Week 8 at Ulovane

Our last Ulovane exam on mammals, animal behaviour and ecology is moved to the Wednesday due to our 2 days away last week. The last few days before that is a bit of a rush unfortunately as we felt we would've liked a bit more time to learn and research the incredibly interesting information about mammals and how to interpret their behaviour - it's amazing how much more you see and understand now that we've learnt why for instance you always see oxpeckers sitting on zebras (see below) and also why elephants touch each other with their trunks in a "greeting ceremony" - very moving to see it and understand what they're doing :)

 

 

 

After the test we were all told to wear old clothes and sent down the road to the dam (on the farm). We were very apprehensive and were promptly told we had to put our full head and hair in a massive bucket with elephant dung mixed with water to "rid us of our civilionship"! We couldn't believe that they were actually serious and only when the first victim actually went through with it did it start to sink in...! I never thought I would do something like that until Guy said it's just cereal mixed with water and then I remembered that Ellie dung is literally just branches, leaves and grass so I went ahead and did it! We also had to do a territorial animal cry and paint our faces with mud - I know it's hard to imagine, but it was really fun in the end, a bit like being back in University ;o)

 

On Friday, I was in the very first one of 2 to do our mock practical drives (with real guests!). We emailed our guests a few days before the drive to finalise times, find out about things like medical conditions, allergies, time limits ect. and then 7am Friday morning 14 of them arrived! It was very nerve wrecking and everyone looked at us with nervous faces when we returned (as they knew they would have to do it soon!). In the end I actually really enjoyed being out there and telling all the guests about all the things that we've learned in the past 8 weeks. We were lucky to get a lovely sunshine day and everyone had so much fun just being out there. Afterwards I had a 3 hour interview to start preparing us for the final FGASA exam in 2 weeks - I can't believe that this will all be over in 2 weeks!! We are also starting to find out about volunteering opportunities, placements and follow-on courses to do next year. I am hoping to do the Marine Guiding course in July next year and before that some volunteering :)