When I tell people that I volunteer at the zoo, here in San Antonio, they tend to say, " Oh, that is so cool!" or " That has to be SO much fun!" You might come here and think it is a magical wonderland, and the people that work here are so lucky. And in some ways, you would be right.
I am so blessed to be able to "work" there, and I learn wonderful things about God's creation every day. But it's not all roses and wild flowers. Howard Ashman said this. "But behind that fair facade, I'm afraid she's rather odd." I think it describes the zoo perfectly. It is a wonderful, enchanting place yes, but in the background, lives a strange, kind, friendly, and slightly dysfunctional family. A family that helps each other, laughs, fights and ,in the end, works together to bring a mechanical giant to its feet every day, and today was no different.
The jobs here aren't as romantic as they might seem. Today was a perfect example of this.
Denielle and I got to the zoo at 8:40 or so this morning, signed ourselves in and went to help out at the butterfly house, until Laurie, our boss, came at 10:00 to tell us what she wanted us to do today. So she gave us our list of tasks and went on with her busy day.
Our first job was to go over to the flamingo exhibit, because the bird keepers were going to be clipping their wings at 10:30. It was our job to explain to the guests what was going on, and to keep them out of harms way. It was really neat to watch the clipping, and who knew that they clipped flamingo's wings with shrub trimmers and household scissors?
After our flamingo excursion we went to paint a giant canvas fish. Yes I said fish....blue fin tuna to be exact. This thing is probably 6-7 feet long and 3-4 feet high/wide. We use it on our seafood awareness cart, and he needed a few touch-ups in his paint. Ok a lot of touch-ups. The only problem we had, was that he was originally painted with spray paint, which we no longer have, so we had to make do with good, old fashion paint. We eventually got him to where he looked like new. Well as new as the poor guy was going to get, he's a little bit old and tattered.
I took lunch, and then went back near the butterfly house. Laurie had asked that one of us clean out the dead plants and leaves, and there was a lot to do. I filled 10 big garbage bags with dead foliage. When I was cleaning and clipping, I found myself thinking that this wasn't quite what I had in mind when I sent in my volunteer application. Sure I got dirty, but it looked a lot better by the time I was done, and a bit of dirt never bothered me. My Mamma always said "God made the dirt and the Dirt don't hurt." Besides, there is nothing quite as satisfactory as taking a shower after a long day of good, hard work, where you got your hands a bit dirty. I love it!
If there is one thing that I have learned working here, its that the more the staff trusts you, the more arduous the tasks become, but at the same time the "special jobs", like we had today, are all the more wonderful.
Even though there are sticklers and bees, and bumps, and the ever present heat, I love my place in this family, and whenever I am not there, I can't wait to go back.
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