My New Friendly Folk

My soul is nomming.

I go through spurts of discontentment with life.  And then I go through a spurt of confusion because I'm never bored.  Why am I anxious?  My life is full, and I enjoy the things I do.  But the discontentment came every once in a blue moon. 

It took my best friend to make me realize what I was doing.  I was filling my time instead of my soul.  What is busy-ness if you're not doing the things that make you tick? 

Two days after this realization, I start volunteering at Kanazawa Zoo.  I was unsure of how it would pan out, me definitely not being a fluent speaker of Japanese.  But my first day there, I said to myself, This is it, and finally, I'm feeding my soul.

Week #1 at the zoo, I fed a giraffe.

This lovely lady also gave me kisses and lots of long, purple tongue on my shoulders.  What a flirt.  Her name is Miruku (literally "Milk").

Week #2, I got to play with their juvenile Black Rhinoceros, Fuka (pronounced who-kah, as in I am smoking a). 

She's 1 year 3 months, and she weighs over 400 kg (almost 900 lbs).  Her skin is so tough that they have to vaccinate her behind the ear.  Also, she is adorable. 

There are 4 subspecies of Black Rhinoceros, and they're all found throughout central and southern Africa.  They're all endangered.  In fact, the Western Black Rhinoceros was declared extinct in 2011 by the IUCN.  Fuka is an Eastern Black Rhinoceros.

Week #3 was yesterday.  My husband, Curt, was going to meet me when we were done with our program, but I ran into him when we were about to see the Indian Rhinoceros, so the zookeepers brough him back too!  Their male Indian Rhinoceros is Kintaro ("Golden Boy" or "Soldier").  He's 2000 kg (~4500 lbs). 

My new favorite thing about rhinos (at least the ones I've played around with) is that they're actually pretty affectionate.  They'll lean into your touch and turn so you can "scratch" their ribs (which is actually more like slapping - their skin is so tough!).  This proved dangerous for me yesterday as Kintaro leaned into my hand and pinned it against a bar!  My fault.  Thank God for on-the-ball, strong zookeepers and protective husbands.  ;)

Latest lesson: feed your soul.  Or you'll feel what it's like to not feed your soul.  I'm learning not only how to understand what I need, but also to get what I need when things aren't perfect (i.e., living in a foreign country).  Sometimes, you just have to make it happen and let yourself rely on others to accommodate you.  Boom.  Life is good.