Today was a normal working day with some unusual elements to it. First of all I had only slept 2-3 hours due to a marathon dance party until 3:00am  in the nearby village with speakers reaching the whole of north of Sulawesi I would think. You might ask yourself how that could be possible on a weekday but the answer is that we are in Indonesia and apparently the police has other things to do than interrupting people having fun. I also panicked after finding spider webbs in my bed when using head torch for reading and had to sanitise it but with the horrific imagination of spiders walking in my bed while sleeping during the first two nights. Well what you don´t know you never can hurt from.....

Working day starts at 6:00am with browsing for jungle sallad for the long tail- and gibbon monkeys. We then prepare green bundles for the macaques. As I have told they are very aggressive and very fast so when you stick the green bundle through the fence, you have to keep an eye where they are, if they are showing their teeth to you, you should wait a little bit. Today I was taken by surprise when an aggressive alpha male quick came out with his hand and scratched my hand. Luckily it only got red but got me a bit shaky! The next surprise was a black racer snake that was rolling right in front of me. They keep telling me that I have to watch where I am going as there might be snakes or huge spider webbs between trees. Once these little monkeys are fed with their breakfast we get served breakfast; fried rice and pineapple and other fresh fruit.

After breakfast we prepared boiled eggs in leaves for the macaques. This is not a natural diet for them but they are given this to supplement the proteins and DO THEY LOVE IT! It is a fight between them who can get most eggs in their mouth. They are jumping and screeming at us in the cage when we are approaching the enclosures. We also gave some seed enrichments to the parrots and cuckatoos. For the orangutans we made some yummy smoothie with fresh fruit, chia seeds and carrots and put it in coke bottles. One of the orangutans happily drank it when we poured it in her mouth but the other one refused. We even tried with the animal keeper that has fed him since he was little but he was not interested in the smoothie. 

After our lunch we helped the keepers and the veterinary to clean the turtles. They are scrubbed with soap on the shell all around them. They are also put on the scale to check that they are not loosing or gaining waight too fast. These turtles were between 35 and 39 kg.

I have had a fantastic day learning lots of new things. It is not all easy for a lot of reasons being here in this climate and in this environment but sometimes you just have to accept things in order to reach other personal levels and the most important that the main purpose I am here is to help the wild animals due to cruelty in the world.

To check your shoes before putting your feet into them is something I do at home to get rid of any small gravel that happen to be there - not to ensure there are no tarantellas in the shoe. I realise very quickly that I have to ignore my fobia for spiders and cockroaches when arriving to Sulwesi, Indonesia yesterday. I have encountered several spiders as big as my palm already. Apparently you also meet snakes when you collect jungle sallad for the animals. I have also noted that there are ants EVERYWHERE. I even have to brush them off my toothbrush before brushing my teeth. "Welcome to the jungle…"

The centre takes care of wild animals that the Indonesian custom have confiscated in the nearby international port before shipped out to Filippines and China to become circus animals, food or organs taken out to be consumed as medical treatments and sold to the black market. The centre rehabilitates the animals and release them to their native environment which might not be Sulawesi. There are lots of animals native in Borneo at the centre. The release is the hardest part in order to ensure they survive and not get killed or have difficulties finding food.

My first day at work was today and I have learnt so much. Here at the center we are now only 3 volontaries. The Tasikoki centre has one veterinary, one animal behaviour specialist and several animal care takers that all work full time. The volontaries job is to complement the care takers job with enrichments for the animals. Enrichments can be leafe packages filled with seeds, honey, marmaite, oat etc and then wrapped in a bundle of green leaves. It will stimulate them to find the goodies inside.Today I have handed out enrichments to the orangutans, macaques and the sun bears. The macaques are very aggressive and we have to wear masks to cover our teeth as theeth mean aggression to them and will make them even more provoked. We cannot look them in the eyes and have to keep a safe distance to them as they try to grab you.

It´s been an incredibly interesting and unusual Tuesday for me! The weather is quite humid and sticky but doesn´t really bother me.

After months of planning, organising and thinking it is now time for departure to a slightly more exotic environment than the daily routines at the lawfirm in Stockholm!

Not knowing exactly what waits ahead of me is a mixed feeling of excitement and a tumbling stomach. I know for sure though that I am doing the right thing. So many positive comments from people I am surrounded by which makes me even more confident in my decision.

What´s even more exciting is that I have no idea what these two months will do to me?! It´s like a personal experiment. I might come back o Sweden in May as a fanatic vegan animal rights activist dressed in batik sarongs that has lost all my excess BMI kilos and with a mindset that make-up is superficial..... or not.

For the first time in many years I will leave my work phone at home. First week will feel like I have lost a limb and second week I might get used to living without the limb and realise that one can actually live a normal life without that limb. This will be two months of self contemplation, reading, learning about something that I have very little knowledge about, meeting different cultures, hopefully get friends for life and meet and learn about wild animals with a very traumatic background.

Please come with me on this fantastic journey! If you like to read about the centre where I will be working, you can go to http://www.tasikoki.org/