Day 21-25 (Monday to Friday)

The trip back to Naankuse was terrible🫠🫠 it was way too hot in the car and we had to drive to so many different places in Windhoek to drop people off at the airport/hotel, pick up things, or pick up new people. Overall, I think it took us almost 7 hours, even though it's only 275 km in a straight line🥺 When we arrived at Naankuse, we just missed lunch and went empty-handed. In the evening, there was, of course, not enough food again and we had to wait forever to get to the buffet...I really didn't miss that. But the good thing is, I'm in my old tent, even without a roommate, it almost feels like home😅

There are so many new people at Naankuse that I probably don't even know half of them...although many have already left or are leaving this week (some of them I'm sad to see go, but for some it's definitely time🫠)

In my group, there is a woman I've already worked with in the first two weeks, which is cool. Theoretically, we still have a boy in our group who never shows up for the activities🤬

On Tuesday, we had Carnivore Camp Cleaning and cleaned the waterhole and collected bones at the wild dog enclosure. After that, we had to take the trash to the compost and the bins were so heavy that male support would have been really helpful💪🏼

After lunch, I had the Baboonwalk again, and I'm really not into it anymore😂 always having to take off jewelry and then being afraid of getting peed on or pooped on by the baboons💩🤢 On the way back, it started pouring rain again. But because of the rain, I had the company of an affectionate cat in my tent😍

On Wednesday, we had Enrichment (and of course, there were only two of us in the group again😬). That's where we build things for the enclosures of the animals. We built a kind of tunnel for the honey badger Beatlejuice. His food can be hidden inside it and he has to climb up the fence to eat. Since we still had time, we built a swing for the baby baboon Pamela.

In the afternoon, we had RhinoRangers. However, we no longer spend the night in the reserve because a tree fell on a tent during the previous week while a woman was sleeping in it. Luckily, she only got her arm squished and nothing worse. But it was still so cool even without spending the night. We saw incredibly many animals: 3 elephants that were only 3-5 meters away from the car, 10 rhinos, giraffes, zebras, and of course, many antelopes.

Thursday was not as spectacular: during RhinoRanger Part 2, we drove along the fence to check if there was enough electricity everywhere, but we didn't really see any animals. However, it took us at least an hour longer because we had to pump up the tire every 10 minutes as it had a hole. In the end, we changed it, only to find out that the spare tire also had a hole and we had to pump it up from time to time. We had Carnivore Feed for lunch, which is always cool to watch. In the evening, we played volleyball again. We were really bad, but still had fun.

On Friday, I was really tired and was running late for breakfast. I already thought, oh no, this is definitely not my day and had a bit of panic because I had horseback riding as an activity: the day before, two people fell off their horses and I definitely didn't feel like that. But before the activity, we first went to the school at Naankuse, where the children sang and danced for us again. In the end, we even danced with them💃🕺

Afterwards, we had to drive with the car to find the horses at all😅 they are always released in the afternoon and have plenty of space to graze and be wild. Sometimes it takes hours to find them, but we were lucky and had them in the stable after about 40 minutes. The horse assigned to me is called Indy and was super sweet. The ride was really awesome...we rode right through a herd of giraffes and even galloped. I didn't fall off the horse🙏🏼, but the helper fell because her horse stepped into a hole while trotting and stumbled. Luckily, the woman wasn't really hurt, but the horse limped a bit, so we rode back in a walk. We were supposed to go on another ride in the afternoon because many people in the group had a presentation in the morning and missed it. However, I decided to help another group instead. We cleaned the baboon enclosure while Pamela was in there with two other young baboons. She is slowly being integrated into the group and it's incredibly cute to watch😍

All in all, the week was much better than I thought it would be on Sunday. The evenings were also very cool and we played cards, played billiards, and had some parties together. However, I've become addicted to Harnas chocolate and cider, so I have to spend a lot of money on it now😵‍💫 Tonight, I already have to pack again because we're going to Kanaan in the morning...