24th June. Volunteering

Hi,
On the trip through Africa in 08 we were aware of the many AIDS agencies, orphanages and volunteer organizations in many of the countries. It's also something that you are made aware of on a regular basis by the media back here in Australia. We both felt that perhaps we could give something back now that we are retired. The web is great to find details of such organizations but we found many of them are quite expensive: help the Cheetah Foundation, US$1500 for 2 weeks, track desert elephants, $1100 for 2 weeks that type of thing. Then we heard of a web site for low cost volunteering www.volunteer4africa.org that had a great array of opportunities. Just the one in Namibia but it sounded worth looking into. REST Namibia is a wildlife crowd committed to conserving 5 of the less known African animals and birds that are on the endangered list. They are the cape vulture, pangolin, African wild dog, dwarf python and the spotted rubber frog. The refuge is in the north of the country, the way we intended heading once leaving Windhoek. A couple of emails were sent and it was worked out, seeing we will have our own accommodation, transport and cooking facilities, a donation at the end of our time would suffice. That's one of the advantages of having wheels.
They have just built a new centre and there is a lot of finishing off but there is also the feeding of the animals, banding, and releasing back into the wild that could make it interesting. I am happy helping with the finishing off work and I'm sure Joan will get something out of working with the animals.
We intend heading further north into Damaraland, up near the Angolan border, when we leave Windhoek but will stop off at the refuge to introduce ourselves etc. It will only be for a couple of weeks but will give us an idea whether we are cut out for this type of thing. We are looking forward to it.