bolivia - inti wara yassi

Well, its been an interesting couple of weeks.  For anyone that knows me, they know I really like animals.  However, I have always had a certain disklike for monkeys.  Maybe because they´re a little creepy, or a little human-like, or just kind of annoying, but I never really cared for them much.  After spending two weeks with them, I´m not sure I feel much differently about them!  I would love to relay a really touching story about how I changed the animals lives at the refuge, or how they changed mine, but I think that would be a bit far from the truth.


The Refuge:
For those wondering what in the world I´m referencing, Guy and I spent two weeks volunteering at an animal refuge in Bolivia called Inti Wara Yassi.  To read more about the organization, visit http://www.intiwarayassi.org/articles/volunteer_animal_refuge/home.html.  We stayed at Parque Machia, "Gringo Camp", or as one girl called it "Fat Camp with Animals" (that´s my favorite).  In summary, this is what the organization is all about (took this from the website) ¨In Bolivia, there are black markets full of wild animals being sold to hotels, private homes and Circuses. These animals are usually obtained by hunting down the parents or group leaders and then taking the babies to be sold in the black markets. In many cases the animals are endangered species. The captured animals are usually kept in small cages, with little or no protection from the elements. Many are malnourished and some badly abused.¨  In steps Inti Wara Yassi to rescue these animals and give them a home. 

Arrival:
When we arrived at the refuge in the small town of Villa Tunari, were dropped off by our bus just steps from the office.  I mention this, because I had originally imagined going into the depths of the amazon to reach the refuge, not merely feet from an incredibly busy road!  We waited around a few hours until we were able to meet with someone who would tell us what we would be doing the next few weeks and where we would be staying.  In the meantime we talked to some current volunteers and I noticed that everyone smelled really bad.  Really bad.  The volunteer coordinator and head guy blew us off and had someone else give us our initiation, and Guy was assigned to ¨Monkey Park¨ and I to the clinic, although at the time we knew little of what that would mean. 

Accomodations:
When we wrapped things up with our initiation, we headed to one of the three hostels the refuge has "Copa."  We opted for this hostel because we were told its the nicest of the three.  I can´t even imagine what the others must have looked like.  To say the mattress sagged would be an understatement, plaster was coming off every wall in large chunks, ants marching across the floor and flying bugs parading through the holey screens.  We bought a mosquito net a few days later to keep from getting devoured.  When we introduced ourselves to our neighbors, they mentioned that they had been using our shower before we arrived, because theirs kept starting on fire, and the girl´s hair even started on fire!!  (Many South American showers are run on electric heat).  Later on at a restaurant, we witnessed this horrifying phenomenon through the window and saw flashes, sparks, and a little girl screaming from the bathroom.  Luckily, our shower worked quite nicely, so it was never a problem.

The Cafe:
The next morning we woke up at 6:20 to start our first day.  We headed down to the cafe where we would eat our first of many meals.  This vegetarian cafe is part of the refuge and offers cheap meals and snacks and I thought it was absolutely delicious.  I told Guy I wished we could have taken the cafe with us.  Egg sandwiches, orea cookies, fresh papaya, and whatever hot veggie goodness the ladies decided to make for lunch.  There´s a sassy old lady who runs the place who is an absolutely hoot.  She´s missing several teeth, is about 4 feet tall, has one inch pigtails and wears (what looks like) old grandma nighties everyday.  Even if I understood Spanish, I wouldn´t be able to understand her because she talks in this high shrill voice that makes me laugh everytime she talks.  Even though she knows I can´t speak Spanish, she tries talking to me all the time, wildly gesturing, trying to get her point across.  Sometimes she waves her hands in disgust at me, and sometimes we giggle as I stumble over my newly acquired Spanish words.  Either way, I was glad the cafe was steps from the clinic, so I could pop in for a little treat throughout the day.  My happy place.

A Typical Day:

After filling up on our breakfasts, I head to the clinic, where Claudia shows me what it means to work for the vets.  I´m of course imagining that I will assist them with sick animals, or helping hold a bird while they give it medicine...but neither of those things ever really happened.  Typically, a person who works in the clinic is required to speak Spanish very well, since none of the vets speak ANY English.  Apparently they didn´t care about that with me.  It was quite hilarious that first day, poor Claudia trying to explain to me what I would do for the next 11 hours.  Luckily, we did come across a schedule written in English to help me know what to do.  And what did I do for 11 hours?  It all comes down to a lot of feeding and cleaning.  When I arrived at 7:30, I would uncover the monkeys in their cages and give them their breakfast of bananas and api (oatmeal).  This is also the time where I looked as though I was working in a psych ward for monkeys.  They would absolutely lose their minds as I pulled out the food.  Shaking cages, taunting one another, getting overly excited and throwing their plates, screaming on the top of their lungs...it was quite a sight to behold.  Other volunteers would walk in the clinic at this time and look around in bewilderment at the monkeys´ insanity, and I would just nod knowingly.  Then the vets would take about half of the monkeys (about 26 total) out of their cages and put them on leashes attached to ropes so they had a little more freedom and movement.  After breakfast I would proceed to clean the cages and floors, and attempt to collect the plates from the monkeys, which was always a tricky task. 

Lunch time included me cutting up lots of papaya and serving it with bananas on the same little monkey plates from breakfast.  I felt like I was running my own little monkey cafe.  After lunch I would go clean "ropa" - little blankets given to the monkeys each night at bedtime.  And by clean I mean take a bar of soap, a stiff brush and scrub 30 little blankets by hand.  Everyday.  After cleaning ropa I got to take my own lunch for about an hour or so.  After my lunch it was back to more cleaning, and then later another monkey cafe dinner of veggies: lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and beans.  Twice during the day I would handfeed them a snack of peanuts, maize, dried fish, eggs, or even one time...jello!  I also feed them water from a bottle twice a day.  After dinner, you guessed it...more cleaning.  Then the vets would put the leash monkeys back into their cages, we´d give them their blankets, and cover them with tarps for the night.  At that point, we would go and clean the rest of the monkey domain where the monkeys on ropes spent their day.  At this time, it was about 6 or 6:30.  Long day!!

The Clinic:

The clinic is the first stop for all animals coming into the park.  Often (if not most) times they are scared, sick, and coming from less than desirable of circumstances.  The monkeys that stay in the clinic area still need time to adjust and a lot of them are too psychologically damaged to properly interact with other monkeys or humans.  Sadly, some of the adult monkeys don´t leave their cages for up to a year.  That was depressing.  But the alternative is just to risky to the safety of humans and other monkeys.  The monkeys on leashes were only able to be handled by the vets, and fed by the vets.  I really respected the vets at the park, and they were very nice to me despite my lack of Spanish speaking abilities!  Their names kind of sounded like they should be on Sesame Street, but they were great: Luis, Grover, Nelson, and Flash.  About half of our monkeys in cages were babies, and I could interact with them some, and we would hold hands sometimes.  After about a week, I was allowed to put a few of the "leash" monkeys in their cages, since they were the more gentle ones and had gotten used to me.  I was encouraged to see a few of the monkeys leave the clinic during my few weeks there, and move to the next monkey stage: quarantine.

Areas of the Park:

From the clinic, monkeys would go to "Monkey Quarantine" which was an atmosphere similar to the clinic, but on a larger scale.  The people who worked in this area often complained of the work, and didn´t care for it very much!  From quarantine, the hopes is that the monkeys will be able to move on to a life free from ropes at "Monkey Park" which is where Guy worked.  All of these monkeys that I´m refering to are capachin monkeys.  There is also a park called "Spider Park", where spider monkeys dwell.  I didn´t have any interactions with spider monkeys, but I hear they are very sweet and cuddly.  There is also a large exotic bird aviary, the "Mirador" with more monkeys, and several large cats.  In order to work with a cat you have to make a month long commitment.  I would have loved to have worked with a large cat...but also a bit hesistant!  The volunteers who worked with cats would take them on long walks on a leash everyday, and enjoyed it for the most part...but there were a few that got swiped or bit by their cats.  Can you imagine something like this existing in the United States?! 

As nice of a place as the clinic was to be at times, it was also a hard place for me to be.  When we decided to go to IWY, I imagined being able to interact with more animals, and actually BE IN the jungle.  It was hard as I heard just about everyone else talk about the animals they were interacting with, or the hikes they were taking in the jungle, when I was stuck with monkeys in cages and concrete floors. 

Scary Moments

So enough with the droning on about details...here´s the exciting stuff.  There were definitely a few moments during the two weeks that were downright frightening.  Three in particular come to mind.

1. Getting bit.  Yep.  It happened two or three days into volunteering.  And it was bad.  There was one monkey on a leash in the clinic that seemed to be ok with me, and another girl came in and even held him!  I thought maybe it would be ok to slip him a plate of food, since surely he would want the food, right?!  Wrong.  I handed him the plate of food with my left hand, and he lunged at my right hand.  And this wasn´t a bite and run situation.  This was a bite and GNAW situation.  I actually remained quite calm and tried to make my hand go limp so he would let go, but he didn´t.  He latched on and kept chewing.  At that point I yelled for the vets, and once they came to the doorway he let go.  Luis immediately cleaned the opening and determined I would be ok without stitches.  They moved the monkey further back and I never ventured into monkey rope land without the vets ok.  This same monkey bit another girl 3 times several days later, even after I warned her not to go near him!  He, like several other large male monkeys, simply don´t like women, and that´s why they bite.  Stupid sexist monkeys. 

2.  Getting my glasses stolen by a monkey.  As stupid and creepy as monkeys can be, they are also very fast and very smart.  And very tricky.  As I was befriending another monkey, this one in a cage, post-bite (apparently I still had some things to learn) I got just a little TOO close to him, and he nabbed my glasses right off my face!  It was as if time stood still while I watched him proceed to repeatedly raise my glasses over his head and smash them over and over onto the board in his cage.  I yelled for Luis and another girl in the clinic, and they came over to try and help get them back.  With the lenses face down on the board, he then took one bow and pushed it down, making them completely straight, repeating with the other side as well.  All I could think about was how I was going to tell Guy I needed new glasses.  I watched helplessly in horror.  The other girl Revital had grabbed a bucket of snacks to entice him, and as he grabbed the bucket, spilling maize everywhere, she managed to grab them.  By a miracle of God, I was actually able to bend my plastic frames back into shape and am still wearing them today.  We visited an eye doctor yesterday to get them completely wearable again!!

3.  Witnessing a monkey attack.  I think this was more scary than my monkey bite.  Especially because it was almost me it happened too!  One of the monkeys escaped from quarantine (which is right next to the clinic) and attacked a girl just steps outside the clinic.  As I was sweeping I heard someone screaming.  Here she comes running into the clinic with a monkey attached to her, biting her arm.  Luckily a vet was there and got the monkey off of her and into a room.  She had been bitten many times and was obviously quite shaken.  It was pretty dramatic and very scary.  She ended up being ok, but clearly frightened.  After that, there were about 4 more animal escapes, all of which amounted in no attacks, but definitely kept me on my toes.

Other Tough Things

The bridge:  In order to get into the town of Villa Tunari to eat dinner (not served at the cafe), go on the internet or buy anything, you have to cross the scariest bridge in the world.  Ok, maybe its not that scary, but its certainly very dangerous.  The "shoulder" is about 6 inches wide, which is not enough room to comfortably or safely walk on, so most of the time it is necessary to walk on the actual concrete structure of the bridge to get across, which requires some balance and concentration.  The worst is getting passed by a semi, which nearly forces you to turn to the side, in fear that you might get side-swiped.  Some people were more afraid of crossing the bridge than the animals!  The whole road (even before the bridge) was quite dangerous as well, and it needed to be crossed everytime you needed to use the bathroom!  Two dogs were hit and killed right in front of the refuge during our stay there.

The leadership:  As I mentioned we got blown off the first night by one of the leaders of the refuge.  I felt (as did many others) that he never reached out to us in any way, or tried to create a positive inviting environment.  I even tried saying hello to this man a few times and he never said anything back.  Its unfortunate when leadership and organization are lacking in volunteer situations such as this, and sadly I think its a reality in many places other than IWY.  Nena, the woman who founded IWY, has a sparkling personality and a fantastic person, but needs to focus her attention on other big picture issues, and has left the volunteer coordination in the wrong hands.  Due partly to this, several people came and left even during our short time at the refuge.  I personally can´t imagine staying for a month, or in the case of some people - months - due to the lack of time off or any downtime.  If people stay for a month, I believe they get two days (maybe only one) off.  That means you work 11 hour days 28 or 29 days out of 30.  No thanks.

Good Things

Its really hard for me to some up our whole experience at IWY without going on and on (even longer than I already am).  The days certainly were long, circumstances could be dangerous at times, and the leadership was frustrating, but I don´t want to make it sound like the whole thing was awful or a waste of time.  It was really nice being in one place for a few weeks, even if it was hard!  It was great being around the other volunteers and meeting new people.  There were people from England, Germany, Israel, France, the U.S., Poland, Switzerland, Australia and Bolivia.  As insane as some of my monkeys were, there were a few that I really liked and enjoyed spending time with.  I have no idea what type of circumstances those monkeys came from though, and realizing that I´m providing a lot of the care they need each day makes me feel good, even if its a very small thing.  The few times I got to help the vets with new animals was very rewarding, even just to help give medicine to baby monkeys.  There was a baby ocelot that was recovered from a cocaine factory that would never would have had a chance if it didn´t come to the refuge.  It is blind and can´t walk very well, but they haven´t given up on her and have given her a loving home.

Well, that´s about as exhaustive as I want to get on my little Animal Refuge experience, both the good and the bad.  It was definitely "an experience" that I´m not sure will ever be replicated, and I certainly don´t regret going one bit.  Or bite.

For those interested in seeing more of my photos from this year-long trip, please friend me on facebook!