain height and see out and about more and also catch the refreshing breeze, as it can get very steamy in their high-walled enclosures.

Aman can be seen dreamily gazing out at the trees in the forest and he may well be thinking of his two orangutan lady friends, Lena and Ganti, that are recently out of the enclosures and in the forest. We were very happy to hear that one of our volunteers caught a definate sighting of one of them nearby, so we all hope that they are fine and well out there! They have not been visiting the feeding platform, but this is probably due to the abundance of jungle fruits at this time of year.

In brief, the other animals: today we welcome three visitors from Zoo Negara who will help us to sex, and relocate some of our saltwater crocodiles to a larger enclosure that was rennovated by our September volunteers. It will be an exciting weekend! Wish us luck!!! We are hoping to transfer Keith Jnr, our hand raised Sambar (marsh) deer into a larger enclosure with other deer (and Doris) as companions. Boboy, one of our ex pet long tailed macaques has had a makeover to his area of which he seems to thoroughly approve! However, I have a sneaking suspicion that his favourite part is when we are all in his enclosure and he is locked in his den...he just loves to grab at arms, legs, shoes, drills, etc and really gets involved with the decision making!!

That's it for now, animalwise. We are also busy organising an education day at the centre for 36 children from two local villages in ten days time. We will all be very busy doing 'animal activities' around the enclosure trail that day! The children are also about to become involved in a penpal scheme initiated by a former volunteer from Texas! So we truly are a global project with local benefits that are far reaching and we are lucky to be a part of it.

Until next time, Caroline