Some notes on arrival:
-In the area, besides amazing birds like ibises and storks and of course vultures (!!!!), there are brown hyenas, leopards, kudu, duikers, klipspringers, and “lots of snakes.” None of this should worry me.
-My room has a motion alarm, inside two locked gates. My alarm is separate from the house system. It has been suggested that if I am on my own, I not be outside the second gate after dark. There are five large dogs on the grounds, shepherd & malamute mixes. This is all due to common (?) armed & violent home invasions. The man who drove me here said that in Botswana they don’t hurt you when they rob, like they do here. He said there were two reasons for this. One, Botswana has capital punishment. Two, “our history with apartheid–the blacks feel the whites have left them out, taken all of their power. Please know that maybe I’m not using the right words, but you understand?”
-Tomorrow and for the next few days, I’ll follow a volunteer as she waters the birds and cleans the carcasses from the vulture restaurant. Normally hyenas would clean up the bones–but not on the rescue center’s grounds. I’ll be able to enter the enclosures once the birds know me a bit. (!!!!)
-I will likely see at least three soft releases and an unknown number of rescued birds brought in.
-I’m still exhausted. Also, mosquitoes.