So I've realized I haven't done much of any homework for school the past two months. There have been a couple assignments here and there--but especially these last two weeks I've done almost nothing in terms of schoolwork. Next week is tuition free week, or study week. However, I’ll be going on a John Curtin volunteering weekend in Bussleton and then a 7 day west coast tour of Australia. So I’ve on academic overload/overdrive for the past few days trying to finish assignments before I go on break. However, attending classes is only kind of mandatory because most of them are video and sound recorded. I love SERCUL, so given the choice I'd pick volunteering before going to class, which is how I was able to go to last Wednesday.
We went out for the whole day--packed our lunches--brought water jugs--got super dirty and sweaty. It was good work: planting Dianella Revolutas, Dianellas for short--as well as these smaller plants we call sedges. They're plants that grow fairly quickly and can withstand a lot of vegetative shock (flooding, rainfall, sunlight, sediment movement). We use metal planter tools that you angle into the ground like you would a sledge hammer, use your foot to open the clamp which loosens the dirt deep enough for the plants' roots. Then you drop a plant down the shoot and lift away the tool to pack the dirt around the plant with your feet. Like I mentioned--it's super muddy and by the end of the day you smell and feel more like nature than you do a human being. Absolutely. Fantastic.
Today I went with Cassie (a kzoo student) to Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Centre. It’s a small NGO/not for profit (I’m not sure) that houses and rehabilitates animals. Getting there was definitely a struggle. Like SERCUL, Armadale isn’t very well known and public transit is tricky to figure out how to use in order to get there. Cassie and I walked about a half an hour on the highway to get there because we missed our bus that runs every hour.
Anyway, we got there and our supposed boss said he wasn’t expecting us today—apparently the woman I had been communicating with didn’t go to work that day and didn’t seem to inform anyone about who we were or what we were doing. It almost spelt disaster but what I’ve found is that not-for-profits take any volunteers who show up. So Cassie and I went straight to work raking and shoveling rubbish from the miniature horse, donkey and horses pens and refilling the water troughs. By the time we were done, it was time for mid-morning tea. We started to get to know some of the other volunteers but we didn’t get a chance to straighten things out with our boss.
After tea, we were instructed on how to feed the turtles: break up the fish from the frozen ice chunk, cut them into pieces and throw them into the tanks with the pythons and other lizards. When the guy asked if we had ever had any experience with pythons I found myself taking a step back and looking petrified. Completely on accident too—I really am going to try to not get freaked out by all the reptiles there. I never really knew how much I was scared of them until I started working with them. And seeing their dead food (frozen lizards and freshly killed mice) all over the Armadale kitchen perpetuated that slight disgust. I hope I can turn it into appreciation like I have for mammals and aquatic life.
We had a chance to look around before we caught our hourly bus to the train station. Armadale is also home to dingos, kangaroos, cassowaries and a ton of beautiful birds (including chickens). There’s also this mutt that follows the owners around like it’s herding them. All in all, it’s a nice little centre, but I still feel uneasy about doing my ICRP there if it entails mostly maintenance work. We’ll see how the next few weeks go.
The next time you’ll hear from me I’ll be in vacation mode and have finished all my assignments :)
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