A baby lion fell asleep on me

We honestly could not ask for a more supportive, passionate, generous or amazing supervisor.  Laura, our CDC supervisor, took us for a deep tissue massage last night, to a lion reserve today, and is constantly supporting us and protecting us through this transition.  I couldn't be more thankful to have such a fantastic person in my life!

The deep tissue massage hurt so good.  I could feel the knots on my bones being worked out until they were no more.  At one point, I fell asleep because I was so relaxed, and was startled awake when I realized someone was touching me and nearly kicked the massage therapist.  My life is embarrassing (but awesome).

Today, Laura took Michelle and I to the Ukutula Lodge (http://www.ukutula.com/) where they protect, raise, and research lions and various other wild animals on a large reserve.  Ukutula means "place of quiet" in Zulu, which is one of the local languages of South Africa.  The lodge serves as a "place of quiet" for lions and other animals.  Lions are nearly extinct because of Tuberculosis and Feline AIDS and this reserve is entirely disease free.  Also, it's the first place to discover the gene associated with white lions.  Apparently, most white lions you see in zoos or other places are actually Albino lions and white lions are incredibly rare (it's a recessive trait).  They noticed that when two of their lions mated, they had white cubs, and researchers from around the world worked to find the gene associated with that trait.  It was an incredible facility.  

When we first got there, was just walked around the facility and a braai was going on.  A braai is the South African version of a BBQ.  We also saw baby warthogs who were running around the lodge.  They were so ugly that they were cute.  We followed them around and got many a picture.  I was mostly concerned with giving the little guys mohawks with their back hair. 

So onto the non-nerdy, fun stuff.. the first part of the day we got to cuddle with baby lions.  The youngest one was 20 days old and the oldest one was a couple of months old.  They were incredibly adorable and cuddly.  One of them fell asleep on my lap, it was the sweetest thing.  

They also had the sharpest claws, even though they were so little.  But any of the scratches were worth the cuddles.  They also had some that were a little older that you could hold and they were more playful.  At this point, I wanted to take a baby lion and a baby warthog home with me.

After the cuddles, we moved on to seeing the grown lions in the facility and our tour guide was Sparkly (yup, that is his name), who was incredibly knowledgeable - he's how I learned all of the above information!  He told some very corny jokes to pass the time when we were walking.  On this tour, we saw Felix, the oldest lion in the lodge, Vincent, and several other lions and their prides.  We also saw tigers and hyenas, who urinate, defecate, and drink from the same water source (it was algae green, of course).  Probably won't be taking one of those home...

Then, we got a chance to play with the Devils, who were the older lion cubs.  They were between 3-6 months old and definitely started to resemble grown lions a lot more than the babies.  They warned us before we went into the enclosure not to kneel down too far or the lions would see us as a target and attack our head (lions go for the head of their prey to kill them quicker).  I have to be honest, these guys scared me a bit more than the babies, just because they already had decently sharp teeth and claws.  All in all though, they were playful like kittens basically, and if they did snap at you, you would just pop them on the nose and they would stop.  They really liked belly rubs - it was so adorable!

After the Devils, we got to take a walk with full grown lions along a trail on the reserve.  The lions just walked along the trail with us and were completely unrestrained.  We had 4 male lions with us that were between 1 and 2 years old and two lion trainers who were incredible.  They are seen as the alpha males of the territory, so the lions listen to what the trainers say and even looked to them before continuing along the trail.  I walked probably 1 foot from a lion.  

At the end of the day, we went to see the baby lions for a little longer and even got to meet baby cheetahs.  They were far less cuddly than the lions and really liked running around and playing.

Needless to say, it's pretty hard to beat the experience I had today.  

PS - props to Michelle and her fantastic photography skills.  

I survived... the second longest flight offered.

I decided that I'm going to just bite the bullet and create a blog for this summer.  Otherwise, I will likely never fully share all of my experiences, much less remember them myself by the end of the summer. 

 

Disclaimer:  I in no way think I am cool enough to have a blog.... this will likely be frequented most by my mom (hi mom!).  

After a 15 and a half hour flight, Michelle and I arrived in Johannesburg yesterday at 5pm Joburg time, 11am EST.  We were exhausted... I probably slept around 4 hours on the flight and spent the remainder of the time watching It's Always Sunny..., Wilfred, and a chick flick (I'm only human... well, only woman..) and pretending to try to fall asleep.  We survived though!  We also discovered the only flight that's longer is to Australia and it's about 16 hours, so we've survived the second longest flight there is.  High five!

I am officially a Johannesburg resident!  I will be living here for 3 months working with a medical male circumcision clinic conducting a couple of different research projects with another MPH student, Michelle.  We will be working for the AURUM institute on a CAPRISA fellowship. How in the world did I get to go to South Africa do you ask?  In a nutshell, Michelle is the coolest person in the world.  Basically, she was asked to work on the current project alone, then felt like she would be more comfortable with another person, so asked me along, as well.  Thankfully, the institute agreed and here we both are!  We're staying in a pretty janky, yet adorable hut-lodge outside of Joburg, pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  The roof is actually a hut roof made out of hay.  The inside looks like any lower key motel, though, so it's really nice.  The people who run the lodge are so incredibly nice.  We went in this morning just to say hello and they offered us coffee, breakfast, etc.  There are locks on all of the windows and doors with bars, 24 hour security, and a security system with a pretty intense gate.  We've already decided we're going to be best friends with the security officer, he was laughing at us for being nervous about driving on the opposite side of the road.  And yes, we will be driving a car around AND on the opposite side of the road.  Tomorrow we will officially pick up our car and have practice driving.  I assure you, there will be many embarrassing stories about that later.  

We went to the AURUM institute headquarters in Joburg today, which is the institute we will be working for. Everyone was so incredibly nice, and it was a fantastic facility.  We also had a chance to learn more about the clinic where we will be working, and let me tell you, this place is amazing.  They have the capacity to circumcise up to 180 men a day, with HIV counseling and pre and post procedure counseling, which is incredible.  After the morning meetings, we met an incredible new friend, Sarah, who is also a CAPRISA fellow and has already lived in South Africa for 3 months. She took us to the mall and helped us try to set up South African bank accounts (which we need to be paid).  Setting up a bank account proved to be a huge challenge, and we still don't have one yet.  But it was very helpful having Sarah there and having my mom work out how to get some additional documents from the US, everything should hopefully be settled with that by tomorrow!  We also got sushi at the mall, which was incredibly cheap (and delicious).  The only picture I've taken so far is of Michelle and I at lunch and it was incredibly blurry.  Also, we're beautiful little jet-lagged creatures.  I'll just spare you the beauty altogether. 

I haven't taken too many pictures yet, today was a cluster of trying to figure out banking and pretending not to be jet-lagged in meetings.  We're hoping to get to bed relatively early tonight because we have a 8:30am start time tomorrow.  We're visiting the clinic where we will be working, which is in Tembisa.  Where we live, Midrand, is between Joburg proper and Tembisa, so we're only about 20 minutes from work and the main city.  

Some South African lingo I've learned:

"Is it?" means "Oh really?"

"Lekker" means "Good/cool"

"To let" means "To lease"

"Toilet" means "Restroom"

"Get it sorted" is just something they say... lots. Along with "Fetch"

"I'm going to go get it sorted and fetch the girls then!"

I will have more pictures soon!

I love everyone - especially those of you who actually read this thing.