Living in (a) Paradise.

For a long time I had no idea how to explain best how I was feeling, without having the feeling to complain about ‘nothing’. But recently a good friend of me came up with something that might work in trying to explain my situation and feelings about it. I hope it also explains why it is so difficult to be realistic.  

It is 6:40am as I wake up in the jungle of Merazonia in a wooden cabin that I build myself. The upcoming sun colors the green hills dark red and different birds are singing their morning songs. Living at Merazonia I’m daily surrounded by beautiful nature, many colorful birds, wild and semi wild mammals, like tamarin monkeys, armadillos, anteaters, squirrels and more. Our humble goals are to protect nature and take care of confiscated, trafficked wild animals. I do this together with two great friends and many good and interesting volunteers (some of them a bit annoying, but most of them great). It gives great satisfaction to be able to daily help animals, overcome new challenges and every ones and a while to see shy volunteers coming in and leaving as more confident people rich with new experiences. Yes that’s the strength of Merazonia, that’s why the title refers to this great animal refuge.

But as most paradises, nothing is perfect or untouchable…  

The building of this road came with some of the same issues as the start of building the plant and a dam in the river next to Merazonia. Again things were done partly without informing us. Like not telling us that the road will go up all the way to the entrance bridge of Merazonia (1.5km long) and partly illegal.

So Frank filed an official complain. The work got delayed and we suspect that part of this complain is the reason that they started suddenly to plant some young trees around the new road.

Unfortunately this was again not well thought of, so a part of the young trees is already been digged away to make a deep channel on one side of the new road to Merazonia…

Yep, Merazonia is now located at the end of a road. One that can be useful to bring up materials, but also replaces the adventures jungle walk and brings civilization another step closer to nature. Economics against nature.

Unfortunately it are not only economics that threaten Merazonia, also emotions can be dangerous.

Living in a paradise is not a real live with normal social contacts and relations. We are with three friends in a very small community with regularly new volunteers coming in and others leaving. This makes it both interesting to meet many different people, but also really difficult to always have to say goodbye again after such a short time, especially when you like someone…

Unexpected emotions that seem to grow on you when you stay a long time close together, working on the same thing and having not enough other interesting/fun/important things to do, are all ingredients to become grumpier. When also communications seem to fail and comments made with the best interest are misunderstood, you can imagine that the social situations at Merazonia isn’t/wasn’t always healthy. It was difficult to be myself, to be direct and say what I think, without offending friends or even volunteers. The situation created some intense moments between me Frank and Louisa, which were often for the wrong reasons. I can’t change who I am and I can’t expect this from Frank and Louisa either, so a logical decision could be to leave before friendships breaks between us.

However when it comes to logics and wise decisions living in a paradise can also be addictive, remember the first paragraph…

Maybe it is still possible to improve my (our) communication skills. See if I can find different ways to still bring over important messages the way I want them to be understood, but without offending people. In my heart I still love to be at Merazonia, because even during the last few month’s we experienced lots of interesting, good, fun and also sad moments together. We lived an intense live and no day was the same.

We survived the heaviest ‘storm in 10 years, with trees falling down around us.

We played political games with the Mayer of Mera and the environmental department about the water project and the road which are been build next to us. We are not against the water project, but I think it is the duty of Merazonia to stand up for what we believe and make sure that we do everything we can to archive a minimum impact on nature. Nature will still not win above economics, but at least we can try to make others aware that even in Ecuador you shouldn’t be able to just cut some trees without a good plan and a research about the environmental impact.

We experienced a very sad moment when a young ocelot died L We had great plans for him, we wanted to train him to be able to hunt and then release him back in nature. We had build and adjusted a big cage for him with a special feeding system. This feeding system, which consisted of 4” plastic pipes would allow us to feed the cat live prey from a distance. We released a small mammal on one side of the pipe and it had 4 options to come out on the other side in the cage. This system was recommended to us by a more experienced animal refuge in the USA, but unfortunately ‘our’ ocelot was impatient and went into the feeding pipes, where he got stuck and died. This example shows that no matter how good you try to do things, there are still things you can’t prevent.

Luckily we also achieved lots of good things Samson the baby wooler monkey grew to be a big boy, independent enough to go to Amazoonico, where he can enjoy a live with his own species in a semi wild group. It was a bit sad to see him leaving, but I am sure that he will have a great monkey live at his new home.

Because the young ocelot died, we suddenly had a big cage ‘left’. This gave us the opportunity to receive the margay of another animal refuge. This smaller specie of an ocelot needed treatment and because the other refuge has no vet, he came to us. Louisa found out, with the help of the Zoo in Quito, that the cat had two different types of parasites. She cured him (and the cat bit my finger) and recently he had already gained a third more weight tan when he came in J

Together with this other animal refuge we were also able to release another young ocelot that had recently been captured, trying to steel chicken from a farm. Louisa gave him a check-up and two days later we released him after a 3 hour walk in the national park Llanganata. We even took GPS coordinates from the release site.

Other releases we were able to accomplice were two snake and two sloth releases within the borders of Merazonia.

Sleven, the baby capuchin who was found at a rock concert during carnival in Puyo when she was less than 3 weeks old also became a big girl. She now spends all days with the other capuchins in the cage, behaving more like a normal monkey than two of them ;-) Soon she will also spend the night with them and the ‘Merazonia mother’ will be completely replaced by the capuchin monkeys.

To create some extra space for Sleven and Sofia, we extended the 9m long capuchin cage with another 6m

We managed a successful introduction of the last years baby kinkajou Oscar, with the other 7 kinkajous. Louisa had to fix some bites and scratches, but he now seems to be accepted J Unfortunately after that there were some other kinkajou complications and Louisa and Frank had to treat some nasty bites (including my other finger…). Fatty got rejected from the group by one of the other females L But just before I left to Mexico, I read that the female who rejected Fatty gave birth to a baby kinkajou J The mother and baby are both separate now from the group, to give them rest, but it also means that Fatty can go back with the others now. End well, all well. This big family might even move to a new big cage of 15m long of which we just finished to build the metal frame work.

We also received from several different sources some new animals, like a tamarin monkey (Lisa), a capuchin monkey (Sofia) and several birds, including one that was voluntarily given by its owner, because he wanted it to live in the jungle. This last bird is a great example of the ultimate goal of an animal refuge: To make people understand that wild animals belong in the jungle.

Thinking more about this, I think that making people aware of the beauty of animals and nature is probably just as big as an achievement as saving several animals and I’m not only thinking about Ecuadorians. One of the future goals of Merazonia is to inform and educate Ecuadorians and their children about taking care of their environment, but I believe that we shouldn’t underestimate the positive impact on Merazonia’s (ex) volunteers. Remember that Toby, Alex, Jennifer, Frank, myself and even Louisa all started as a volunteer at an animal refuge…

We hope that not all these volunteers are going to start their own animal refuges ;-), but if already a fourth of them leaves with such good memories that they want to continue helping the environment then I consider this to be a great and not to underestimate achievement .

Yes, Merazonia offers a little paradise to its animals and volunteers, but now it is a challenge for me, Frank and Louisa to find a balance in living a (close to) normal live in this paradise. History already proved that human can’t live too long in a paradise without the need for more…

At least for me something has to change, either I have to leave Merazonia, or we find a way to make things work with the three of us at Merazonia.

Whatever happens and whatever final decision I make, I need to find something else to be able to occupy my mind with, something challenging, fun and/or interesting. I think this is also a good advice for everyone in a same situation. If you have to work for a long time 24/7 together, make sure you communicate well and find something else to occupy your mind with. Create a way to be able to take a step aside from your 24/7 job.

After several months I´m back in Mexico now, waiting to start a new tour along the Maya route.  I’m looking back at a difficult, but still special time at Merazonia. But I also admit that this is a healthy break as well for my financial as personal situation. It is my step aside to be able to find out what to do next.

I´m a bit surprised that my agency after so long of silence now suddenly offers me 3 tours with even an option on a fourth. And I’m even more surprised that they even asked for a photo of me to publish in their magazine, But you shouldn’t look a given horse in the mouth, so I happily accept it all and will see what happens the next months. Maybe they finally understand that my comments are mostly ment for the best of all of us...

 Saludos desde Playa del Carmen!

Martijn