This week was thankfully much more eventful than last week. Monday I finally got word from my advisor about registering classes and my advisor took care of it. It's not my ideal schedule for sure, but at least I finally got all classes I needed. That morning I went to do observations all morning. In the afternoon I went with Matti on a game count. We saw an ard wolf and a bat-eared fox! It was surprising because normally you see those much later at night and we saw them clearly in the middle of the day. It was great.

Tuesday I can't remember that well. I did observations that morning with the four boys and then that afternoon I worked on things for the gala. I spent three hours updating the old spreadsheet with the new information. So from the 190 calls I made I updated it with all the new information I had received with calls. It took a long time, but was well worth it. That evening I was really tired but Carolynn and I joined in the night game count and sat in the back of the truck. We had blankets, jackets, and cookies so we had a great time. In the very beginning while passing the Chocolates pen we saw a wild cheetah without a collar sitting right outside. We got a good view and Matti said it's not one we've recorded in the area! The whole rest of the night we didn't really see much, but on our way back we saw another wild cheetah on the road also not recorded, and then the same one previously seen in the same area. James thinks it's two of the three cubs that a wild female had a while ago, but now they are a bit older. We're hoping at least one is a female and we can have more baby cheetahs!

Wednesday I remember more clearly. I went to go feed the scars that morning and then bolted to find Tusnelda for our scat walk. In case I haven't mentioned it before the scat walk is where you walk around parts of CCF looking for scat (specifically from the wild boys that frequently wander about the area). We didn't find any, but we had a nice talk nevertheless. I went feeding with Kate in the morning which is always nice. In the afternoon I went to do an orientation about the waterhole count to happen the next day. Later I went on another game count with Matti and just a few other people. Again we didn't see anything overly exciting just some oryx and things. However, on our way back we found a pair of men's underwear on the road. Matti was utterly disgusted he had picked it up not knowing what it was. That night Rosie's family came to stay at Boskop to visit her. We had a fire going and talked for a while. Meg and I left early because we had to get up at 4:00 am for the waterhole count the next day. Also we had planned to stay the night at the castle tower that night for the full moon. Supposedly it's a good time to see a leopard around CCF.

So Thursday we got up super early and left at 4:30am to pick up the rest of the volunteers to do the 12-hr waterhole count. When we got there we discovered that a very large part of the main fence was torn down right next to the gate. That means giraffe and who knows what else could have gotten out. After all that work taking pictures of the giraffes to identify them, now many could be missing. No one wanted to have to tell James. Meg and I were together in the hide called Kindergarten. We brought my laptop, loads of snacks, and books to read. For a while in the morning nothing was at the waterhole so I took a nap. Just after I fell asleep things started to come to drink. We saw mostly warthog and guinea fowl. After a while we brought out my laptop and played Wheel of Fortune on it for a bit. It was pretty fun playing the game while having warthog in the background. James showed up and explained that two male giraffes must have gotten in a fight through the fence which caused it to break down. He found a blood trail, but lost it. We were supposed to try to get in contact with him if we saw any injured giraffe from the hide. After he left we decided to pull out the lunch and movies. We decided to watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. It wasn't the best movie to stay quiet with thought because we constantly burst out laughing. However, the oryx and warthog that were present didn't seem to mind. The time went by fast and we hadn't really seen anything exciting, but we had a lot of fun. Just a little while before James picked us up there were 6 Eland at the waterhole. I've never been so close to them, and I certainly didn't have any pictures of them. It was a great way to end it all. When James got there he told us that he was going to do a night drive with Rosie's family and that we could come. I was excited because I figured it would be a great night with the full moon and all. It was freezing, but we did see another bat-eared fox, a genet, an owl, some type of predator bird that looked like an owl, and the usual things like oryx and stuff. It was great except I didn't have much and I was sooo cold! In the end Meg, Carolynn, and I decided we were too cold to stay in the tower for the night.

Friday was a fun day. I did observations in the morning and then I went feeding shortly after. I couldn't continue observations for Cruise and the boys because they were fixing that fence. Feeding is always great though, and the cheetahs in Bellebenno were great runners this time with about 8 of them all running behind the truck. That afternoon I worked with Avra making calls for the Gala. It gets to the point where little things are very entertaining. I called one woman who answered for her daughter and for some reason she could not understand I wasn't calling for a reservation! In the end I just gave her our number, but I may just call back.

Saturday morning I did observations with Cruise and the boys in the morning. They were such a pain because I couldn't tell who was who since they were hidden in the grass, then they kept moving, and sometimes they would separate. Nearly two hours later I finished right as Kate came back from feeding to pick me up. This time Cruise even was purring a few times near the boys so I think despite being a little rejected he is still happier to be there with them. When we got back to the office we all jetted off to Boskop for a half day. James, Kate, Carolynn, Meg and I all went to town because Kate was being dropped off to go see Matt arrive from the UK, and James had to do some errands. In the end everything was closed really so we basically just ate and left for home. Getting out of CCF is still fun though. When we got home we just relaxed until about 4pm and we all headed to the common room to watch the final Rugby game between the Bulls and the Stormers. It was fun and ended with perfect timing to get dinner and go home. A lot of the earthwatch volunteers were leaving so we said goodbye to them on our way out. I barely got to know these ones, but at least they were way nice. We debated what to do until finally Meg and I decided we wanted to watch the Sound of Music in our room. I'm glad we did that because Carolynn and James ended up watching two horror movies.

Sunday morning I woke up way early as usual and read outside. I'm really going to miss Boskop. It's really pretty here and I love being able to get up and read in the mornings. Meg got up as well and we had hot chocolate and toast out on the patio as we read. It's definitely a nice way to spend a Sunday morning. We went into CCF for brunch only to find that the new cook was making lunch and didn't know about brunch. So I grabbed some eggs and bacon from the kitchen and when we got back to Boskop I made French toast and Carolynn made bacon. It definitely made up for the lack of brunch. Once we finished we decided to go for a walk out in the donkey fields. Our real motivation was to figure out a way to be able to ride the horse out there. Meg's the best for that, but she doesn't want to get attached since they are there to be cheetah food. I don't really care it's going to be cheetah food, I just want to ride it before it gets shot. Unfortunately Carolynn and I couldn't get close enough to touch it, but it was still a nice walk. The farm is seriously huge. The rest of the day has been really relaxing and I'm sad it's my last Sunday, but it's been a good one.