After too much rushing around from country to country, and a quick visit to my Mum in Kenya, it was time for a completely different experience - a stint as a volunteer at an ecolodge deep in the rainforest of Central Africa. I'd been here before (posted about it in July and August 2012) which is how I knew the owner and how I saw that they sometmes take volunteers, but spending a week somewhere as a tourist is very different from living there for six months as a volunteer.
To be honest I had very little clue as to what I would be expected to do (and still haven't as I write this ten days after my arrival...). The original requests for volunteers some years back were related to care of rescued pangolins, and this was what I was keen to do, but when I had a call with the owner prior to signing up, he dismissed my mention of pangolins, saying they now had a volunteer vet to do that. He asked what I'd done for work, and when I started to summarise my career path he interrupted to say that I sounded suitable, that there was a useful contribution I could make. So we agreed that I would start in early December. For how long? Well, yes, I could do three months if I wanted, but then I'd have to pay my own costs to get from the capital Bangui to the lodge down in the SW corner of the country (which would involve chartering a small aeroplane and cost a consderable sum) - better to commit to six months, in which case he would pay for the internal transport. So I signed up for six months!
It's hard to know how to summarise my first ten days. 'Nature' is everywhere, in terms of mould, cockroaches, ants, spiders... It makes you realise how much work people do behind the scenes in such places to keep the guest areas clean and functioning. I've also seen a scorpion (removed from room 5) and a Jameson's mamba (outside of room 1), the latter a 2 metre-long very venomous snake, Good lessons at the start of my stay to always watch where I put my feet!
There are also butterflies all around, many interesting birds, and occasionally mammals such as a large squirrel and a De Brazza's monkey that are both frequently seen here.
Things go wrong ... the water stops because the pump has clogged up, a column of driver ants make their way determinedly towards the kitchen, some generator fuel is tracked down but it turns out to be very poor quality (dirty)...
There is no phone signal, and only a weak wifi signal via a satellite connection, so I feel very remote from the rest of the world. Perhaps a good thing for a while!
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