Hendrix

Saw this and loved it.

Chikih & P Satsuma - The Kalaweit Sanctuary & Chanee

First off my fellow satsumas, if you tweet..highly recommend you follow @kalaweit. 

They saved a baby orang yesterday off a palm oil plantation.

Chanee who started Kalaweit is one of my major heroes and I nearly fell over when I bumped into him at the Hope4Apes event in 2010 I was volunteering at. When he was on stage with Sir David Attenborough he got a standing ovation for his talk. 

I first heard of him when I saw 'Natural World: Radio Gibbon' on BBC2, I think narrated by Sir Attenborough.

Cheeky Chikih :)

There is Chikih, a siamang, 12 yrs old, who was very ill when we first adopted her. She came from Jakarta in 2004 to the sanctuary. She was skinny and dehydrated when Kalaweit first took her in; having been kept in a small cage in Jakarta after hunters killed her parents. She had diaorrhea when she arrived and was very stressed out. And wowee the difference in her photos from even back in 2009 to now - she is happy, alebit her forest is gone, and she has a wild pig who comes to see her every day! :) 

We adopt her fully for €250 a year with some of the proceeds from sales on littlesatsuma.com.

This is the link to info on Chikih on Kalaweit's site: Chikih's Info



Peter Satsuma

Then there is Peter Satsuma, named after Little Satsuma, he's a gibbon, 5 years old. Chanee said I could name the next gibbon they rescued when I had contacted him and Nadege who was from Kalaweit too. Peter Satsuma was the first gibbon rescued into the new centre in 2010. Chanee said he was unusual as he was a white faced gibbon. The little fella has a knee fracture from some point in his young life.

Whenever Carlo sends news of them by email it seems Peter Satsuma has always been singing his head off. Which is apt as his first name is after a singer/ musician I used to save from various late night tangles and who I was madly in love with for a time and am still friends with.

We adopt him fully for €250 a year with some of the proceeds from sales on littlesatsuma.com.

This is the link to info on P Satsuma on Kalaweit's site: Peter Satsuma's Info 

Deffo take a look at their website: www.kalaweit.org and the amazing work they do. They also have an online shop...and you can also sponsor one of the rescued gibbons or siamangs online. They have sunbears too.

Chanee is truly someone who everyone will know of one day, his approach to conservation, saving animals and enviromental issuse is pioneering with the medium of radio out to the youngsters having a real impact.

'The Song of Wandering Aengus'....W.B Yeats

WENT out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

 

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

 

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

 

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

The man who walked the long walk to freedom

I was thinking about Nelson Mandela today, I've not a clue why today particularly, but thinking how amazing it is to ponder what one human being can go through and do in their life. That it only takes one person like him to bring great change. And what made him different than someone else. One day he is a prisoner of Apartheid, the next he is ruling a Nation. How one human can sacrifice their life for standing up to the injustice served upon their fellow countrymen makes me wonder about the human capacity for selflessness...in a world that is currently rather commercial and rather greedy. Aung San Suu Kyi is another.

I found some words of wisdom from Nelson Mandela, and I'm jotting them down as much so I can read them again at my own leisure as I am for anyone else! I know,from the stats, that some people do read this blog and the number is growing...so clearly someone finds my waffle of interest (or some interest):

“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right".

Bourbon Street beginnings....

There are about ooh 3 or 4 people who know that the story of Little Satsuma begins in the French Quarter of New Orleans in 2001....I have no photos from being there as they are somewhere stuffed in a box in a house in Essex, assuming the owner of them is still alive.

A strange sequence of events that began on a trip there were the catalyst for a number of things that subsequently happened that led me along a very interesting path and led me eventually to a small village in Wales where I now live.

What it has showed me is that life is there in front of you, like a big fat pile of putty. There is no manual on what you are supposed to be making, you just have a try and see what you can make of it. If it's good keep it that way and the amazing thing is that if you get it wrong or what you shape it as turns a bit rubbish, you can always remould it  - keep the bits you want and dont be afraid to look at what bit were crap and change.

I wonder if we all sat down and had to write on a bit of paper the 3 pivotal points that shaped our life what they would be? Would we have still arrived where we are without them? If not what would have been different?

the wondrous, wondrous twists and turns of the path we tread on this mortal coil.


“Fools live to regret their words, wise men to regret their silence”

A (very) short ode to my new home :)

There is a village, it's hidden in the hills
There is a village where the madding crowd stills
There is a village where the cottage chimneys smoke
A place of magic and handmade folk

Crystal Deodorants

We are still sorting out a big delivery of Crystal Deos into UK. As some people have noticed we have run out of stock of the large ones.

It's for two reasons: they are becoming ever more popular so have gone down faster than last stocks did , and some of the contacts I have to contact to get them from are not great at replying and I've been sorting this since early September.

Should have them in again v shortly, we still have mini sticks (though levels dropping v quickly), roll ons and sprays.

And we will factor this in in future. It would be faster for me to go to the source and chisel them myself I think!

thanks for your patience xxx