Some things never change

Well, after months of waiting and 36 hours of travel, I finally made it to the sanctuary! Unfortunately, not a lot has gone according to plan. Late Monday night I sprained my ankle pretty badly. I’m talking golf ball sized lump, nasty purple bruises on both sides, mainly confined to the couch sprain. With less than 24 until I had to go to the airport, we scrambled to get to a doctor, buy a brace, and get x-rays done while still leaving time for me to finish packing. It was definitely not how I pictured my last day at home and all the last minute errands took up a serious chunk of the time I had planned to use for some final JoJo snuggles. Getting out the door was overall a lot more rushed than I had wanted, but we made it to the airport fine and my mom insisted I let them push me to my gate in a wheelchair.

On my flight to Casablanca, I took advantage of the empty seats around me and reclined, propped my leg up, and slept about as well as I could all things considered. We landed at 10 AM Morocco time, which was 4 AM east coast time. I stumbled sleepily through customs and somehow made it onto a train to downtown. I didn’t really know where to go after that, so I just started crutching my way vaguely in the direction of the ocean, still lugging 35 pounds of stuff on my back. I ended up at the Hassan II Mosque, which was massive, stunning, and right on the water. The whole building was covered in beautiful, intricate mosaics of blue and green, almost perfectly color coordinated with the ocean and sky in the background. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city and market place, then headed back to the airport.

I landed in Sierra Leone exhausted and sore at around 4 AM. After a shuttle, a ferry, and a car ride, I made it to the sanctuary at around 7 AM and almost immediately fell asleep. And that’s pretty much all I’ve done since I’ve been here. Today and yesterday have just been spent laying around resting my leg and catching up on sleep. I think the most exciting thing that’s happened was my shower tonight which was ice cold, pitch black (my light died as soon as I stepped in) and virtually one on foot in my Crocs. Nothing says thrilling like a game of Russian roulette trying to find a bar of soap in a Ziploc bag without grabbing the wrong end of a razor.

I’m super lucky that my supervisors and the other volunteers have been so kind, patient, and flexible with me. But it’s killing me that I’ve been here two days and still haven’t seen the chimps! Pretty much all the spots the are visible are along terrain that would be tough to navigate on crutches. But I’m pretty sure I’m spending tomorrow in an office with a view of some of the enclosures. I can hear them making noise all day long, so that’s helped build some excitement!