Wildlife Conservation Internship in South Africa

I loved the interactions and helping the new volunteers. It gave me such great pleasure to answer their questions and to know that what you say and do will have an effect on their stay, of course i was aiming to help them have a great time and to learn as much as possible about the wildlife and GVI. I juat had a great time with both volunteer groups i was an intern with. I also loved the drives and the wildlife in general, going to sleep with the sound of hippos and jackals, waking up in the middle of the night to hyenas. I love Africa so my surroundings were definitely a great factor to making my stay magical.

I got what I wanted out of it - I wanted to try something new, see if I could do it, stretch the boundaries etc a bit, and I did. I even ended up getting offered sponsorship by the lodge I worked at!! Really happy about that. Learning about, and working with these incredible animals was amazing. Honestly, I don't know how much good it did in the long run. GVI genuinely find animals for tourists in Karongwe, doesn't matter how much you 'sex it up' so to speak - I've seen both sides of it. Working at Karongwe and working for one of the lodges there. The problem is, the volunteers know this - and it takes away from the experience. I was also disappointed not to be more involved in the research. It didn't feel like we did that much - all we did was head out into the field each day and find animals. This was interesting to fill the boxes on the data sheets in, but I'm not walking away thinking I've made a massive difference to animal conservation which is how this program was sold to me.

What I enjoyed the most during my stay with GVI was being out in the field every day, tracking the animals and learning about them at the same time. If given the chance to join another program, I would because it was the best time ever in my life!