We’re at the time of year when there are hot days and stormy nights. This month I have been lucky enough to see a buck just outside the house, (at least until Rubin chased it away!) I’ve ordered Rubin a training collar so he’s in for a squirt of citronella to stop him chasing the wildlife! Thank you Jo for putting it in the post for me.

Sometimes I chuckle when Rubin and myself are walking over to the cottage in the mornings wondering how I ended up here with a life a world apart from England. This month I have seen much wildlife at the VMF including a blind centipede eater in my room, squirrels, rabbits, cobras, lizards and of course the monkeys peering in through the windows, not to mention the plague of frogs leaping around in the bathroom at night! I wouldn’t change it for the world and know that everything has it’s place – the frogs and geckos especially good for keeping the insects down!

Skunkey monkey seems to have acquired a pet of his own recently and has be-friended a black and white kitten who comes down at main feed sharing his bread and curls up at night sharing his box. The kitten takes day trips out into the Goliath enclosure area. It's amazing to see inter-species bonds such as these. (The only inter-species bond in the photo is between myself and Skunkey, I will try to catch the kitten on camera next time!)

Regus also has a new companion called Mijo who seems to be settling in well with him. Some of you may know Mijo from the bandit troop or may have even been groomed by her!

We have a great team of volunteers here all working hard together with lots of progress being made. We now have a fire pit beside the cottage which no doubt will be used to create atmospheric evenings under the stars.

We've also had some fantastic feedback from our volunteeers lately so if anyone would like to write a testimonial paragraph about their stay here, please e-mail me at josie@vervet.za.org and perhaps we can use it for our website or forward it to our volunteer organisations to use - thank you Cyd and Aubrey for writing one.

Welcome Deb!

I am very pleased to welcome Deb Simpson (our new Volunteer Supervisor) to our team. Deb will work alongside myself liaising with volunteers, overseeing tent village, showing volunteers around the VMF amongst many other tasks. Deb has spent her first week settling in and carrying out all the usual volunteer tasks before she begins her full time volunteering job. She has already experienced the babies, been to Debengeni waterfalls, Kings Walden Gardens and is settling in well. If all goes well, Deb will be here with us for a minimum of one year and hopefully longer. She has written an article below to introduce herself and tell you all a bit about her background and skills she has that will help her become a fantastic member of our volunteering team.

Welcome to: Renee Berry, Margherita Berry, Deb Simpson, Kristen Zawaski

I peer out the cottage window and am not surprised to see a blue-bottomed male monkey running around. It’s hard to believe I’ve only been at VMF for 4 days, and these unique and amazing things still thrill me, but I’m not surprised!

I’ve come to be Volunteer Supervisor, and am super excited about the adventures I’ve had so far, and the many more to come.

I’m a Canadian, and am originally from Vancouver Island, but lived the last few years in Calgary, Alberta – nestled in the Rocky Mountains. I left snow, freezing temperatures, snowshoeing and ice skating on the lake for this amazingly lush, green, hot and unique climate. 

I worked a 3-year stint in Japan, where I taught English in the sister city of my hometown.  I enjoyed the very energetic Yosakoi dancing, Japanese archery, learning the language, and many festivals while in Japan. Following Japan, I volunteered as a teacher for the Japanese NGO, Peace Boat. Peace Boat has 3 global voyages and 1 Asian voyage a year – the ship carries about 900 Japanese passengers and sails around the world promoting peace, human rights, sustainability and the environment. NGOs from various countries board the ship at the port prior to their country’s port. For the duration of the time at sea until Peace Boat reaches their country, they lecture and create interactive workshops regarding their NGO, values, and philosophy. Upon reaching the destination country, Japanese (and foreign) passengers can disembark and volunteer at the NGO for a day or two. I visited 17 countries and spent 104 days living in this floating global community. Peace Boat was an amazing experience, I feel very fortunate to have been a part of their 51st voyage.

Since grade 6 when we did a unit on Africa, I have loved Africa from afar, and dreamed of visiting.  I was fortunate enough to stop at the Seychelles Islands and Kenya on the Peace Boat voyage, and my heart died as we sailed away! I was determined to go back to Canada, save money for 2 years, in order to support myself to volunteer for a year in Africa. I lived the last two years in Calgary – keeping myself amused by playing sports, taking courses and dancing, then this amazing opportunity came up with VMF – it was everything I was looking for in a volunteer opportunity, and more! Supervising volunteers and working with conservation! A few months to sort out VISAs and resigning from my job, and here I am! 

Now, I’m super ecstatic to be here at the Vervet Monkey Foundation – I love working with people, but am also totally falling in love with the monkeys! 

I recently got back after spending 5 weeks in the UK over Christmas, and since then things have been pretty busy in Skunkey. I would like to say a big thank you to Lisa and all the volunteers who looked after Skunkey for me while I was away – it was lovely to come back and find them all so happy and healthy.

While I was in the UK, there were a few more new arrivals in Skunkey, on 20th December, Jasmine gave birth to a little boy, called Jinx. He is developing very well, growing very fast and Jasmine is being a brilliant mum.
Pepper gave birth to a baby boy called Peanut on 19th January and they are both doing very well. Pepper has 3 live-in babysitters and particularly Pixie, loves carrying the baby around. Although, as she is only 2 years old herself, it probably won't be very long until the baby is almost as big as her!

Ringo, Reggae, Spike and Lee have all been re-integrated into the troop. Ringo had been out for about a year as she had begun to cause a lot of trouble in the troop, but motherhood has mellowed her out and they are all doing very well back our in the troop. It already seems like they had never left the enclosure. Reggae did find it a bit overwhelming for the first few days, after living in B2 all her life, she never realised how big the world was! But now she has settled in and spends most of her days playing with her best friend, Lee, in the trees and being spoilt by all the girls!

The integration of the juniors is progressing very well, they are going out every day still and growing in confidence all the time. Dino loves the babies and has been playing with Lee on quite a few occasions. Hopefully over the next couple of months, there will be another few members of the troop!

Vista and Pan – Valley and Paradise's babies – are both growing up very well. Valley has decided that her baby needs to see more of the world, so has started being a bandit again, taking her baby with her! So Vista should grow up to be a very well travelled little girl!
As Pan is a little bit younger than the other babies, he still sticks close to his mum a lot of the time, but he is becoming more independent and is venturing further away from Paradise all the time.

Nettie in the Press - "Primate Colours"

Annette Lodge (Nettie) has published an article in The Australian newspaper February 16, 2008 called " Primate Colours". Annette was inspired to write the children's book 'Natemba' whilst volunteering with us in 2005. Most of the illustrations were put together from her tent! You can read the article about her stay here

If anyone would like to buy a copy of the wonderfully illustrated book 'Natemba' about an orphaned vervet monkey, you can order them online from ABC books. Nettie has kindly offered to donate half of the royalties to the VMF. They make great gifts for children or just if you would like to purchase one for yourself as a souvenir with an extract from the Vervet Monkey Foundation in the back. Some will also be on sale at the VMF for volunteers who would like to purchase them.

www.abcshop.com.au

Natemba's world was turned upside down the day she lost her mother'

Friend volunteering recommendations:Thanks to all the volunteers below who have successfully encouraged others to volunteer with us:

Bruce Johnstone
Aoife Healy
Emma Clark
Virginia Brooks
Sarah Harland

Click to donate button
The 100 pound donation in last month’s newsletter was from Suzy Harrison after having a collection round friends, family and work – fantastic, thank you!
Jill Holden – (previous volunteer) donated 25 pounds
Kimberly Erickson (Alyssa’s Mum) – donated 50 dollars
Brenton Head – donated 50 dollars (after reading article 'Primate Colours' by Annette Lodge)

Bottles & teats - Dawn Ryder sent over some Royal Canin bottles and teats to be used for the babies along with 2 DVD’s.

Vervet Forest

Our target figure for a deposit for Vervet Forest is in the region of another R50,000 – R75,000 so keep the fundraising up, it’s working well. If we reach our target figure then Vervet Forest could be well on it’s way to be the start of something huge. In next month’s edition there will be an article about Vervet Forest amongst other projects and how you can help.

Well here we are yet again with another very busy time in Sickbay.  As usual the days fly by and the work continues by the volunteers who yet again have been working very hard in helping to care for all of our monkeys.  At present Sickbay has this year’s babies resident in the stabilisation area who are all doing very well, Sabi being the cheekiest and already picking up the monkey rules! The babies this year have been spending time in SAAV enclosure and are loved by all the females out there (especially Whitey!) who does her best to pin them to the ground for a thorough grooming session!

Our latest baby has been named Maisy which means girl in Afrikaans.  The juniors from Disneyland are doing exceptionally well and Acorn is now living out permanently in SAAV, closely followed by Marula and Vibrance who will be joining her shortly. The rest of them are living in their new introduction cage on the side of the enclosure which now opens up Disneyland for the orphans to play in. Poor Scooter however is feeling a bit sorry for himself in sickbay at the moment as had his tail bitten by bandits.

3 new monkeys were released into the blind enclosure this month and Gedafie is still winning over all of the volunteers with her charm of cuddles and sunbathing!

Sientjie is a 3 year old male monkey who arrived at the foundation 3 months ago. On arrival he displayed stereotypical behaviour such as rocking under a blanket.  He was released into a cage up at Royal and had several volunteers working with him including Mak and Helen who did a great job in helping us with him.  His behaviour has improved greatly, he is now doing very well and living with another monkey called 'Pudding' who we introduced to him successfully. She also appears happy with her new found boyfriend!

Bobby is still going out to SAAV for day visits but does also make everyone feel very welcome with her friendly chit chats when they arrive at sickbay.  The new sickbay enclosure is also coming along nicely.

With special thanks to all the volunteers who have helped while Indy has been away sorting her Visa out in England.  We do miss Indy - the place has been exceptionally quiet without her!! Although we  would like to thank Hilde for her hard work down at Sickbay since her return in January and her wonderful sporadic outbursts of quality operatic singing!

The firebreaks are looking good around Goliath thanks to Vicky, Renee, Margherita, Hayley, Alyssa and previously Veronique amongst other volunteers all working hard to get them completed.

Tigger and Speedling are being integrated into the troop and part of the fence has been made higher to prevent bandits from jumping in and out during feeding time, thanks Ryan and Sammy. There are still more sections to be done for maximum effect.

Left: Pinky with baby Right: Goliath in all his glory!- taken by Veronique

For all you facebook addicts - we now have over 300 members on our facebook group 'Vervet Monkey Foundation' www.facebook.com. Don't forget to join and post on our wall so you can keep in touch with other volunteers and become involved.

• The VMF newsletter gets sent to over 800 people with numbers increasing all the time.
• The VMF newsletter can now be read on our website under the 'news & events' page.
• The first leg of the Great Primate handshake is set to go from the 1st – 28th August in South Africa with the heart of the expedition being a visit to the VMF. www.primatehandshake.org. Well done Al!

Goodbye & thank you to:

Mary Ellen Blinn, Lloyd Glater, Veronique Jarrel-King

• More to come about the Great Primate Handshake 1st - 28th August this year.

• Completion of the James enclosure & other projects

• Hollie writes an article about progress at the VMF since her last visit