An event like this required the help of all the staff, so the question was where would the useless foreigners best be of service. I'm not sure who doled out the assignments, but somehow Shannon and I ended up running the face-painting booth. Neither of us had a clue how to make a kid look like a carnivore, herbivore or anything else, but that was the task. And of course, we had to speak German. It sounded like a fun challenge, but I was concerned a child might ask to be painted as a word I didn't know, or even worse, that I might misunderstand the vocabulary and say, painted the child to look like a frog when he asked for a racoon. Across Europe the whole carnivore event revolved around an attempt to acheive a place in the Guiness Book of World Records as having the largest teddybear picnic ever. We counted 519 teddybears. I have no idea what the previous record was, but regardless, that's a lot of bears.
The summer solstice was cloudy in Magdeburg, so the crowds were thinner than anticipated and I had plenty of time to explain to the children who wanted their face painted that Shannon and I usually spoke English, but were practicing our German. Even after the explanation, most children were fascinated to hear us speak--to each other in English and to them in German. They either gave mouth-agape stares, or furrowed their little brows in puzzlement. I discovered that children are very suggestible, so if I began by asking what they would like to be, but followed quickly with a list of animals that I knew how to paint, I avoided two problems. First, the children didn't ask me to transform them into words I didn't understand, and second, they didn't ask me to transform them into anything I couldn't paint because they never asked for anything I didn't offer. So, after a few hours passed, there were plenty of tigers, bears, kitty-cats, dogs, parrots, butterflies, and zebras running around the zoo (but no rhinos, elephants, reindeer or penguins because I didn't know how to do those). There was also one strange child who invented her own desgin; as per her request, I painted half her face blue with silver stripes. She was pleased, but I'm sure everyone else thought a misunderstanding had occurred somewhere. I have been asked to repeat this assignment at next month's kindergarten fund-raising function.
Another event of the season involved a camera crew from the local news station following the zookeepers around for some fluff story about elephant keepers. Because I am only a keeper for half the day and am not techinically one of the elephant handlers, this did not concern me. Or so I thought. When I stepped into our break room on the afternoon of the filming, I was introduced to Ortwin, a man with big hair and big personality. Upon hearing that I was an American, Otrwin said in German, "Ooohhh, she doesn't understand a damn thing then?" One of the keepers piped up and said that they actually had found the only American who spoke a second language and hired her. I clarified in my elementary German, "Just speak slowly and clearly please."
I sat through the meeting with the keepers and crew without saying anything, because there were so many people all talking over one another and using unfamiliar vocabulary that I couldn't follow much. Also, I gave up after a few minutes because the filming didn't have to do with me. What I gathered was that they had one segment left to shoot and that somehow a dog was involved. Ortwin had a sudden idea, pointed at me and announced: "We'll use her!" Oh joy.
So with very little knowledge of what was actually happening, I followed Ortwin and his cameramen outside, where there was more rapid discussion about dogs. "Doesn't she have something else to wear?" asked Ortwin, addressing the head keeper instead of me. They gave me the cameraman's jacket. "That's ridiculous. Take it off. Where's the dog?" Then I realized what I was supposed to do. The crew wanted footage of the elephants reacting to a canine. When the crowds are thin, the African elephant, Mwanna, flings sand from her exhibit at people who bring their dogs to the zoo (the policy on dogs at the zoo here is just that they should be leashed at all times, but no one warns them about getting pelted with sand at the elephant exhibit). I don't blame the crew for wanting to film this, but I did wonder why I had been chosen to play the part of the victim.
Our department also cares for the huskies, so it was simple to acquire a dog; we simply crossed the zoo, leashed one up and brought her to the enclosure. I took directions about where to walk and stand, and felt that it was a little absurd to be forcing myself to approach the elephants when I knew Eve the husky and I were going to get a trunk-ful of dirt in our faces. Eve didn't know what was coming until she saw Mwanna charging. Piff! Sand all over Eve and me. "Great! Now let's do it again!" exclaimed Ortwin. In all we shot three takes of this sand-to-the-face scene. I was none the worse for the wear, but I did apologize to poor Eve, who likely thinks I am the dumbest keeper ever.
I have still been spending a little time with the elephants as well; they are learning to play catch with a yellow rubber ball, mostly for their own edification. They also have a giant ball like the kind some fitness buffs use as a desk chair, which they kick like a soccer ball to make "goals" with the keepers sometimes.
All over the western world the trend in elephant keeping is moving toward "protected contact" which means that keepers and elephants never interact without a barrier of some kind. Here in Magdeburg the elephant/rhino house is an older building and the facilities are not in place for this kind of care, giving the keepers no choice but to enter enclosures with the animals. Three of the five full-timers in my department (and myself) go in with Mwanna and Birma, and I can't quite figure out why the others aren't allowed (or why I AM), but the closest I got to an answer was one of the keepers cryptically stating that he and the elephants weren't friends anymore. The keepers who do train and clean the elephants carry short heavy sticks, which I have never seen them use and which would also be totally ineffective should an elephant actually decide to charge or attack.
The new elephant house will be finished in 2012, complete with all the facilities necessary to care for the animals using protected contact instead. But for now, I go into the enclosure with the 9,000 lb girls, use a push broom to clean them, and catch the ball when they throw it to me, so I guess we're still friends. Once I was in the enclosure when the African elephant started getting excited (we aren't sure what about) and my heart thundered in my chest, but I had to appear completely composed because that's one of the fundamentals of zookeeping (well, for me anyway). Stay calm, even if you animal isn't. Mwanna quickly relaxed and nothing went awry.
We did have a Benny Hill moment recently when Peggy, one of the horses, discovered how open the carabiner that helped hold her stall latch closed (she had already learned how to open the latch, hence the carabiner). She and her accomplice, Maya the mule, trotted out of the barn and down the visitor path while a trainee and I were raking the camels' yard. We sprang over the fence, and split up to try to catch them. I realized that neither of the escapees wore her harness. Goody. Miraculously this occurred during a penguin presentation, so most of the zoo's visitors were congregating at that enclosure and the paths Peggy, Maya and I were charging down were deserted. I lost sight of them around the reindeer exhibit, but turned the corner in front of the petting zoo in time to watch someone much cleverer than I nab the fugitives. Janko, an apprentice animal trainer from a long line of animal trainers, had cornered the horse and mule. He whipped off his sweatshirt and belt and lassoed Peggy with the belt by throwing one end around her neck. Now holding the horse by his belt in one hand, he swung his sweatshirt around Maya's neck and held onto the sleeves. We led them safely back to their stall using his makeshift collars. I was impressed.
In other zoo news, our female giraffe gave birth to a six-foot tall calf two weeks ago. I was lucky enough to help bottle-feed the wobbly youngster one day, and he showed off his purple tongue by slurping my fingers. Even adult giraffes are all knobby, so it's not surprising that this guy looks like he's made up entirely of joints. He doesn't have the graceful, slow-motion stride of grown giraffes though; he stomps along a lot more like Bambi at the beginning of the movie.
For those of you who incessently bug me about photos, I apologize first for being a negligent photographer and failing to capture most of the moments worth capturing, and second for being a poor photographer, thereby rendering most of the moments I DO catch unfocused and ill-framed. But if you can put up with that sort of thing, and want to see photos, please do visit my Myspace page. I am working on getting more pictures uploaded, but I actually have to get over my biggest stumbling block first, which is remembering to take pictures in the first place.
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