Simon at Sepilok

Sogo is improving all the time, she was even seen climbing the bars of her quarantine cage for a short time this morning!!

This morning was mostly about sugar cane.
Instead of bananas we had to carry bundles of sugar cane down to the feeding platform store. The bundles are pretty big and quite awkward to carry on your shoulder but Nick and I coped OK.

Only Vicky had a little problem - as we approached the place where the poisonous Viper was yesterday i suggested to her that it might still be there and that they love sugar cane.
She claims it was a complete coincidence, but at that exact same moment she dropped her bundle of sugar cane, the ties broke and they rolled all over the walkway!

Sure enough the Viper WAS still there, in fact in exactly the same place (they don't seem to like a lot of exercise!), so i grabbed a quick photo to show you what it looks like...

The food store is a big heavy metal cupboard that it recently took four of us to carry from the main centre out to the feeding platform, over an obstacle course of fallen trees, narrow bridges, plank walkways and steep slopes. The idea being that enough food for a whole day or more can be carried to it and stored there first thing in the morning while it is a bit cooler. Here it is complete with today's sugarcane bundles on top. Notice also the very sexy designer sweat patches on my shirt too... :-)

Once most of the cane was safely stored inside Dusain then stripped some of the bark from other pieces of cane and let us try them. They were delicious, very woody but also sweet and juicy too. Soon we were all biting the cane, chewing it and then spitting out the dry fibres just like the orangutans do. Easy to see why they like it so much.

Three varying styles of eating the sugar cane were seen:

1) Nick and his "magic flute" sideways approach...


2) Simon "may the force be with you"...


3) Vicky "the sabre swallower" (please try to keep it clean folks, this is a family blog...)


After Outdoor Nursery duty we helped with exercising some of the older OUs.
For Kimball (the oldest male in the Indoor Nursery) this mainly consisted of seeing how many bites he could leave on the volunteers in 1 hour. Nick seemed to be his chosen main course today.
The other 5 were all pretty well behaved until it was time to leave when Tompong decided he wanted a bit longer, so he climbed out of the trees and swung across onto the roof of a disused building. The others were all taken back indoors but this little angel refused to come down until bribed half an hour later with oranges and sugarcane!

Short session at the building site today, just managed to concrete the final post into place before some light rain started. For the next several hours the sky was lit with distant lightning but we missed the worst of the showers.

Another live Chelsea league win on TV tonight, i'm going to miss having a "season ticket" when i get home!

// posted by storri @ 6:17 pm 0 comments

This afternoon was spent back at the construction site sawing beams, mixing concrete and playing with spirit levels.

By the end of the working day we had successfully plunged 3 magnificent columns deep into mother Earth and left them standing proudly erect as the concrete stiffened tightly around them.

Ahem.

Sorry.

Got a bit carried away there... ;-)

While we were building the girls took out some of the little ones again for exercise - i grabbed a cute picture of Eniro's face as they walked past...


After work we nipped up to the local supermarket for a quick beer with Dusain and Elis. Of course, our old friend Mr.Chin was already there with (surprise surprise) a table full of empty cans in front of him! So the "quick beer" actually turned into a "quick several beers" before closing time at 6pm...

Good news this morning, Sogo Sogo is showing some slight signs of improvement. They reckon she is about 10 percent improved which is a start after so many days of being flat out!

Outdoor nursery this morning was straightforward enough without too many dramas. The biggest being when Doggy decided to he would try to help me sweep the path. That was a lovely gesture, but of course the reality was he just wanted to chew the broom! After a couple of minutes of gladiatorial battling for control he gave up and i stood victorious, broom held aloft!

Okay. okay, it actually took Dusain the Ranger to scare him off otherwise i would probably still be there now, pinned down by Doggy with the broom held across my throat. LOL.

Walking back we saw our first poisonous snake, a viper, on a tree next to the walkway. Dusain told us that the viper venom could kill within an hour but not to worry too much because even though they didn't have anti-venom here at Sepilok the viper, after it strikes, does not slither away like the cowardly cobra does. So if bitten all we have to do is kill the viper, slit it open, cut out its liver and put that on the wound. Yeah right, we gave it a wide berth and left quickly... :-0

After safely negotiating the route back without further scares, our group was able to help take some of the youngsters out for exercise. We took them to a new, much drier wooded area to minimise the risks of Melio bacteria exposure from the damp soil.

I actually took out cute little Reto, who is under 1 year old. She is totally gorgeous, now my 2nd favourite (after Sogo of course!). Because of her age she isn't allowed on the damp ground and can't mix directly with the others. So that meant lots of cuddles for me!!! It was SO satisfying seeing her reaching out for branches and leaves and taking her first tentative steps out onto small branches. She is too small to fully want to let go, in fact she has complete trust that you will catch her at all times! On two occasions (with some gentle encouragement from me) she had both feet and one hand on branches and as i tried to put her other hand onto another branch she deliberately started to fall down, meaning you have to grab her again. Clever girl. All too soon playtime was over and it was back to resthouse for lunch.

BTW - Gabili, one of the Rangers here makes machetes from scratch for any volunteers that want them, so don't mess with me when i get back to Britain, i may well be carrying. You have been warned... :-)

Some good news to report about Sogo Sogo - her blood tests have come back and although it confirms that she has Malaria it also shows that she does not have Melio. Phew! Hopefully the precautionary anti-malarial treatment that she was being given can now be stepped up and will help her to fully recover.
Come on Sogo, you can beat this!

WARNING:
Be careful, explicit photographs follow, so any minors and those of a nervous disposition should look away now.

You have been warned.

Still here?

OK...

Firstly - my shoddy Next lightweights that have given out after just 5 weeks. I wish i'd kept the receipt - it seems they just don't make them like they used to. I mean, they were probably only worn 20 times, admittedly on most of those days they would have ended up soaked in a near-lethal cocktail of orangutan p*ss and human sweat then left out to dry overnight, but maybe if i give them a quick rinse they will still give me a refund??!! Any consumer rights experts out there???

Next - Nick and i spent a bit more time at the construction site this afternoon, firstly had to bale out one of the post holes which had flooded (why only one of them flooded i have no idea, clever dick explanations very welcome - just click the "comments" link after this post...), then finished off digging out the other two holes, then collected some stones and prepared a pile of ballast for our concrete. Finally we gave it two good coats of looking at before offering up one of the posts.

Ladies, please don't get too excited...

Tomorrow if the rain holds off we should get a chance to get the posts concreted in place.

A quick game of footie after work but didn't have the energy to do it justice this time, then a very early night.
Totally shattered today.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Sogo is still quarantined on her own but still fighting her illness. No change in her condition :-

Today Vicky, Nick and I started the Outdoor Nursery work.

According to the job spec, this area is home to the Juveniles, generally aged between five and eight years old. These Orang-Utans are fed at the nursery and on the tourist platform. Their food is taken to different platforms to ensure that they learn to search for their food. This ensures the Orang-Utan do not become reliant on food being at a particular platform each day. Possible duties include:
- Collecting the bananas from the storeroom and taking them via wheelbarrow to the nursery.
- Sweeping leaves from surrounding paths and clearing nursery area.
- Feeding Bananas to orang-utans at the outdoor nursery.
- Assisting the rangers by carrying bananas to the tourist platform (done twice daily)
- Completing an observation sheet on Orang-Utans who attended the feeding platform (done twice daily).
When working in this area there is plenty of time for observation of the orang-utans in their natural surroundings.

Actually, at the moment this area is fairly quiet. There are currently no orangutans making the transition from the Indoor to the Outdoor nursery, so the Outdoor nursery cage (where new arrivals are kept for 2 weeks) is empty. Only about 8 or 9 of the orangutans who are free choose to hang around this area and hence are visible close-up to us there, although there are about 25 orangutans who will sometimes choose to come in from the Reserve and go to the tourist feeding platform.

So after we had swept the platforms and paths and taken bananas to the new banana store near the feeding platform (which hold enough for both feeding sessions) our work here was pretty much done here.
That meant we were able to watch the feeding session with the tourists today and were treated to some great antics from Doggy (!) and the macaques and also from the biggest male, 17 year old Mister G.

We are now supposed to go back and help out with the Indoor Nursery group both morning and afternoon so that more of the youngsters can be taken out for exercise.
Unfortunately, none of the other infants and juveniles are being allowed out today - this is supposedly to keep them away from the wet grass areas which suggests the main worry is still the Melio bacteria.
A chance for some more digging maybe...

This afternoon four of us took a trip out with a local guy called Azme.
The village where he grew up is located on one of the many rivers that lead through mangrove forest out to sea. He is trying to design a trip that he can market to tourists so we were to be guinea pigs of sorts, although he has been taking people out on short trips as a hobby for a few years.
Elle, Becky and Nick went out with him last week but the engine of their boat broke down a little way into their trip. This time Nick, Vicky, Cath and I were collected by Azme for another try.

On arrival we had a quick look at how the village dry the rubber they have collected from the trees. The sap from about 100 trees is used for each "mat" and will take about a week to dry.

I noticed too that the village football pich had more grass than Stamford Bridge...

Off to the jetty and we found that we had 2 boats, so 2 of us got into each and then Cap'n Azme and one of his uncles cast off into some beautiful mangrove forest waterways.

However we were soon in trouble because at the first sharp bend the outboard engine completely fell off of Nick and Cath's boat - Azme had forgotten to tighten the securing bolts!! Doh!! Fortunately he was able to pull the engine up from the shallow river bottom by means of the still-attached fuel line.
All attempts to restart it failed of course, suffice to say we had a "flooded" engine on our hands!
So Azme decided that we would proceed with just one boat and his uncle could paddle the other one back home.

Our destination today was to be an island just off the coast where Azme said we could spend some time swimming. I think it's fair to say that all four of us had pictured in our minds a little tropical paradise with sandy beach and maybe a few coconut palms swaying gently in the breeze.
As we headed away from the river estuary and out to sea we could see a large island off in the distance. Ah that must be it we thought.

Errr, not quite...

After 15 minutes Azme said "there is our island". I suddenly realised it wasn't quite as we'd imagined...
It was maybe 30 feet long and about 4 feet wide, made up totally of broken coral. I think even Robinson Crusoe would have struggled to hang a hammock here, LOL!!!!



But we beached the boat (which itself took up a quarter of the island) and proceeded to have a swim...



That was very refreshing of course, the slope off was very gentle and we could feel sand underfoot too. Azme explained that the tide were very high today, hence the lack of space! He had named it Michael Finland Island after the first Orang Puti that he taken there a few years back.

Soon it was time to head back, past many waterside houses where everyone waved to us and the children demonstrated their best acrobatic diving techniques.



A lovely way to spend an afternoon...

Back home we chatted about the trip to the others and then went with a few people for a quick Carlsberg at the Banana Cafe (in the nearby Jungle Resort) then it was time for bed. Work starts again in the morning but that's cool, over here i look forward to being at work!

Up early for the footie, in the dark downstairs found a crashed-out Nick who had taken the "help yourself to Vodka" comment from the last Rasa Ria group of girls a little too literally! As soon as the big game build up started on TV, the zombie stirred and managed to stagger away, bouncing off every possible wall in the process. Not a big footie fan is Nick...

Mind you, 2 hours later i think i agree with him :-(

Final rest day today.
I wandered down to the Clinic at lunchtime and did a quick check on Sogo. All the staff were at lunch, so I just had a peek through the glass and she was still looking very weak. She hardly stirred at all when she saw me, but at least she is battling on. She's definitely a fighter...

Nick and I had decided to try to do some more hole digging for the play area today, but the toolshed was locked, and we couln't find anyone to open it for us. Honest!

This sign, placed on the road just below our site was never more approppriate...

:-)

A lazy rest day today. Lots of reading in the morning, then this afternoon the remaining 7 of us (the other 4 are away diving in Sipidan) took a ride into Mile Four with two main objectives:
- Girls wanted scoop ice creams,
- Boys wanted DVDs.
Neither proved possible there, so quickly hopped on the bus into Sandakan main town.

DVD sales are strange here. Some days they have lots, other days they seem to deny having any. Take today for example, we headed into a supermarket where before they had had many hundreds of titles stored in ring binders on several shelves. Today we go in there and they say "no DVDs" and all the shelves are turned around back to front. Weird...
So we ask in several other stores and while they all have Video CD titles, no one is selling DVDs. It's almost like there has been a temporary block on sales.

After a couple of hours we eventually found one place with a fairly good selection. But then later on we head back to our original supermarket to stock up on essential foods (chocolate, Oreo biscuits, crisps, Pringles, Milo, Red Bull, rice wine etc!) and all the "missing" DVDs are now back on sale once again. Spooky.
Maybe there are regular copyright raids here or maybe these dodgy DVDs are only sold between the hours of 4 and 5 pm each day??!!!

So finally we head back to Sepilok by minibus, tums full of ice cream and bags full of "resthouse essentials".

Back at the resthouse, we find that Karen is here. Karen was a volunteer here at Sepilok just over a year ago and stayed on in Borneo to work at the NIC at Rasa Ria. She was one of the people who designed our program there, so it was a good opportunity to give her some feedback about our experiences... :-)

We also had an update about Sogo Sogo - she's still fighting hard and is stable. Good girl.

A fairly early night for me as it's going to be live Barca v Chelsea in the early hours tomorrow.

I walked down to the Clinic a little earlier today to check on Sogo's status and thankfully she's managed to battle through another night.
Rufina told me her condition is exactly the same as yesterday. No better, but more importantly, no worse...

Here's another picture of her, taken with Ruth a week ago (before we moved Bidai to the KK zoo)...

Love, Hope, Strength... X

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...

STOP PRESS:
Sogo has made it through Sunday night despite two big scares - early on she was injected with a temperature controlling drug as she had reached over 39 degrees celsius, then in the early hours of Monday morning point her temperature was up to over 40 degrees centigrade which is considered extremely critical. The girls managed to cool her down with cold towels etc. before handing control back to the full time staff as they arrived for work.
Well done girls - great job - and please keep fighting this fever Sogo... X

Continuing concern over the condition of little Sogo-Sogo today.
This morning a decision was taken to totally isolate her from the others with a suspicion that she may have Melioidosis (or "Melio" for short, see http://www.medicinenet.com/melioidosis/article.htm) which is a highly contagious disease that can apparently be easily spread through saliva on cuts or scratches - so no more kissing of OUs for Yvonne now.

We were all warned that we need to use barrier cream on our hands and arms and should wear protective gloves if handling Sogo in particular.

Note: these pictures of me with Eniro in the kitchen area were taken a few days ago, in case you were wondering!

All the infants were then evacuated from the Indoor Nursery area into the outdoor cages so that the room and all the cages within could be throroughly treated with a disinfectant spray. I pulled the short straw and was asked to do the spraying, so looking like something out of Ghostbusters i had to don protective mask and gloves and carry a backpack tank full of an anti-bacterial disinfectant liquid called "Veetree" (sp?). Thirty minutes of spraying every nook and cranny of the walls, ceiling and floor plus the inside and outside of all the cages and the job was done.

For the rest of the day all of the infant and juvenile orangutans were housed in the big outdoor cages, giving plenty of time for the spray to (hopefully) do it's magic.

There were plenty of hands helping today with people from all three of the volunteer workgroups mucking in and helping to take the orangutans out of the cages for exercise. At one point we had 9 out at once (which is a lot more than usual for this area) and it proved surprisingly difficult to keep tracks of them all!

The funniest bit was trying to get just three of the bigger ones out from a cage of six. I said to Nick just open the door a bit and we'll take the first three that squeeze out - of course as soon as the crack in the door opened we had a writhing mass of arms and legs and within seconds all six were happily running around and climbing on top of the cage. Ooops!!
Luckily they are much slower than we are on the ground so we were able to grab a couple and get them back inside relatively quickly. At this age they are still very much young children and never stray too far from "home".

By the end of our work day Sogo Sogo was still very poorly. So much so that Sylivia took the unusual step of asking for volunteers to stay up with her overnight and take her temperature every 2 hours. Four of us volunteered but for the first night at least she opted to use Caroline and Vicky - Sogo is more relaxed with the girls, Caroline especially, so that made good sense. Good luck girls...

Later in the evening Cath, Rebecca and Miriam returned from their Rasa Ria work placement. It sounds like they benefitted from our "smoothing of the rough edges" and it went a lot better for them, even though Mowgli became ill and was transferred to KK zoo for treatment, leaving just Joey and Siti there for the guests to observe at feeding time. But it sounds like the refurbishment work on the outdoor cages there is progress well so hopefully while Becky and Elle are there all six OUs will be returned to the NIC fold.