Prelude

Ethan and I arrived in Indonesia almost 2 weeks ago but before I start writing about my experience here I would like to talk about what led up to me coming to Indonesia.

What happened…

For every vet student the “big externship” is the best opportunity to finally work in the preferred field, to confirm what one already knows or to try out something new before graduating and heading out into the working world. In Germany vet students have to get 16 weeks of work experience in their final year of study – 8 of which can be done in any field or institution as long as working with a vet (for example in a zoo) the other 8 have to be done in a vet practice (small or large animals) or at a clinic.
For me this is the perfect chance to finally get some experience in wildlife medicine. To make the most of it I started planning early – in May of 2006. I won’t bore you with the details of how I organized my externship but let me tell you it was a lot of work and I’m quite happy with the outcome: 8 weeks volunteering for IAR Indonesia working with Karmele Sanchez in the vet clinic of the rescue and rehabilitation centre, 1 month externship at Western Plains Zoo in Australia, 1 month at the Toronto Zoo and 1 month at the Calgary Zoo. If you do the math it is 4 weeks more than required – why? Simply because I can ;-) I would just keep going if I could but I guess that I will have to finish my studies sometime and start making money with what I do. All I’m trying to say is that there are so many good programs out there with passionate and dedicated people working for them. In my part of the blog I want to tell the story of one of this programs which I want to become a part of and contribute to for the next 7 weeks.

ZGAP

First I want to tell the story of how I ended up here. In February 2007 I joined an organization called ZGAP (Zoological Society for the Conservation of Species and Populations). This organization is dedicated to the conservation of species that would not make it on the cover of newspapers and magazines. Basically trying to safe the less popular less known species that hardly anybody knows of and not many people care about (In a way similar to the work of IAR Indonesia). I went to their annual meeting in the Cologne Zoo where Ethan joined me. I was very excited about Ethan coming with me and showing interest in something that is so dear to me. The meeting convinced me of their work. I am often very suspicious of organizations of a certain size that start of as an idealistic effort of few engaged people but sooner or later become institutionalized and suffer from corruption and power struggle. But despite having about 800 members (not 100 % sure if that’s correct) at the time the ZGAP still seemed to be very much driven by the idealism of a small group of dedicated individuals. One of these individuals is Roland Wirth who is one of the two managing directors. At the end of the meeting I got to meet him and I learned that Roland lived close to Munich with his wife Daisy and son Jonathan and he invited us to visit him some time. So we did. It was great I had hardly met anybody so knowledgeable about zoology and the conservation status of different species as well as zoos worldwide. I felt like I didn’t know a thing about these issues listening to Roland. We were invited into their beautiful mostly self designed eco friendly house and their hospitality easily matched Rolands knowledge. That day we were brainstorming because I wanted to get involved more actively and we were trying to think of possible projects for me. Roland then told me about conservation situation in Indonesia specifically Java. Telling me about the biodiversity of Indonesia it’s threats and hopes. He also told me about several rescue centers that had been funded by the “Gibbon Foundation” which recently went bankrupt. So now there were rescue centers full of animals some of which are critically endangered and no money to maintain them. Roland was in touch with the manager of one of the centers, Resit, and was hoping to be able to build a captive breeding program for certain species with the goal of releasing them into the wild eventually. He tried to put me in touch with Resit so I could plan to do part of my “big internship” there – which would be a great opportunity for me to get a feel for the situation, learn about the animals, meet people, make connections, learn about the national psyche, learn about the habitat and ecology and so forth. Resit never replied – neither to me nor to Roland regarding me. In May of 2007 I went to the annual conference of the EAZWV (European Association of Zoo- and Wildlife Veterinarians) in Edinburgh. Some of the people there were also members of the ZGAP and I talked about my plans regarding a project in Java. Ulrike Streicher, a German vet who used to work with primates in Vietnam and had recently transferred to WildAid Cambodia told me that she had the email address of a vet in Java and that she would give it to me. That’s how I got Karmele Sanchez’ email address. I wrote to her asking if I could to an externship with her in the summer of 2008 and she replied to me saying that she would be happy to have me but that I would have to talk to the head office of IAR for that is who sponsors her center. She gave me Alan Knight’s contacts and I got in touch with him. I agreed to meet with him in November when I had some time to come to Uckfield, UK. Between then and November I met with Roland a couple more times who was always very enthusiastic about the possibility of me contributing to a possible breeding project which he felt was of urgent necessity especially for the javan warty pig and the black winged starling. He was also back in touch with Resit and had somebody who works for the ZGAP in the Philippines fly to Java to meet with Resit and have a look and his Rescue Center, Cicananga. Some time later I learned that Karmele has previously been a volunteer there.

IAR

In November I travelled to Uckfield for an interview with Alan at the head office of International Animal Rescue. I was quite impressed with the atmosphere and friendliness at the office. There was a dog which was personally introduced to me and many friendly faces greeting me. Alan invited me into his office and started telling me about the work and history of IAR, the different projects and especially IAR Indonesia and Karmele. I could sense just how passionate he is about his job. He showed me a lot of photos from India, Malta and Indonesia. Talking about many different things we discovered that we have a shared passion for cetaceans as well as a strong believe in animal welfare. Listening to him talk about the worth of each individual animal and seeing the efforts that IAR puts into rescuing different animals that otherwise nobody cares about was very soothing to me after having been taught in vet school for several years that an animal is always worth what the owner is willing to pay for it. Alan is vegetarian and Karmele vegan - vegetarian food is part of the policy at the IAR Indonesia rescue and rehabilitation center. That within itself was quite convincing to me. Me being vegetarian myself off and on since I was 12 years old having struggled with the ethics of eating meat and/or animal products and which ones to purchase I have a deep appreciation for people who make a point through that. I might come back later to different thoughts I have on vegetarianism and veganism but for now let’s say the thought of vegetarianism as a policy simply gave me a good feeling. I think it’s safe to say that Alan and I hit it off and that my visit to the office really got me excited about my externship in Indonesia.

Uckfield No 2

One of the things left to do before taking off to Indonesia was going back to Uckfield for Ethan and Alan to meet. I had tried to time that with a presentation by Roger Payne and Lisa Harrow which was scheduled for May 16th in at the Eden Project in Cornwall. Roger is a world renown biologist and whale expert and Lisa an accomplished actress originally from New Zealand. The presentation is called “Seachange - Changing the Tide” and is a synthesis of Roger’s scientific expertise and Lisa’s talent as an actress to address environmental issues. It was going to be their only performance in Europe and I was looking forward to it for months. I had previously volunteered for Roger’s NGO the Ocean Alliance on their research vessel “Odyssey” and was lucky to have met Roger and Lisa in the Seychelles. Having met them and having read their books “Among Whales” by Roger and “What You Can Do” by Lisa I knew that the performance was going to be brilliant. Unfortunately the show got postponed until sometime this fall :-( We rearranged our time in the UK and at least now we had a bit more time for preparation back in Munich. But before returning to Munich we went to Uckfield to meet with Alan. My father drove us to the airport to catch the 6:50am plane to London Stansted. From there we made our way to London Bridge train station and hopped on the train to Uckfield to meet Alan at the IAR head office. The 2nd time was just like my 1st impression – the atmosphere in the office was friendly and hospitable. We went into Alan’s office got the updates on international animal welfare issues and saw a lot of impressive and some really horrid pictures. Alan told us everything we needed to know about our trip to Indonesia including how loud tree frogs can be at night, the best vegetarian restaurant in Bogor, how much it rains in Ciapus, about Indonesian mentality and different ways in which we could help the IAR Indonesia. After that Ethan did a short interview with Alan and then we were off back to Germany with our carry-on bags full of dog toys that would serve the macaques as enrichment and some headlamps that would be helpful in one of the many power cuts. Of course I had to explain that to the security person at the airport who looked at all those pink and blue rubber toys with suspicion. I’m not sure if he believed me when I told him that they were enrichment items for monkeys but eventually he waved me through with a skeptical smile on his face.

The journey

The last days in Munich were stressful – trying to arrange everything for the next half a year, packing, clearing the room and sending off the applications for the scholarships. Finally my close friend Mark drove us to the airport after storing our personal belongings in his basement. The trip was comparatively smooth and uneventful. Ethan is not a big fan of flying so when we finally reached Jakarta airport I could feel his relief. The same kind of relief that I had already felt after checking in at Munich airport. It’s that kind of feeling that whatever you forgot to bring or do (unless it’s your passport or ticket) there’s nothing you can do about it and you’ll manage without. Arriving in Jakarta on the other hand was quite exciting. Ethan and I had let go of each others hands on the airplane and had agreed to respect the Muslim culture by not showing public affection – which is something to get used to. After some troubles finding the people from IAR who came to pick us up we eventually managed to meet up and were driven through a buzzing Jakarta. It was about 7:30pm and already dark. I had forgotten that it was that way close to the equator. But I am happy to trade a few hours of daylight for the warmth and color of the tropics. Ethan and I kept falling asleep on the 2 ½ hour trip to Ciapus. All the impressions raining down on us were obviously too much for our tired brains that decided to take a break and process. Arriving at the guest house of the center we were greeted by a security guard, five dogs and Marlene – a biologist from Denmark working in the education department. We sat down with her and talked for a little bit. She had been here for a month and gave us an introduction and a brief rundown on all important things to know and possible difficulties that we might encounter. We were very happy to find out that we would share a room (even though we aren’t married yet) and to have running water and our own bathroom with a toilet – with seat :-) . Eventually we fell into bed - anticipating the weeks to come.