Happy 4th of July USA!

Great news! Chewbaaka hasn't been taking fluids in the past few days, but he
is concentrating his urine and looking pretty good. He had a great birthday
with lots of attention, including a visit by the Kruger family – they are on
our Namibian Board. Also, the goat that was doing so poorly after a horrible
birth last week is now walking on her own after our getting her stronger
using a great sling.   

We ran the Stars and then Tiny Rohini Tallala and Polly the other day. Tiny
Rohini has a sore leg – not sure what is going on – it's the second time her
leg is sore but it looks better today. I don't think its linked to running,
but maybe to learning to live with Harry and Hermione.  We also took the
Stars out to the field (photo) today and to the play tree – they did really
good. We will keep doing this to get them to learn how. They are beautiful
but not like Chewbaaka – who follows me or leads me; the Stars want to go
off into the bush so they are on long leads. It was really fun. 

On the dog front, Phinda's puppies (photo) are getting big and will move to
the goat yard in a few days and will meet their first goats in the next few
days.  Finn and Isha, the scat dogs, are learning well. We hope to put them
into the field to find scat along with the camera traps soon. Camera traps
were launched last week and we are collecting our first photos; we have
gotten a cheetah and a leopard. 

Our International course group left a couple days ago. The High Commissioner
from Botswana was here at their farewell presentations, along with the First
Secretary of Kenya and the Regional warden of the Ministry of Wildlife for
Namibia. Our group of EarthWatchers leave tomorrow while we await Walt and
Sandra Bodley's arrival (Walt is one of our CCF USA Trustees).

Hope all have a great 4th of July in the US! No hotdogs here. Bruce and I
went to the US 4th of July event held by the US Ambassador on Friday. It was
great to see the past Namibian Ambassador to the US who has just arrived in
Namibia and is now the Permanent Secretary of Home Affairs. So, as the US
ambassador put it the other day – from the Land of the Free (as Namibia is
called) to the Land of the Brave (what the US is called) – I hope that you
all have a great 4th of July. Happy independence day.

Many cheetah purrs,

Laurie