Sloth Sanctuary Suriname sequel: the whole story!

(When I started writing this update at the beginning of July, I was traveling and a lot happened in the 10 days that I traveled.)

To Move or Not to Move… That was not really the question, at that moment it was our dilemma! We had to move, but we could not move. We were facing some hurdles, big and small, and some painfully sad moments, prior to being able to start out in the new center. Fortunately, the landlord gave us an additional month before we had to move out. There were several reasons, why we were confronted with this problem. Reason number 1 was the rainy weather. The condition of the road was so bad that we were not able to finish the center. Reason number 2 is that we do not yet have the solar energy system in place. During my travel, on top of the slow delivery of the system, we received pictures from the supplier that the batteries, on their way to his site, fell out of a truck and were all damaged. So that meant at least another 6 week delay before they can be shipped. Reason number 3 was that we had not yet secured sufficient funding to be able to house Artiglio George, our Giant Anteater. This meant that we had only one other option: release him as is, without any prior rehabilitation. This would definitely not be in his interest, as he had not been able to gain forest skills since he was a pup when he came to us. The whole idea of the center is that we will have a site in which the animals can gain survival skills prior to their release. After all, we want all of our animals to be able to freely roam the forests. Our friends from Welttierschutzgesellschaft came to his rescue fortunately. While I was traveling the construction of his enclosure started, but completely unexpectedly I received on the eve of my return to Suriname very sad news. Artiglio George was found dead in his enclosure the day before I returned. Reason number 4 is that we still do not have sufficient funding to make the center fully operational from the start. As I traveled back many things were going through my head, and somehow I was wishing that the news about Artiglio George was just a bad dream and that I would find him alive in his enclosure. However, no miracle happened. His enclosure was empty and I could only cry about this sad turn of events. After all, I was doing it for the animals, and now this was the second sad passing just as we were to move.

The Move

On the 30^th of July we started preparing for the move. The whole day things were being moved to the new office space in the city, an animal-free environment. And to my house. The last load of the day was to the Sloth Wellness Center. We moved some rescue animals out of the house together with some pieces of furniture and would then be able to put all animals in their moving boxes for the move on the 31^st of July. On the 31st of July we drove up and down to our new office, my new "private" house (no more animal rehab or office from home) and finally at the end of the day to the Sloth Wellness Center. It was a big operation and still not complete. In the following days we would be driving up and down to the center and the city to move the last things and finally bring also the babies to the center. 

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Links:

• http://www.greenfundsuriname.org/en/we-moved-2/