After coming back from Rasa Ria we had 3 days off before starting our new rotation. One of the free nights, 6 of us decided to go into town to some karaoke bars. We got all dressed up and straightened our hair (what a luxury)! The first bar we went to was empty, we walked up to the man at the bar and asked for a menu – they didn’t have one. In fact, all they did have was tiger beer or Carlsberg. He did bring out a (dusty) box of red wine but we couldn’t just have a glass, we had to buy the whole box, the same went for the (dusty) never been opened bottle of whisky. Tiger it was! As the night went on, the bar got busier, and a few beers later, we eventually started singing. From abba to westlife to barbie girl. The locals had to finish ‘flying without wings’ for us as we weren’t very good. We were bought a couple of rounds of more tiger by some other locals too but by this point we were tigered out. We then went onto a club called ‘Kiss Me’ where we had a good dance. It was a fun night out. We had to wake up at 7 the next morning for our group photos and we were all pretty hung-over. However we were surprised to hear that, as our group had worked so hard, we were allowed to have some photos with the orangutans. A photographer came and took a group photo of us with Sogo Sogo and Wulan however Wulan started getting diarrhoea in the middle of the photo so she had to go back in. We also managed to get some individual photos with these orangs which will be so special. In the afternoon we went back to the English Tea House, we had lots of lovely cake and played a funny game of croquet. We then went to Sandakan Market and were majorly let down so didn’t stay very long. In the evening we went to cinema and saw Imagine That with Eddie Murphy which was such a treat after being in the jungle for 5—6 weeks.
Thursday was our first day of our new rotation – clinic. Our day consists of feeding all the babies, toddlers and ill orangutans in quarantine. We feed them bananas or harder fruit if they have diarrhoea. We then make up their milk and feed this to them too. It was a lot more work than Rasa Ria because we only had 7 orangs there but we have about 16 to look after at Sepilok. After this we take all the toddler orangs to play in the jungle gym. Cleaning time!! But then comes bathing time...this is when we bath 5 tinyweeny babies - Wulan, Michelle, Matamis, Kala and Tara. This is a lovely time of day and a part I really look forward to. The babies are still so young, less than 2 years old and still crave cuddles from their mummies so are always squeaking for us to come to them. We then take 3 toddlers out to train, different ones each day. There is Tambi, Gamai, Salamat, Rubin, Yoda, Sen, Cheria and Ample. Tambi and Gamai are so so naughty and I am actually scared of taking them out. They just bite you and run away the whole time. One time I took Tambi out he ran over to where the builders were working and was climbing all over planks of wood with nails sticking out. I was so worried but everytime I tried to grab him to take him away, he just would go to bite me. I ended up giving him 2 slices of bread, apple, banana and sugarcane just to get him to behave. I felt awful giving treats for bad behaviour. Salamat and Rubin are sweethearts, Rubin has a constant smile on his face and what looks like blue eyeliner under his eyes. Yoda isn’t one of my favourites as one day when I was cleaning he grabbed my hair and pulled a massive chunk out and then just sat playing with it. It felt like he gave me a black eye it hurt so much. Sen and Cheria are the youngest of the toddlers and are really cheeky boys. Cheria is sweet though and when he is in training he always comes back for cuddles. Ample I feel is the odd one out, he is really skinny and doesn’t interact a whole lot with the others. Ample loves going deep into the forest when we are training and he is really difficult to find, he also knows that we keep bananas on us and likes to pick pocket.
Taking the teenyweeny babies out in the afternoon for training is great fun. Tara isn’t very good at walking and literally flops everywhere. The first time we took her out she just flopped from one of us to the next but as time went on she got much better at climbing and got lots of confidence. Kala looks like a mini reg, he has so much hair and is gorgeous. He also has lots of confidence although one day we took him out with one of the ill orang-utans, Nonong - and he was really scared so didn’t really leave our side. The first day we took Tara out she kept climbing up us but she had a bum full of poo and I ended up with poo all over me. Matamis had a leech sucking on her arm one day and she didn’t realise, we picked it off her and her arm just kept bleeding. She seemed really distressed about it, poor thing.
The orang-utans in quarantine are Nonong, Alain and Unkyuong. Nonong has been paralysed on one side of her body due to malaria, Alain bites his toes so they have been infected and Unkyuong has a wound on her neck that is being treated. We took Nonong out with the babies as she isn’t well enough to go out in the jungle on her own. She was really good with Matamis and Michelle and acted like their mother, trying to pick them up in her mouth and carry them. It was so lovely to watch. It’s really sad for Nonong though as she may never be strong enough to go back into the wild.
As this rotation comes to an end the orang-utans are all becoming ill. All the babies have diarrhoea and some have flu. Also some of the toddlers have flu too. Not a whole lot of fun for them. I even managed to catch a parasite off one of the babies and ended up in bed for 2 days with really bad stomach and sickness. I am feeling much better now and can get back to looking after the poor things. I am being much more careful with washing my hands after touching the ill ones now though.
During the week we also had a local culinary night. The manager of Sepilok – Sylvia came over to the resthouse. One of the rangers’ wives – Wotti did the cooking. She owns a stand on the side of the road and sells the most amazing sweet potato fritters. We got to try lots of local food including rice wine which was ever so strong, jungle fern (literally cut straight from the jungle), local spinach, a really spicy ginger paste and some incredible sweetcorn fritters.
There are a few people working on the Orangutan Appeal UK Charity here in Sepilok at the moment. One of the women – Hayley - is climbing mount kinabalu with us for this charity; she is doing it in an orang-utan costume to raise awareness. This also will bring about orang-utan awareness week starting next week. Hayley asked me if I would like to be the ‘mc’ for the week and give a presentation every lunchtime to the tourists about why we need to raise awareness and how we can...so lots of homework for me.
We went to one of the jungle resorts for lunch one day. They have salads and it seems like the only place in Malaysia that actually do salads. However they aren’t really big enough so I thought I would try out some malay words I had learnt and asked for a bigger salad with extra chicken but I ended up getting a green salad with chicken curry and rice on the side. Not really what I asked for!
One night we met a Batik artist, Amin, who has won 7 Sabah artist awards in a row. He brought photographs of all his work to show us. His paintings are piped on with hot wax and are full of colour – just beautiful. At first I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to buy one but everyone else did. But once I saw how they turned out, I had to order one for myself.
We have had some scary encounters this week. One of the rangers was sitting in the cafe and a snake came in and slid straight into the ranger’s wellington boot!! You just can’t escape them.
My friend Becca came in my room the other day screaming – she had what looked like a massive black beetle with wings on her foot. It was vibrating and her whole body was vibrating because of it. I wasn’t sure how to get it off and was on the phone to mum at the time – I ended up hitting it with a dettol can. Vicious creatures they are. I was also sitting on the couch after my lunch writing this blog and I felt something on my leg but didn’t look as I thought it was a fly and it was a leech...in the resthouse! I thought they were only in the jungle but somehow one had managed to get in...that’s just not right, an invasion of our no leech area.
We start climbing Mount Kinabalu on Sunday and finish on Tuesday afternoon...getting quite nervous especially as I have been sick for a few days . And we only have 2 weeks left until the end of the volunteer placement  it is going to be awful saying goodbye to all the babies and the friends I have made. Looking forward to the next part of my travelling experience though. Will keep you posted on my mountain progress and also my final rotation – husbandry. This is where we get to tell the tourists off...fun times.