Spottyblog

Nevermind the title – I’m not creative enough to have a witty title every time I write a new entry, so there, a nifty inside joke between me, some others, and Matt, our cheetah feeder. No, he doesn’t feed them ice cream 😉

So today was my last day here at CCF – and that’s why I had a presentation of the small video I and Markus made yesterday. Everybody seemed very happy although the video was only three and a half minutes long, so I consider that a success. You’ll see it on YouTube soon, I guess. I even got in two more interviews this evening, so I may even be able to get two more videos instead of just one done. Yay! I’ll keep this blog updated and will let you know once the videos get published.

The last two days were almost too perfect to be true – we did finish just about everything we had wanted, and knowing that people will miss you doesn’t make leaving any easier. We even got to do a short meeting with Chewbaaka, but he was a bit too lazy today to care about two crazy Germans. Pity, but he’s a cat after all, so he’s got a mind of his own. We saw Giraffe. We had Tacos for dinner and yesterday it was Pizza Day. We had lots of fun, got to say a few words in order to say goodbye to everyone and just as yesterday I was able to go feeding, say goodbye to  Bella, Padme, Klein, Josie, Merlot, Cruise, Obe-Wan, Omdillo, Anakin, Chester, Rosy, Misty, Emma, Jacomina, Minja, Solo, Kiana, Kayla, Luna, Tempesta, Xena (and what a goodbye it was!), Toblerone, Nestlé, Hershey, Nina, Cleo, Chanel, Darwin, Mendel, Fossie and Livingston. Tomorrow in  the morning – before I leave – I’ll try to say goodbye to the other cheetahs at the center – Leia, Sandy, Dusty, Blondi, Amani, Samantha, Shadow as well as Harry, Hermione, Ron, N’dungu, Shunga and of course to Chewbaaka and Little C. I may not get a chance to say goodbye to the cubs, but saying goodbye to Soraya, Phoenix, Quasar, Phil, Tony, Mischief and Polly would have been even more heart-breaking than bidding farewell to the other spottycats. Oh, and by now I really can identify almost all of the cats (except the itsy-bitsies, but I haven’t seen them a lot anyway).

I’ll definitely miss CCF (again), and I’ll of course try to come back here once more. Let’s hope it works out. In any case I have a lot of work to take with me, but also wonderful memories, and again I learned a lot. I’ll be bringing home more than 52 gigabytes worth of pictures (about 2300 made by myself, the rest by Markus) and way more than 2 hours of video material in Full HD. Sorting out this huge amount of stuff will be hard, but ever so worth it.

So it’s time to say goodbye to CCF, but again, I’ll never forget what an awesome time I’ve spent here. I’ll always remember this place and in case I don’t come back I still won’t stop thinking about it – it’s just too nice an experience not to have. So thank you, staff and volunteers alike, for the time I’ve been able to spend with you. And I also wish you the best of luck and success for your future endeavours. With people like you, we can indeed save the cheetah! 🙂

Sorry about my lack of activity here, but I’ve been rather busy and/or distracted.

However, I have good news (well, mostly only for me, but they’re still good news): I’ll be leaving for Namibia on August 30th and will be visiting the Cheetah Conservation Fund once more, this time for a full six weeks. I’m already busy with travel preparations, of course.

I will no longer be using the T+ hour… thingy, just because calculating the time passed since a certain point in time takes almost as long as writing a blog entry. No, just kidding, but it’s getting old quickly.

I will be there together with my friend Markus who has his own blog called Sunspots now. He also has an image gallery at DeviantArt.

Oh, and I have one as well – I’ve decided to upload many pictures both from the CCF and elsewhere to image galleries such as DeviantArt, Flickr and FotoCommunity for more people to know about the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

I might be in Namibia already when typing the next post, so see you there!

Oh dear. It never occurred to me that packing would be so difficult. Eight kilograms are allowed as carry-on luggage and with the trolley already weighing in at about 3.6 kg, getting some emergency clothing (in case my bag gets lost), my laptop and camera in there will be a tough job.

I think I’ll manage, but there’s certainly not too much room to be wasted.

Today I’ll have to do some last-minute shopping (well, not really last-minute yet, but still…). I still want to get a clipboard in case I don’t discover one in my father’s stuff. I also may have to get some other things, but I’ll see what is needed in the morning.

Even more nervous today. It just doesn’t go away anymore 😉

Very well, the blog seems to be fully operational by now. Unfortunately, users of Internet Explorer 7 won’t be able to enjoy reading this blog since it ignores some of the design specifications thanks to its refusal to interpret CSS stylesheets correctly. IE 6 works fine, though. I may have to work around this when I’m back, until then, please use Firefox, Opera, Flock or any other browser of your choice able to cope with web standards. Nevermind, I corrected it. You should use a different browser, anyway.

If you want to contact me, feel free to do so using ccf {at} jasiri {dot} de – I’ll be monitoring this account for the next few years 😉

I’m getting more nervous with every hour that passes. I just hope everything’s going to be okay once I’m in Namibia… then again, I should worry about getting there first and foremost.

Also, if you were wondering what I’m going to do while with the CCF… I don’t know exactly, but I guess and hope there’ll be a bit of everything. Officially, I’m going there because I will study the cheetah’s behaviour in captivity for my research paper which is needed for my Abitur (my final secondary-school examinations), but since I’m currently aiming to study Biology this trip might prove to be an excellent preparation. 🙂

If you don’t know about the Cheetah Conservation Fund, I recommend you visit their website. You’ll find extensive information about the cheetah’s race for survival there and how the CCF is trying to help. If you want to help, you can do so by donating!

I guess I’m supposed to start blogging now that everything seems to have been taken care of. So far, my travel arrangements, accomodation in Windhoek and of course my stay with the Cheetah Conservation Fund have been arranged and also been paid for.

I’m now a week away from arrival in Namibia and with only a few things left to do (such as getting some supplies for the CCF, my sunglasses and a replacement for my backpack) I have decided to finally get this blog up and running. There’s still a few things to be done, but everything looks good so far.

I just hope I’ll be able to find some time for writing down my daily reports while at the farm or even get the opportunity to post some things online.