Yesterday was an extremely bizarre, spontaneous and unorganized day. These days I am looking a lot into videos of people saving elephants. I am also vegan and can say without sounding hypocritical that I love animals a lot, so I guess all these came to a point of me waking up from a dream where I was a person who saves animals and takes care of them. I awoke feeling very determined and thinking “Okay, this is a sign, I should now at last go check that animal shelter.” What shelter? The one I was constantly thinking about from the moment I heard it exists, and the one which is 3 hours on feet away from me, and this is exactly what was stopping me – not having an easy way to get there. But I thought “A-ha-ha! Not today, today I’ll take a bus!”
Long story short and skipping my fails with bus and stuff, here I am, at the sanctuary. First impression? Chaos!
After asking round and about how to become a volunteer, I understood that they did not expect a volunteer to just strut up their door and say “Why hello there!” Even tho I didn’t say that I came to immediately start working, they kind of assumed it, so they tried to find someone who can introduce me to animals, or give me some work.
So from that moment I was jumping between sitting and being ignored by other volunteers to "cut these veggies and put them in these boxes," "collect empty cups and bottles and bring them to me," "change water for bunnies." Then I got a 13 year old girl to introduce me to some of the animals, and she behaved, well, very teenager-y, so it was hard to understand half of the time what Serbian teenager tells you with their own Serbian memes, inside jokes and just being a kid. I wasn’t introduced to all the animals, but I can’t remember even names of those I was introduced to, so I guess that’s fine for now. I thanked her and came back to the small cafe place where I spent most of my time yesterday. There I met the woman who’s one of the main people there, and I felt sorry for her because she was working non-stop, while most other volunteers I saw (most just teenagers) were sitting and drinking free coffee. Later that girl who showed me animals started asking me again the same questions she did before, so I was politely answering her again, only to notice that her copy came and started talking to her. Twins. And no, no one can distinguish them. Their names, if translated on English, would be something like “Hope” and “Wish.”
Later that main woman, her name is Sandra, started talking to me more. Not because she didn’t want to earlier, but because she didn’t have time. She told me a bit about the place, then we had a few discussions here and there, and then she showed a few more buildings and rooms. There is a infirmary, where from we tried to release the pigeon, but for some reason he doesn’t want to fly away (even tho he’s totally healthy!), bites the woman whenever she tried to grab him, and just really enjoyed sitting on my head. Such a scalp massage!
The sanctuary works in the way that from Monday to Friday it works just as a place where they take care of animals, but weekends are the days when they open doors for people, who bring their kids (and of course there was my colleague with her millionaire husband, looking t me like I'm retarded for wanting to come and clean after animals). You can come for free, but if you want to ride horses, feed animals or have a drink – you need to pay, and all the money are going towards helping animals. Sandra said that they’re millions of dinars in debts to different companies from whom they’re buying food and medicine for animals, so they are struggling financially. I gave a donation myself, but I know that it’s nothing compared to how much money they need to keep that place running.
While I thought the shelter is for taking care of animals, and it mainly is, I understood very soon that it has its own social game going, and oh boy I dislike that. I do not need dramas, I do not need people looking down on me or being aggressive towards me, just because I'm different from them. While this Sandra seems to be a very interesting, kind, smart and polite person, I can see that most others… aren’t really. So I will give a place a few more chances, because of the animals, of course. I just hope it won’t become what it feels like it can become.
I also noticed that most of those teenagers I saw there didn’t look like they’re interested in any other animal but horses. If you’re a volunteer there, you can get free horse riding lessons, and from what I understood mostly all of them are riding horses. Place looks unsanitary, and some places and things look like they can harm animals, and I understand that they just don’t have enough working volunteers and money to make the place better. It was sad, but at least they are trying, and I do want to help.
I am also not sure when I have time for all that, because of the means of transportation which I’m lacking. I need around an hour of a walk from my workplace to get to a bus station, and then I also need to wait more for that bus to come, and then 40 minutes drive there. o on a work day I'll be coming there, when most are already going home, and I need to make sure I have a bus back, or that someone can drive me back... Yesterday I was there from around 1pm to 7pm. I was driven back to the city by Sandra. She told me that she can pick me up today and bring there too (she's working there very day), when I later started asking her via mobile, where exactly I should go and at what time, she answered only on one question, and I felt awkward asking again, so I chose to write her in the morning, that I won't come. I'll probably come next weekend. I am also going to driving lessons these days, so I don't have free time for much. But I do want to come there again.
It was a bizarre day I don’t know what to think of, same with people I met.
Long story short and skipping my fails with bus and stuff, here I am, at the sanctuary. First impression? Chaos!
After asking round and about how to become a volunteer, I understood that they did not expect a volunteer to just strut up their door and say “Why hello there!” Even tho I didn’t say that I came to immediately start working, they kind of assumed it, so they tried to find someone who can introduce me to animals, or give me some work.
So from that moment I was jumping between sitting and being ignored by other volunteers to "cut these veggies and put them in these boxes," "collect empty cups and bottles and bring them to me," "change water for bunnies." Then I got a 13 year old girl to introduce me to some of the animals, and she behaved, well, very teenager-y, so it was hard to understand half of the time what Serbian teenager tells you with their own Serbian memes, inside jokes and just being a kid. I wasn’t introduced to all the animals, but I can’t remember even names of those I was introduced to, so I guess that’s fine for now. I thanked her and came back to the small cafe place where I spent most of my time yesterday. There I met the woman who’s one of the main people there, and I felt sorry for her because she was working non-stop, while most other volunteers I saw (most just teenagers) were sitting and drinking free coffee. Later that girl who showed me animals started asking me again the same questions she did before, so I was politely answering her again, only to notice that her copy came and started talking to her. Twins. And no, no one can distinguish them. Their names, if translated on English, would be something like “Hope” and “Wish.”
Later that main woman, her name is Sandra, started talking to me more. Not because she didn’t want to earlier, but because she didn’t have time. She told me a bit about the place, then we had a few discussions here and there, and then she showed a few more buildings and rooms. There is a infirmary, where from we tried to release the pigeon, but for some reason he doesn’t want to fly away (even tho he’s totally healthy!), bites the woman whenever she tried to grab him, and just really enjoyed sitting on my head. Such a scalp massage!
The sanctuary works in the way that from Monday to Friday it works just as a place where they take care of animals, but weekends are the days when they open doors for people, who bring their kids (and of course there was my colleague with her millionaire husband, looking t me like I'm retarded for wanting to come and clean after animals). You can come for free, but if you want to ride horses, feed animals or have a drink – you need to pay, and all the money are going towards helping animals. Sandra said that they’re millions of dinars in debts to different companies from whom they’re buying food and medicine for animals, so they are struggling financially. I gave a donation myself, but I know that it’s nothing compared to how much money they need to keep that place running.
While I thought the shelter is for taking care of animals, and it mainly is, I understood very soon that it has its own social game going, and oh boy I dislike that. I do not need dramas, I do not need people looking down on me or being aggressive towards me, just because I'm different from them. While this Sandra seems to be a very interesting, kind, smart and polite person, I can see that most others… aren’t really. So I will give a place a few more chances, because of the animals, of course. I just hope it won’t become what it feels like it can become.
I also noticed that most of those teenagers I saw there didn’t look like they’re interested in any other animal but horses. If you’re a volunteer there, you can get free horse riding lessons, and from what I understood mostly all of them are riding horses. Place looks unsanitary, and some places and things look like they can harm animals, and I understand that they just don’t have enough working volunteers and money to make the place better. It was sad, but at least they are trying, and I do want to help.
I am also not sure when I have time for all that, because of the means of transportation which I’m lacking. I need around an hour of a walk from my workplace to get to a bus station, and then I also need to wait more for that bus to come, and then 40 minutes drive there. o on a work day I'll be coming there, when most are already going home, and I need to make sure I have a bus back, or that someone can drive me back... Yesterday I was there from around 1pm to 7pm. I was driven back to the city by Sandra. She told me that she can pick me up today and bring there too (she's working there very day), when I later started asking her via mobile, where exactly I should go and at what time, she answered only on one question, and I felt awkward asking again, so I chose to write her in the morning, that I won't come. I'll probably come next weekend. I am also going to driving lessons these days, so I don't have free time for much. But I do want to come there again.
It was a bizarre day I don’t know what to think of, same with people I met.
