Monday, March 06, 2006
Digging It
Officially a rest day, so I managed to catch up on some chores like hand-washing clothes (don't worry, no more pictures of my damp undies...) and shaving!
After those exertions most of us tried to relax through the heat of the day by reading and watching movies.
Phew, tiring stuff... ;-)
By mid-afternoon Nick and I decided to start digging holes. Not just any holes of course - these are very special holes! These holes will house the wooden posts to support a new covered "play area" for the infant orangutans. You see, quite often when the weather is bad the orangutans have to stay indoors, which is far from ideal.
So Nick sketched a design for a simple structure that 2 or 3 orangutans might be taken to for a bit of climbing and swinging.
Over the past few days the plans have been approved by Sylvia and Elis and a site selected.
The timber has been ordered so now the labouring can begin.
On the way to the site we called in on the Clinic to see how Sogo Sogo was doing - she is still battling the fever and chills, with temperature yo-yo-ing and being controlled with twice daily injections. They have decided that only Elis the head ranger will have contact with her now to limit the risk of cross-infection with ourselves and the other orangutans, so he will monitor her through the night tonight.
So on with the work. The first few inches were tough, digging through broken stone, but once we got down into the proper soil our progress was pretty good. 
Within a couple of hours we had the first 2 holes ready and the other 2 about 75% complete.
By then my delicate little keyboard hands (I know, I know...) were well blistered but we were well pleased with progress.
The wood for the whole structure and some cement was also delivered, so it's all systems go now.
I know it doesn't look like much at the moment, but it's early days - let's hope the rain stays away so we can make some progress.
On our return to the resthouse and despite feely pretty exhausted we joined in a "friendly" game of football on the grass out front. Great fun and for the record, a fine 2-1 win for the Orang Puti...
Later on it was time to back up some of the other volunteers digital photos onto the laptop I brought out with me (and as extra security, onto my portable backup disk - you can never have too many backups...!!)
Between all of our cameras we have quite a thorough record of the project building up.
Hard to believe, but we are already half way through our placement now...
After those exertions most of us tried to relax through the heat of the day by reading and watching movies.
Phew, tiring stuff... ;-)
By mid-afternoon Nick and I decided to start digging holes. Not just any holes of course - these are very special holes! These holes will house the wooden posts to support a new covered "play area" for the infant orangutans. You see, quite often when the weather is bad the orangutans have to stay indoors, which is far from ideal.
So Nick sketched a design for a simple structure that 2 or 3 orangutans might be taken to for a bit of climbing and swinging.Over the past few days the plans have been approved by Sylvia and Elis and a site selected.
The timber has been ordered so now the labouring can begin.
On the way to the site we called in on the Clinic to see how Sogo Sogo was doing - she is still battling the fever and chills, with temperature yo-yo-ing and being controlled with twice daily injections. They have decided that only Elis the head ranger will have contact with her now to limit the risk of cross-infection with ourselves and the other orangutans, so he will monitor her through the night tonight.
So on with the work. The first few inches were tough, digging through broken stone, but once we got down into the proper soil our progress was pretty good. 
Within a couple of hours we had the first 2 holes ready and the other 2 about 75% complete.
By then my delicate little keyboard hands (I know, I know...) were well blistered but we were well pleased with progress.
The wood for the whole structure and some cement was also delivered, so it's all systems go now.
I know it doesn't look like much at the moment, but it's early days - let's hope the rain stays away so we can make some progress.
On our return to the resthouse and despite feely pretty exhausted we joined in a "friendly" game of football on the grass out front. Great fun and for the record, a fine 2-1 win for the Orang Puti...
Later on it was time to back up some of the other volunteers digital photos onto the laptop I brought out with me (and as extra security, onto my portable backup disk - you can never have too many backups...!!)
Between all of our cameras we have quite a thorough record of the project building up.
Hard to believe, but we are already half way through our placement now...
// posted by storri @ 10:10 pm 
