Morning: We would usually start work at 7am, so everyone would start waking up at 6:30/6:45. There was no need to worry about appearances, so we didn't need much time. There is a list of jobs that need doing, and what animals need feeding and who eats what, and there is usually an inside team, preparing the food, and an outside team, distributing all the food to the animals. Straight away, the inside team will start chopping apples (so many apples!) and getting the food ready, whilst the outside team will collect all the food plates from the aviaries and enclosures, and clean them and return them to the prep room.
Depending on how many volunteers there are, the morning feed can take 2-3 hours. We would usually finish around 9:30, have breakfast together, and then have a meeting with Percy and Ali to discuss the day's tasks. Around 10am, everyone would then set off to do their assigned tasks, which could involve anything from painting a new enclosure, picking up new animals, building enclosures, attending to animals in the clinic, walking the fences in the game park to make sure there are no holes etc. You might be helping in the restaurant, or doing the grocery shopping! The tasks are very varied, and you can choose what you want to do.
Afternoon: Lunch would be around 1pm, and is usually sandwiches. Everyone eats together, relaxes, watch TV, read a book, and just rest after a busy morning. After lunch, there are a couple of hours left to finish off whatever project you were doing in the morning. Around 2:30pm, everyone meets back in the prep room and does the afternoon feed. This is usually finished around 4pm, which is when everyone finishes work. Then everyone races to get in the shower! You will probably be quite dirty by this point!
Evening: Around 6:30pm, everyone has dinner together, and in the evening you are free to do what you want. You might go for an evening game park walk, play a game of cards, watch tv, sit around a campfire, or just hang out. I don't remember ever being bored!
Highlights: Just being at African Dawn is a highlight - I have so many happy memories of my time there, and have made so many friends from the experience. A particular highlight was being part of a team that turned a junk yard into an enclosure for buck. It was a lot of hard work but between about 4 of us we cleared away all the rubbish, built a fence, and planted trees. A few days after we had finished, a baby buck was brought to the sanctuary and had a lovely new home!