It was a very windy start to our day, the majority of us were worried our tents would blow down during the night as it was quite blustery! Those who were checking rodent live traps this morning were up at 6:00am and the rest of us lazy ones got up for 6:45am. After a quick breakfast of cereal, yoghurt and toast, we all headed up to the classroom to set up our stations for the day. Children from local schools were coming to Amakhala for World Environment Day which happened to also be World Oceans Day. It was a wonderful time and the children were all excited running around, jumping on our backs, laughing and giggling. We taught the children about ocean animals and how to keep the oceans clean. Afterwards the children had their hands painted blue to place a handprint on the water reservoir as a promise to keep our oceans clean, save the animals and pass the word on. We then played games and danced around with the children., some of them were chasing Megan around and shouting: “Mama” and “Baby”. Mama is a sign of respect to an older female person. It was really adorable, but they loved us too!! As a thank you, Amakhala provided spectacular calendars to each of us and these were given to us by the children. Soon after that we waved good-bye to our new friends as they drove back to school.
After lunch we had a couple of lectures by Dr. William Fowlds on “a day in the life of a wildlife veterinarian” and another on Rhino conservation and anti-poaching. It was very eye-opening to see how much of a problem rhino poaching is just for the sake of the horn!! After 2012 over 3500 rhinos were poached, it is not just rhinos being poached but other wild animals such as lions and tigers for their bones, and elephants for their tusks. When these animals are all gone, where will it stop? It is not enough to just protect the animals and try to stop the poachers, we should be showing the consumers of the products what they are doing to the animals. There are a lot of videos online about this topic and if you are interested in saving a rhino’s life watch these videos, get educated, become aware and get involved!!! Lets save these magnificent animals from extinction!!!
We ended the day with a lovely meal provided to us by the staff at Amakhala and shortly after we were heading off to bed for an early night.
Good night everyone, Jessica! Stay safe and healthy.
Great blog Jessica, Looks like you and the children had a fun time. That’s really awful all the poaching going on. Sounds difficult to stop.
Oh what a fabulous day you all had with the children! I love it 🙂 Two very important days to celebrate and who more important than to celebrate and teach with. Megan has always had this “old soul” about her and it amazes me that even the children could sense this!! LOL Stay safe, stay healthy!