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Hi everyone, Yep I'm still alive, Malaria and Rabies free, after my 3 week volunteer experience at Community Inti Wara Yassi (CIYW) in Bolivia. The sanctuary is half way between Bolivia's 2nd and 3rd largest cities, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. Here's what the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Travel Advice Website has to say about the region... "Travellers should avoid the coca growing areas, such as the Chapare region between Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. There is violence and guerilla activity with the possibility of armed military intervention. " and about Bolivia in general... "The World Health Organisation report that the following diseases, among others, can occur in Bolivia: Cholera, Dengue Fever, Hepatitis A, Malaria (regional), Tuberculosis, Typhoid Fever and Yellow Fever (regional). " I did not encounter any problems during my time there. Well, other than that monkey bite I wrote about earlier, and subsequently not being able to walk for three days, and three other monkey bites, millions of insect bites, frustration at not being able to get any medical attention, oh, and towards the end of my stay, two totally incompetent volunteers.  But other than that, the time was a great experience and I would really like to get back there in the next eighteen months to two years or so. CIWY was set up in La Paz buy a guy named Juan Carlos, originally as a place to educate orphan children about the environment they live in and the animals and plants and stuff. This then branched out into taking care of animals that were being sold in the market place, mistreated as pets, abused in the circus, or any other animals that needed care and love. Juan Carlos and Nena found the CIWY site in the Chapare region, and started up the refuge, with literally no money. They begged for money and food, and always fed the animals before themselves. CIWY is now totally funded by donations from people who come as tourists to look at the animals, and by the volunteers who work there. They receive no government funding or any other help. The park is struggling to stay in action. Also, the jungle where the park has been set up used to be a hunting area which provided income for the small town called Villa Tunari. Now that the park is there and the volunteers mainly stay at the park and at an associated hotel, the town's people, especially hotel owners, resent the park being there and are trying to get it shut down. Bolivian locals have little or no respect for animals or their environment and do not appreciate what is being done for these little, and not so little, creatures at the park. The Casa de Voluntarios, or house for the volunteers, accommodates about 12 people. It is very simple, each room having a couple of beds and possibly a small table that someone has found somewhere. There is a kitchen and a living area with a couple of tables, benches, and hamocks as well. The floors are just concrete, the place is hardly monkey proof, and made worse by people constantly walking in and out and leaving the doors open.  The house animals are Oso, the funny little creature that I still don't know what he is, Gringo, a large shaggy dog, Yeti, a crazy dog that always teases and plays with Oso, and Tuna the cat who also play fights with Oso. Tuna is always sitting on the dining tables or benches, or on the top shelf in the kitchen. Oso always turns up in unexpected places, and often slept on my bed at night. The family next door has 6 children who live with their parents in one room which contains two double beds, a TV, a stove, fridge and tools and brooms and stuff you'd generally find in a garage. They share the toilets and shower, which are in a separate compound, with the park volunteers. The toilets usually flush, but have no lights, and are fairly putrid smelling. The shower is electric, so it usually has hot water. They also share 3 washing sinks with the park. The one side of the washing sink is used for washing the clothes and blankets that the monkeys have in their cages. Each day they are collected and washed. They stink and are full of excrement and urine. The other side of the washing sink is for washing peoples clothes. If it is raining heavily, the monkeys clothes are washed in the peoples sink because the monkey sink isn't under cover. Sometimes monkeys get into the kitchen and look for food. When we wake up in the morning there are jam jars smashed on the floor, cornflakes everywhere, half eaten bananas, squashed tomatos, sugar, torn plastic bags, seeds, and what ever else they can find all over the shelves. For some reason, the kitchen doesn't have a proper plaster ceiling like the dorm rooms. It's open with just the support beems and the roof above. Volunteers have tried to monkey proof the place with wire mesh and canvas, but monkeys can bend and chew and squeeze through. So temporary patches have no effect what so ever. Hopefully now you are begining to see the environment the volunteers live in. Several volunteers choose not to live in the Casa, because of the lack of hygien, and stay in hotels in town. This is perfectly understandable, however the money they pay to the hotels don't in any way contribute to the park or the welfare of the animals, which is a great shame. However, no matter how many volunteers the park has at any one time, there is always so much to do taking care of the animals, feeding them, walking them, administering medicine, repairing things etc. etc. that there doesn't leave any time, or money for that matter, to do extra things that would be nice to do but are not absolutely essential on any given day. So, about my experience. I absolutely loved it. I worked part time with the birds, and part time with the monkeys. With the birds, you don't get the same interaction and relationship you do with the monkeys, but there were some extra special birds. I wrote about Touci in my last email. He was the baby Toucan. Unfortunately, one day he was out of his cage, as he is every day, but on this occassion, a monkey attacked him and he died. Touci was a hillarious little fellow. He didn't try to be, but he just was. Like a little wind up toy, he'd hop along and follow me around the cages at feeding time, waiting for scraps to fall, or he'd just sit in the sun on his favourite log, or in the morning he liked to play in the due that accumulated under this massive, like 2 metre long, banana type leaf. Then there was Victoria, a parrot that would talk. All she could say was "hola" and "lorro" which means "hello" and "parrot" in Spanish. But she'd talk all day, sitting in her favourite tree. Sometimes she'd sit on my shoulder while I did chores around the place. Rosa and Watson, are two large Crimson Macaws who, in the mornings, I'd put on a branch of a tree I could reach and they scramble their way up into the highest branches. They wouldn't come down until dinner time when they'd come back down to the low branch and wait for me to hold up a stick for them to crawl onto to put them back in their cage. Polly, another male Crimson Macaw, would also be allowed out of his cage, but he preferred to sit on the wire mesh under the fibreglass roof of the cages of other birds than sit in the branch of a tree. The three Owls are beautiful creatures. At first only one of them had a name. Emanuel, a whitish Owl would sometimes bow his head down and let you pat him, which is unusual for a wild, meat eating, hunter bird. He was a funny creature. When you presented him with his portion of meat, held out on a stick, so he couldn't nip your fingers, he'd close his eyes while he tried to pull the meat free. Emanuel was renamed when the other two owls were given their names, all in the theme of Harry Potter, Emanuel became Hedwig, and the other two were Dumbledore and Voldamort. There was also a one eyed Falcon and two Hawkes who didn't have names, but are now known as Bob and Hazel. When ever  I went into the cage to feed the Hawkes they'd start making their call, which is like a beeping car alarm. There are many other birds, I think about 40 in total. There are 9 Blue Headed Amazonas, 2 Green Amazonas, the largest of the Amazonas family, 3 Yellow and Blue Macaws who are all quite aggressive, a very different temperament to the Crimson Macaws. There's also a bird that looks kind of out of place surrounded by all the other birds, I was told it's a Wild Turkey. One morning I found a very sick Blue Headed Amazonas lying on the floor of his cage, and he later died. I had to bleach the whole cage, pearches, food tables, remove the plants, totally sanitise the cage so that none of his mates in the cage would get sick. Moving away from my time with the birds, I went on a walk one day with Gato, a 5 year old Puma, and his volunteer keeper, Osnat. Gato, which means "cat" in Spanish, was bought from a circus, after he broke both his back legs jumping through a ring of fire. Because of this accident his body is all out of proportion, but having never seen a normal Puma to compare it to, I thought he was a beautiful looking cat. His paws were the size of tea saucers. He goes on an eight hour walk through the jungle every day. Occassionally on parts of the tourist trail, if that's the route he chooses, but mainly deeper in the jungle, as he is a solitary animal. We walked through rivers and down really steep jungle paths where you almost need a rope to hold to get down. He has a nap for an hour or so in the middle of the walk, and he gets fed once a day, I think a kilo of fresh meat. The people who work with the cats are longish term volunteers. They must pretty much commit to at least two months with the cat. Their are two Pumas, a Jaguar, a couple of Osselots and a Pampas Cat. These are all wild animals, and the keeper must build up a kind of relationship and trust with their cat. Tamar, who works with an Osselot named Bodesia, spent quite a long time, just sitting next to the cage and becoming familiar with the cat, and letting the cat get used to her presence. At first Bodesia was too aggressive for Tamar to even sit right next to the cage, but eventually, Tamar was able to get in the cage and sit and play with him. This was a big breakthrough. I also spent alot of time with the Cappachino monkeys, and because there were so few volunteers, I think about a total of 25 was the most at any one time I was there, I had quite a lot of monkeys to look after. Twenty five people might seem like a lot, but take away say seven who are permanently with the cats, plus the Pumas and Osselots get a helper each day, that leaves fouteen people. There are supposed to be two people at the birds at all time, but often there's only one. Then everyone has a job to do during the day, like cleaning the volunteers kitchen and common area twice a day, cutting the vegetables and fruit for the birds and monkeys twice a day, making up and bringing up the milk and extra food for the babies and sick monkeys, washing the monkey blankets and clothes, cleaning the monkey cages. All these things consistantly take people away from the actual watching and walking the monkeys at different times of the day. Then everyone is supposed to get an hour and half for lunch. I very rarely managed this though. In addition, there are problems with the monkeys. They should all be walked and taken to play and forage in the jungle every day, but some monkeys don't get on with other monkeys, so they can't go together. Some monkeys don't like women, so only a guy can look after them. Some monkeys don't like any other monkeys, so they have to be walked individually. Some monkeys don't like kids, so especially on weekends when heaps of tourists come through the park, they have to be taken deep into the park away from the tourist trails. I don't know how many monkeys are in the park. Some are on cords and sleep in cages for reasons like, keeping them away from the volunteer house, or they need to be given medicine at certain times, or we're watching their health and condition of their fur, or because they attack women or tourists. There are also plenty more monkeys that are free in the park, and sometimes they come back for food, and sometimes they disappear for months at a time. My main monkeys that I looked after were Max, who was quite spoilt and neurotic and cried all the time. He was a lovely monkey, but was put on a cord because he kept on coming into the volunteer house and causing problems. He hated being put on a cord, but after a week or so he got used to it. Arbel is on a cord because he's a new monkey in the park. He was brought in with a toe half dangling off, another monkey had bitten it off. His toe has now been amputated, and we're watching it for infection. When it's healed sufficiently he will be released. Orehon was on a cord because he has a really bad skin disease from bacteria on papaya, and on half his head and other parts of his body, fur won't grow. Orehon is my favourite, but I have about 5 favourites. But I think he's my favourite favourite. As soon as I'd sit down he'd come and sit on my lap. He always has this serious, thoughtful look on his face and he'd look up into the heavens, and have a small stick in his hand, and he'd gently put it up his nose. Or his ear. He's sooo cute. Orehon is frightened of Arbel. Melanie also has a skin disease, but different from Orehons disease, and her medication is helping her fur to slowly grow back. Melanie is an angel of a monkey. She can happily entertain herself for hours just picking up leaves and looking underneath them. Then there was Martin, and Monto, oh and Martinsita who hates other monkeys and quite a few people as well. And there was Baby. Baby is 3.5 months old, and so cute. He's just learning to be independent, but other monkeys, especially this ugly monkey called Flacka, and this theif of a monkey called Boody would take him on their backs and run away into the trees. For the most part they would bring him back, but they're not reliable enough to totally trust, so you really have to watch Baby when those two are around. Baby was bought from someone who was going to train him to fight dogs. Thankfully now he'll have a safe and happy life in the refuge park. There are two alpha male Cappachinos in the park. That means they are the dominant males of a group. Herasmaz has 8 wives and 13 children, and Tintin has 3 wives and 4 children. Both are huge monkeys, Herasmaz being the bigger of the two, but Tintin is still frightfully big. He tried to attack me once, well, after I whacked a broom on the table he was sitting on. But the thing is, no one ever messes with Tintin, he always gets what he wants 'cause he's so big and intimidating. And anyway, Tintin knows this, so he goes to all the feeding places and eats way more than his share, and then the smaller, more timid monkeys miss out on their lunch and dinner. Another time, Tintin ttacked Martinsita, who doesn't like any other monkeys, so she gets fed separately. I threw Tintin some food, and sat with Martinsita in my lap to try and calm her down, as she was in hysterics, and her cord was all tangled around trees and she couldn't move. And even I was scared sitting there with Tintin in his attack mode. Teeth bared, intense eyes, and ready-to-pounce stance. But then at other times, Tintin could be a big softy. Like when it was raining heavily and we had to keep quite a lot of the monkeys under a small shelter and just sit with them. Melanie had to be kept under my shirt for warmth, 'cause she's hardly got any fur, and the other monkeys like to huddle up together and sit on laps and shoulders and in shirts too. And then big Tintin, who everyone is afraid of, comes and plonks himself down in my lap, and snuggles up and falls asleep. Another monkey named Cabason made himself known to me a couple of days before I left the park, by jumping onto my shoulders and shoving his finger up my nose, causing a pretty bad nose bleed. It was okay, but once I was able to recognise him, every time he jumped on me, I had to stand very still with my hands over my face so he couldn't do it again. He tried to wedge my hands away, and pinched my eyebrow and all sorts of tricks. He'd scratch at my neck, in a playfull way, but even though he didn't know it, he was much rougher in his play than most of the monkeys that I was used to dealing with. On my very last day at the park, I was coming up from an area of the sanctuary known to volunteers as "The Beach", because it was down away from the tourist trail towards the edge of the river. There was a small group of tourists standing around on the trail, and a Cappachino monkey was going through the bag that one of the tourists had swung over her shoulder. They were giggling and oohing and ahhing, when the monkey grabbed her nailpolish and ran away with it. I was standing there explainging to them, using mime and my very broken Spanish, that they must keep the bag closed, and close to their person, and not have anything in their pockets, no tissues, wallet, and certainly not food. I explained that the monkeys are wild animals and not to encourage them to come and play. At that moment, Cabason came running and bolted up a tree, onto my shoulder, and onto one of the tourist girls shoulder. She twisted and turned and screamed, and Cabason ripped her ear in half. She fainted and I had to rush her to the hospital in a taxi so she could get it stitched up. As well as working with the animals I did a couple of other things during my stay at CIWY. The Beach area was a place where, when we were short on volunteers, eight to twelve or so monkeys could be looked after by one or two people. There were rope runners, onto which we could clip the monkey's cords, and they could move their cords up and down the runner, and away from the runner in any direction as far as their cord would allow. This gave them freedom to play in the jungle, climb trees, of course always getting terribly tangled and twisted up, but always not be too far away. While I was there I spent a lot of time at the Beach, and it was less than a ten minute walk away from the feeding area for the monkeys, but it was steep, and rocky and muddy. Also, it's really difficult to walk back up to the feeding area when you've got eight or so monkeys sitting on your shoulders and outstretched arms, and clinging to your legs, trying to get inside my shirt, and monkeys running in different directions at different speeds and with different lengths of cords, and I'm holding all their cords which are getting into knots. And some monkeys don't want to move and some monkeys want to go and look under leaves, and others want to jump onto a nearby tree, and others want to catch insects, and this monkey doesn't want to sit on my shoulder if that monkey is on my other shoulder, and all sorts of other issues and concerns. So, a good solution was to build some tables down at the Beach so we could feed the monkeys down there. Also, this allowed them to have better access to the food, 'cause there would be less monkeys down at the beach than in the main feeding area. So I desined and built a couple of tables. Actually someone that knew what they were doing built the first one and I did the second one. This involved using a rotating saw to cut a big door frame into quarters, which automatically provided me with re-inforced corners to use as the supports. Then, with a scrap plank of wood I sawed into appropriate length and shapes, I put the top on the table and some edges so the food wouldn't fall off, and then someone nailed it to a tree for me. All very exciting. I like working with wood. Then, my second idea, which of course had probably been thought of before but no one had actually done anything about, was a book exchange. For this there could be for example a charge of 5 Bolivianos(< $USD1) for swapping a book you've read for a second hand book, or you could swap two books you've read for one on the shelf, thus increasing the selection of books available. All funds going to the park, and the park doesn't have to supply anything. So I found a place in town where they let me rent an electric drill for concrete, bought some long screws and brackets, paint and other bits and pieces, and cut, painted, decorated and installed 3 bookshelves. I also built a small bridge type thing on a really muddy, slippery and dangerous area at the bird cages, but that was no big deal. I just got some nearby logs and wedged them into a mud chanel that was already there for water drainage. I'd really like to go back to this volunteer place again in the next couple of years and I'd also like to try and make a difference while I'm not there. I know a lot of volunteers I've spoken to don't agree with me, but I think it makes sense for ex-volunteers to try and help after they've left, because we know how the place works and doesn't work. But because we're all so busy during the time we spend there, and whilst travelling you're on a very tight budget, I think that if we could somehow help once we leave, we could make a big impact.  I know, for example that I donate each month to charities like Greenpeace and World Society for the Protection of Animals, but who knows where this money goes in such big organisations. With this project we'd know where the money is going and in what ways we can help. I don't know if I can do anything, but I'm certainly going to try. Well, that's all for now folks. I'll have to write soon about my fantastic couple of weeks that I just spent in the USA with my uni friend Jeannine Wyer, from BIT. We went to Yellowstone National Park, the Rocky Mountains National Park, Mount Rushmore, and hung out at her place in Boulder, Colorado. But that episode will have to wait until I get back from my camping trip in Washington State with Sharon, who I met on my cruise to Antarctica at the begining of my trip. Ciao for now, take care. Nique