Rescue Me - Aretha Franklin

True confessions - in an earlier life, long ago and far away I earned my living in the fur business. We purchased raw animal skins, had them dressed, cut, and sewn into beautiful garments. Our specialities included 

ocelots, 

racoons, 

and coyotes.

Today penance is being served as one of the tasks included hosing down, watering, and scraping coyote dung off the floor of their cage. At least they gave me a brush. The smell was not exactly Chanel. But in the world of karma, restitution does not come easy.

Having spent a few days on site, with ten or so previous volunteer experience in our quivers, Lori and I are continuously being impressed with The Costa Rica Sloth and Wildlife Center. 

The property is immense, the animals are treated with respect and kindness, the staff is continuously building and developing new and improved enclosures. Many of the animals here will never be re-released into the wild. Reasons being varied but generally they fall into three categories - injury, confiscated from illegal vendors of endangered species, or recovered from locales where they were caged up as pets. My recommendation would be to sell the vendors into slavery and lock up the pet owners into similar sized cages.

The volunteers, approximately 30 or so, come from all walks of life, multiple countries and range in age from 18 to what is probably 68. Most are students taking gap years, some are specialists in conservation and biology but the field ranges from architects to videographers and all else in between.

We are divided into four groups which change daily. Group 1 deals with birds, deer, and a porcupine. 

Group 2 with raccoons, monkeys 

and others. There are coatis, 

who were majorly depressed yesterday after Croatia was eliminated from the World Cup, 

collared peccaries also known as wild pigs, 

and a plethora of other creatures, many of whom we've never seen prior to now.

Daily tasks begin at 7:00. But the pre-daily tasks begin at 6:00 when those selected to the early fruit preparation shift slice, dice, chop, and divide up the foods which accompany last night's vegetable cuttings.

 Each animal has a specific diet and style of presentation. The macaws, 

for instance, prefer their papayas cut into long, narrow strips, while the Red-lored parrots 

prefers theirs in chunks. Each species has their own diet and the portions and cuttings are individually prepared with more care than would be found at Toqué.

The work is far from glamorous and not all the volunteers put in the same level of effort. 

But most do. And the opportunity to make friends with new species and exchange life stories and 'how I got here' experience with our species is unmatched.