I picked one out and sprayed it on my hands, neck and the back of my head before dinner. Then after dinner Kim held up a spray bottle and asked me if it was the one I’d used. Sure was. This is to impregnate clothing, she told me. It should never be applied to bare skin, never even applied indoors but only to the outer surface of clothing. Great. So I plunged under the cold shower. It was actually really pleasant.Today Gunowan did a presentation on Raptors which seemed to please the kids immensely. He smiles and jokes a lot and very easily with them which really seems to hold their attention. I filmed again. I think now I have about 3 hours of footage of the presentations. That may be useful for IAR’s own promotional and educational work here if it can be put into a useful package.
Today we went into Bogor mostly to pick up a cel phone. It was a rather long and not so well-used day as my efforts to pick up another external hard drive for backup proved fruitless. We were at the big, American style mall again today. It’s an air conditioned behemoth with very friendly service.
On the way back we let the others drive on and stopped at an internet café to check emails. Then we had our first experience with an Angkot – the little blue and green mini-buses which are the local transportation. We gave our destination to the driver and climbed in. An older fellow in the passenger seat turned around, gave us a huge smile and asked us where we were from. He seemed quite tickled to hear Germany and Canada and asked us more which we unfortunately didn’t understand.
As is often the case he apologized for not speaking English at which we apologized for not speaking Indonesian. I have a great deal of respect for people who put in the effort to learn the local language and I think it’s the real way to connect.Back at the guest quarters a thunderstorm rolled in and the dogs who had barked accusingly at us before came and cowered at our feet.
2 comments:
Love your photos! Interestingly (ironically?), considering the missions's purpose, the animals there who were bred for domestication -- in contrast to those who were taken from the wild and "artificially domesticated" -- also seem of great import, well-integrated and appreciated by their human companions. Neat!
Thx! As IAR is primarily concerned with Animal welfare, rather than conservation, their work is equally applicable to domesticated and wild species.
In order to provide for the welfare of wild animals, we must offer them natural habitat to live in and so the aims of animal welfare and conservation mesh very well.
Welfare or conservation? They are sometimes seen as being at odds with one another. To me it seems most effective when both aspects are taken into consideration. for long term success the two most important goals are education at the local level and conservation of habitat.
With education people can appreciate that something unique is being lost and there will be less hunting, trading and destruction of habitat and with habitat the animals that survive have somewhere to go and thrive.
I am often struck by how similar the challenges here are to the those in Canada or Germany.
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