Zamani and the Zoo

I love South Africa! For this blog post I figured I would just take some excerpts from my daily journal…I am already writing all of this stuff, why redo it, right?

This first bit is from the day that we went and helped at Zamani with the tour. A tour here is a fieldtrip. We took the four and five year old classes and it was crazy! We went to the East London Museum, which was actually really cool. I want to go and spend more time there. Anyway after the museum we headed to Mdantsne.

“This is a suburb of East London, it was like 15 minutes driving out of town. We were supposed to go to Mdatsane FM, a radio station place. But we were a bit late and then there was some confusion about…I am not really sure. They wouldn’t let the kids go in and check out the studio. We were supposed to go see/watch/participate in a show? Mama Yoyo took us BYUs in – there was what looked like a dance hall/roller blade rink and some offices. One of the offices had a radio set up, mikes and stuff. We looked in a window – I think a show was happening? There were two people inside. So we peeked inside and waved and then went back outside. Mama Yoyo was pretty upset that whatever we were supposed to do had fallen through. We spent like an hour sitting outside with all the kids on the curb in the parking lot. Mama Yoyo gave us some chips and biscuits (cookies) which we positively gobbled.

There were a lot of hip people hanging around the station. Guys in skinny jeans, sweet shoes, blazers, scarves, hats…it was funny. One of them (in combat boots, with diamond earrings in each ear) came and started talking to us about the ANC and how corrupt it is. It is the only party here in South Africa and has all the power. The guy compared it to a regime, a monarchy, the next Hitler. He said that no other party had a chance, because everyone was bribed or bullied into being ANC supporters. There is another party that has tried to win elections, the Democratic Alliance, but with no success. He said he wished Mandela would just make a statement, a death wish, that would save the country from corruption. But Mandela is like 94 years old and pretty reclusive. Holly mentioned he might have Alzheimer’s or something? When the guy stopped talking to us we talked about what he said – we have heard the Mandela sentiment several times, people really think that he could help the country out by saying something. And everyone we’ve talked to has said the ANC is corrupt, that the government is super corrupt. The guy said it was just a bully, that it censored people who disagreed with it. So that’s not a democracy, now is it. So we were wondering why, if so many people disliked the ANC, was it still in power? And we figure that many people still remember it as bringing down apartheid and have great loyalty towards it because of that. We’ve also heard many people say that when Mandela dies things are going to go south – civil war, bad stuff like that. Whooo.”

The whole day was really interesting and exhausting. The taxis that shuttled all the kids around blasted music super loud – I couldn’t believe they’d play it that loud with all those little sensitive ears. But the kids loved it – sang along to all the songs and danced. So I have been going to the zoo twice a week and doing interviews. It has been very interesting. I think my project has definitely morphed a bit from what I originally planned, but that is okay. This week I spent a couple hours talking to the supervisor of the zoo – his name is Karote. He is one of two people working there who is actually trained in wildlife. He told me all about his career and it was fascinating! And we did talk about building relationships with the animals and how that would change things.

“So I next asked about relationships. He said relationships with the animals were definitely important. They are vital for animal welfare. And if the guys really worked on relating to the animals they took care of, things would probably improve a lot. He talked about wanting the animals to be comfortable and not run away. This makes it easier for workers to monitor their conditions. He talked a lot about the benefits of relationships when it comes to conditioning or training the animals. In order to train there must be trust. The zoo is stressful enough for the animals, having connections with the keepers would help make it a more positive experience. If the animal is relaxed then it will make full use of its enclosure. He said the first step to training workers to build relationships is an understanding of why they are here, then treatment will improve…it is all connected. Increased sense of identity and purpose leads to better relationships which increases sense of responsibility and identity and around it goes again! The staff needs to see it as more than just a way to make money.

Conditioning takes a lot of patience. He talked about conditioning with the baboons. If they could be trained to go into their night room then maybe they could prevent the smallest baboon from getting picked on so much. But if the workers slam the door or scare them or don’t talk then they won’t build relationships and the animals will just be suspicious if you try to get them into the night room. He said there is definitely an ease of management that comes with good relationships. Now they have to get a vet to dart gun the baboons if they want to be checked. This freaks them out, riles them up. If they could train them, it would be much calmer. But Karote is still trying to instill basic ideas…like keeping the kitchen clean and not cross contaminating with knives and cutting boards. Karote has experience with training hippos to present themselves for checks and he has worked with lions to get them into the night room. He did this just by talking to the lions calmly and getting them used to him. Eventually they would respond to him and he could call them into the night room. He talked about positive reinforcement, yeah, someone speaking my language! He talked about how at the Pretoria Zoo they have teams of scientists working on this stuff. At the ELZ it is entrapment, not conditioning. Use food to bait animals into cages and if there was an emergency or a problem, they would have to get food.”

So, that is what I have been up to – interviews at the zoo, helping at Zamani, working on my wildlife behavior course, and just enjoying being with the people here.