Once in a life time (:

I'm back! Haha! It's been pretty long since I have blogged. I have been super busy with training, camp and working at the zoo. I wanna talk about zoo because working at the zoo has been an amazing experience for me.

Carina, Divya, Shu Jun, Qi Xiang and me are lucky to be able to work with the zoo keepers for the past 6 days. Each of us had to work at a different section in the zoo and I chose WILD AFRICA! Where the giraffes, zebras, rhinoceros, antelope and ostrich were. On the first day, I followed my keeper called Cheryl. She is the nicest and friendliest. She taught me about the habits of the different animals and how to put the grass for the rhino and giraffe. The animals I look after are herbivores so there is never a day I don't come in contact with leaves.

Every morning, a truck load of leaves will be put at the different places for all the wild africa animals so when it's time to put the grass in the enclosure, I would follow Cheryl in and learn where to put the leaves. I love Trisha this baby rhino that is kept inside with her mother Shoba, away from the other rhinos. Trisha will come to me when I call her name. She's a cutie pie. Every time Trisha walks to someone, her mom would keep a look out for that person. Haha! 

Next, I had to clean the giraffes enclosure where its big and every morning, it has chocolate like shape poop everywhere. Thank god for the boots I was given to wear. Hehe! It is not very smelly because I don't smell it all the time. By day 2 or 3, I know relatively well where to hang the leaves and what are we going to do next.

Tea break is from 10.00am to 10.30am, lunch is from 12.00pm to 1.00pm and last tea break is from 3.00pm to 3.40pm. During the 2 tea breaks, I don't really do anything much. I stay in the air con room and stone. Lunch is something I always look forward to. We get free lunch everyday and the food is damn good! We also get a drink and ice cream on friday.

After lunch, it would be rhino feeding where 1 basket is $5 and there are like carrots, honeydews, apples, pears and bananas. I get to feed them and they sound and look super cute when they eat. Rhino's teeth are all the way inside so you just gotta put the fruit near it then when it smells it, it will open its mouth big enough for you to put in or throw in. It's cool to watch them eat.

After the feeding, the rhinos will go into this enclose area for some hay and the keepers will go in and clean the area. I will put the grass at the different areas and I love to hang the antelope's leave. There's 1 antelope living with the rest of the rhino's so you have to hook the bunch of leave on this hook that is quite high. I had fun hooking it every day.

Some of the funny things that happened to me:

1. I was pushing the dustbin into the giraffe enclosure so that we can clean the poop and the dead leaves on the floor. As I push, there was a puddle of pee on the ground and so I had to avoid it. I tried but the bin was too heavy and so Cheryl came over and helped me out. As I was walking behind her, I forgot to bend my head and *BANG* goes my forehead! Man, that hurts!

2. I was walking with my other keeper Ram to the giraffe feeding place as it was time to feed them carrots. I was thinking of what pictures to take after my work. Without any warning or notice, *Bong* I bang into my keeper. He was giving directions to a tourist that 's why he stopped. Damn! He was like "EH! Watch where you going la!" Hahaha!

3. On my first day, I went to feed the ostrich with Cheryl. We poured a bucket full of chopped bananas, vegetables and whole meal bread etc. Then, the male ostrich sort of like squat down and started swinging its head left to right and right to left. Cheryl told me it's called a courtship dance. If he does it do human, it means that he is marking his territory. If he does it to the female ostrich, it's trying to attract the female. Throughout the 6 days, it did it to me every time I pass by him so all in all, he did about 7 times of courtship dance to me! Haha!

On the last day, I wrote a note for the WILD AFRICA keepers. Oh wells, may god bless them! (: I shall write until here then.  :)