Introducing Marta Salinas, Nina Muitjens, Laura Welsh, Erika Meiring,  Miguel Salinas and Kourtney Gillis – our latest group of students! Here is what they had to say about their experience:
Working at the Centre was wonderful! We did so many things. Of course we had our weekly routine: offloading meat trucks, butchery, feeding the cheetahs every other day and collecting bones. As well as preparing food for the small cats, feeding them, feeding Little G, the hornbills and the antelopes. Our job considered feeding the big rhinos, cleaning and feeding wild dogs. The feeding list goes on and on with different types of animals. Which was nice, because it didn’t get boring.
We had our surprises as well. At day 2 we got to collar a cheetah for its release. The vet sedated it and we got to help to move it. This was not the only time we saw the vet. In the centre we’ve got a rhino. Her horn was sawed off with a chainsaw. This is still an open wound, after 1 year. Her cast (what protects the open wound) has to be replaced about every three weeks. We got to see how this was done. It is nice to see the centre is involved with the animals. It’s a sign of good care and love for them.
The excursions were awesome and well organized! We had many excursions like going to a cool reptile centre, heartwarming Jessica the hippo, beautiful Kruger Park, scary Adventure centre and an amazing elephant back safari. All were very nice, informative and fun to do.
In between the excursions we got to do a lot of fun stuff as well. We went to a delicious pancake-house, every Tuesday there was a town trip, we went to several coffee shops, we did game drives on Kapama Game Reserve, we learned how to survive in the bushveld in South Africa, learned how to shoot a rifle, we walked for elephants and rhinos and we went to a primary school to give a lecture about cheetahs.
We did and learned so many things! We learned so much more than we could’ve imagined. All thanks to Tabs and Renier who took wonderful care of us and who were so fun to hang out with. The staff took us under their wings and made our stay pleasant. We made lifelong friendships with people from all over the world. It was truly an amazing experience that we will never forget!
Love and greets,
Erika Meiring (South African), Kourtney Gillis (Canadian) and Nina Muijtjens (Dutch).