I lost a good friend of mine a few weeks ago. We hadn’t been friends for too long, but I considered him one of my best mates. We spent a good part of my last year in Adelaide Zoo talking every day, me more than him of course, but it was always good conversations. We didn’t always speak though, a lot of time was also spent just enjoying each other’s company, just sitting, listening and watching what the other was doing and trying to sense each other’s thoughts and moods. You may have met him if you were one of the many who visited Adelaide Zoo, his name was Pusung and he was the male Sumatran Orang-utan. It was a gentle friendship which grew in to a trusting bond that I cherished, and was my greatest loss when I left for New Zealand. He died a few weeks ago, due to a medical condition in his throat which lead to other complications and I never got to say goodbye or even see him. I didn’t even know how ill he was until after it was all over. I feel so alone because no one over her knew him and so my sadness remains inside.

When I first started working in the industry, a supervisor told me that the golden rule is to never get attached to the animals in your care. It was seen as a flaw or a sign of weakness. I have never believed in this, and indeed have strived for the complete opposite. I would challenge anyone who says a good animal keeper must remain disconnected from their charges for fear of becoming emotional involved in making decisions based on this, not on reason or ethics. The loss of Pusung is devastating, but I have no regrets in becoming so attached to him.
This isn’t just a personal loss either; everyone who worked with him over the years is feeling sad right now. Even people who had brief encounters with him through tours and visits to the zoo are overwhelmed.
Pusung trusted me enough to allow me to do some training with him. He would open his mouth wide and I could check all of his teeth and make sure he was taking care of them. He would push his nose in my direction so I could clean it when he had a cold. I could clean his eyes, check his hands and feet for injuries and prod and poke him almost anywhere to make sure he was all OK. With minimal training, he learnt a lot. This isn’t a reflection on me, it was he who had to do all of the learning and hard work, I was just the weird human that wanted to clean his nose.
So now, his imposing presence and personality have gone from my former workplace. No longer can he turn his back when offered celery instead of banana. No more shutting his den door to indicate that he doesn’t like the person that came to see him. No more offering his head for a kind pat. No more gentle throat rumblings to say he has had a good nights’ sleep. Nothing. Only the memories I have, the pictures I saved and this feeling of sadness and loss remain.

It’s hard not to feel philosophical and poetic about the most recent twist to this adventure in New Zealand. I neve imagined that when we first talked about moving somewhere else for a year of experience and adventure, that it would end up in the situation we are now in. This week we officially resigned from our positions at Monarto and Adelaide Zoos back in Australia. The opportunity of securing permanent and long term employment here at Hamilton Zoo was too great to pass up, and unfortunately this meant we had to resign from our Aussie jobs. It was a decision that slowly crept up on us, but was the right decision to make. I felt stuck between two zoos so to speak, unable to embrace the new until I had said goodbye to the old. So the goodbye was said and it is time to keep on moving. There are many opportunities for us here to grow and develop, with the support and encouragement of fellow keepers and management. We have been given responsibilities and challenges which we yearned for to stay focused and committed. The entire journey from the initial suggestion of an adventure to this very point in time has been great so far, and as I said in the beginning, it is difficult not to feel philosophical and wonder what guided us to this fantastic and extraordinary point because it indeed was not planned.
It’s not all about work either. You have seen the photos of what we are doing, where we are living and these all add up to the momentous feeling of being that I experience each day. I won’t describe the setting to you again, but it is idyllic and peaceful. We have our 2 dogs here now, plus 4 chooks, 3 peacocks and 4 Galloway cows.
What is missing though, are out families and friends. Slowly we become more familiar with the new people around us, but there is not yet that complete connection that you have with people that you share a history with. There are no spontaneous calls for dinner catch-ups, and chats over coffee are sorely missed. These may come and until then, I have more time to be poetic and philosophical.

What a wonderful experience it was to visit Samoa. It wasn’t a holiday, nor a visit, not even an adventure, but a wonderful experience that I will always look back on as precious gift. Why is this so? I will explain later. For now, the run down of our Samoan experience. Coming straight off the back of working 7 days in a row, it was hard to get psyched up for the trip. Driving to the airport after work on day 7 it started to kick in that we were going somewhere. Landing several hours later in a humid and tropical atmosphere a day ‘before’ we actually left Auckland threw the senses in to a state of utter confusion. A short sleep later, followed by a peek out the room windows confirmed that yes indeed, we were no longer in Kansas, Toto. Palm trees swayed over the blue waters of Samoa’s coast, with local people scurrying about their daily business. Waves were gently crashing below, strange and beautiful birds fluttered between the trees and small fluffy clouds dotted the horizon as only they do on tropical seas. We spent 6 days in this tranquil place and here are some of the highlights: coral reefs with colourful fish, churches on every corner with everyone dressed in their best fine white clothes singing with powerful and harmonic voices, friendly and gentle people everywhere with a smile, markets full of fruit and vegetables of every colour, shape and size with people talking singing and laughing with those big smiles again, old ford buses that look like they have been jacked up with music pumping out of the open chassis and people crammed in to every corner, tropical rainforests complete with down pours of tropical rain, coconut served with everything, boiled bananas as a potato substitute, roadside BBQ’s, everyone sleeps outside in open walled ‘fales’ which are colourful and tidy as much as the gardens, more whipper snipper’s per head than cars makes them very garden proud……………and there is more, a lot more, but it is really to be experienced to fully understand just how grand the island of Samoa and its people is.

So why was it more of an experience than just a holiday? It was the people, the culture which they maintain and the results this all produces. Everyone was so pleasant and friendly, it was a little awkward at first. They were reserved and polite, which was easy to think at first was disinterest and rudeness. As soon as they saw you smile though, it became an open, gregarious and happy atmosphere and nothing was too much to ask of. Once I realised this, I swung in to fine form with my questions, asking questions of everyone I got a chance to. Coupled with this welcoming and hospitable treatment of visitors, was the evidence of their strong sense of tradition and commitment to family. Everyone lived in their large family groups in small communities within the village, and time was spent with each other. No one did chores alone, no one sat around relaxing alone, and it was all about community and family. Even the families are allowed to go to the schools where the children in their brightly coloured uniforms can see their families and join them during breaks. While the morning was for gardening, cleaning, fishing and so on, the afternoons are often spent relaxing in the tropical heat. Sitting around talking and laughing, they must have so many stories to tell as conversations were constant. Like my stories of Samoa………….

It is never too late to be what you might have been. (George Eliot)