Fun detail: If you look way in the back, you can see Nikita spraying the igloo. :D

I have a photo dump of stuff from there here if you're interested:
http://s51.photobucket.com/user/shadowcheets/library/Photos/South%20Africa%202012/Photo%20Dump/

Here be ramblings:

Cheetahs are endangered with there only being about 9,000 of them left. Their situation is made worse by a genetic bottleneck. Nobody knows why, but at some point, most of them got wiped out and now, most of them are actually related to each other. This tiny gene pool causes tons of problems with vulnerability to disease and most males having a very low sperm count and don't breed well in captivity. They're dying by the hundreds every year, and the thought of there one day not being any more of these incredible animals makes me just hurt inside.

For most of my life, I've dreamed of going to Africa and trying to do something about this - even if all I could do was a minute amount. Year after year, I decided I was too young, too poor without a job, too busy with a job, or, to be honest, too scared to actually do anything, but recently I finally got up the courage to chase one of my biggest dreams. Terrified of what I was doing, I quit my job, volunteered at the Dell Cheetah Center, went through a very stressful process of organizing everything, and booked a flight to the middle of nowhere in South Africa.

Even on the flight, I wasn't sure I'd made the right decision until on my way to Chicago for a connecting flight, I was seated next to this business man who was some important guy in some random company. He spent nearly the entire flight rapidly firing off e-mails and such. Eventually, we talked a little and I asked what he was doing in Chicago.

"Business meeting," he answered importantly, and proceeded to tell me a lot about... something that involved lots of acronyms.

"What about you?" he asked.

I explained I was just on a connecting flight to South Africa. He looked at me strangely.

"Why would you go there?" he asked, giving me the look you usually reserve for when someone calmly sets their sweater on fire and jumps out a window into a fiery pit of despair while screaming, "WHEEEE!"

So, I explained I was going to work with cheetahs there and told him how this had been one of my biggest dreams and I'd finally gotten the courage to quit my job and pay bucket loads of money so I could head out there. I tried to sound more confident about what I was doing than I really felt.

And as I told him all this, I could see his eyes widening a little. And then it happened. His expression changed from that "WTF?" look to one of pure envy. At that moment, this big VIP type guy who spends all day commanding legions of minions to do his bidding was looking at me like I was holding the most valuable thing in the world in my hands.

"Well, good luck chasing your dream," he said as he stood up to get his luggage and go.

"Thanks! And good luck with your... umm... meeting."

It was at this moment I knew I made the right decision.

And it was. Even if I could only afford to be there for one month (and the shortest month of the year! *grumbles), I got to help take care of 9 wonderful adult cheetahs: Shakira (the feisty one), Cole (the poor guy constantly trying to flirt with Shakira and being rejected over and over), Nikita (the photogenic one), Nala (the antisocial cuddler), Jemima (she who lays around doing nothing all day), Finley (the ambiguously gay one that climbed trees for the sole purpose of pooping from them and making us clean it up), Mufasa (the ginormous one), Penny (hater of everyone), and Tessa (she who may try to eat you on days that end with 'Y').

Also, there were the children of Caine, who I call that only because it sounds cool and their dad happened to be named Caine. Tippy and Jade were adorable (if kind of bi-polar).

There was a lot of work to do. Cleaning, watering, cleaning, food preparation, cleaning, feeding, more cleaning, clearing lots of thick, thorny vegetation, more cleaning, exercising the cheetahs (which was hardly a chore - seeing cheetahs run are one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed), cleaning, helping occasionally when tourists came around, and, of course, there was some cleaning involved. It could get hot, lots of people got sunburned, you had to get used to a lot of icky jobs and stuff involving bloody chunks of meat (and keep in mind I'm a vegetarian!).

There were, of course, other challenges. Flies were annoying, insects were huge and you were nommy to them, electricity and water weren't completely consistent, and whenever you opened something, there was a fair chance some random small animal or insect would jump out at you. I've found frogs in both the shower and my shoes (which I discovered AFTER putting it on).

Speaking of showers, the showers there did not understand the concept of warm water. Instead, you had three choices: boiling, ice cold, and wildly alternating temperature. No matter what you chose, you also got wildly fluctuating water pressure. Showers were always a very interesting experience.

But at the end of every day, all these became minor things. I always found myself feeling insane happy and so much more satisfied than I ever had been about anything else I'd done. It's amazing how even if you're just cleaning up cheetah droppings, you can feel so good about yourself when you're doing something that's helping something you truly believe in and care about.

If what we're trying works, we'd be the first to successfully re-introduce captive cheetahs into the wild and that would make such a gigantic difference. In captivity, cheetahs live twice as long and their cubs have an insanely higher chance of surviving. If we could get them to raise cubs that could be released into the wild at maturity to somewhere with few competing predators, that'd be huge. Of course, we were just starting this process and I always felt like what I was doing was hardly anything, but even that little bit felt great.

I also got to spend a lot of time directly with some of the cheetahs, which allowed me to cross off "Hug a cheetah" from my bucket list. A few of my happier moments were getting brought into a grooming circle of cheetahs, and getting snuggled between Jemima and Nala while I squeed happily.

I'm finally home. I miss the cheetahs, but I'm so happy to get to talk to my friends again (and have hot showers... today I took the first one I've had since I left and pretty much melted in bliss). Oh, and having internet is pretty nice, too. ^^

I've learned so much, I've got to do so many great things - more than I can tell, even in something already to-long, and I'm even considering an eventual change of career after this. The trip was a total success, totally worth it, and I'm so happy I had the privilege of working with such beautiful, incredible, unique creatures.

Anyway, best be off. I've got a months worth of bills to catch up on and, oh yeah, I still need to find a new job so I can pay them!

Laters, all!