My MAB

Hello! I’m going to take a break from my “themes of travel” posts to tell you about something new I’ve had the pleasure of doing. Although, I haven’t written anything for this blog in about three months so I guess I was already taking a break. Honestly, while I never stopped loving to write, I hadn’t been feeling very inspired to do so. That all changed very recently. You see, over my holiday break I went on a Mizzou Alternative Break (MAB) to San Antonio, Texas with 11 other kick-ass girls from Mizzou. MAB sends students all over the country to places in need over weekends, Thanksgiving, spring, and winter breaks. While MAB effects everybody in a different ways, we all came back with amazing stories and the feeling that we’ve made a difference.

We spent our time at four different places for different amounts of time. I thought I would take some time to tell you all about what these places do and what we did during our visit. I’ll also be linking all the organizations at the end of the post in case you want to check them out.

The first place we went to was The Saddle Light Center. Saddle Light is a therapy ridding center for people of varying ages and disabilities. While our time there was short we all enjoyed getting to be around horses all day. We spent our day cleaning out stalls and the fields. We also filled their food and water troughs. One of the horses loved making funny faces at us and made everybody laugh. Each horse had a personality of their own.

We spent the Next two days at a place called Sara’s Sanctuary. They have over 800 animals on the farm. They have pigs, donkeys, horses, dogs, cats, and a cow. They split us up into groups so we could cover all of the different areas of the farm. Some people worked with the dogs. They fed them, gave them water, and lots of love. We also got to go by their runs with treats. It was so nice to see their faces light up and come running to make sure they didn’t get missed. Some of us worked with the cats. We played with them, gave them treats, cleaned out their litter boxes. They would climb up on our laps to get some love and treats. Some were more loving then others but they all wanted treats. We also spread some love to the horses, donkeys and even the cow. Some of us also had a hand in feeding the pigs. They spread the feed out and then the pigs were released. It was crazy to see them run so fast. The cow was by far our biggest fan. We even got her to wear a Mizzou cap.

We spent the next three days at a bird sanctuary called Last Chance forever. They specialize in rehabilitating birds of prey. There were eagles, owls, falcons, a crow, a parrot and hawks. While we were there we got to see their work in action. A bird came in that had been hit by a car and had to be stitched up and then taken off to a veterinarian. We spent our days doing a myriad of jobs. We mowed the lawn, pained buildings, cut up a cow heart, made bird perches, and fed the parrots.

We spent our final day at a place called Primarily Primates. They rescue primates who have come from all kinds of terrible situations. Some were tested on in medical labs and some were tested on by makeup companies. Others spent their lives in a box with a circus company and some had even been kept as pets until they were “too much to handle.” People often forget that they are animals and even though they’re cute, they are still wild. A woman named Brooke runs the facility and she’s like a rock star. She is really passionate about all the work that they do. We were all split up into groups to work on different kinds of enrichment for the primates. The group I was in took toilet paper roles, taped one end shut, and then put peanut butter, popcorn cheerios, and a string bean inside. Later I was in a group with another volunteer, and an employee who led us around to give the enrichment out to some of the primates. They would get so excited when we came to give them the treats. The regular volunteers and employees make sure that the primates never get bored. Each day they change out a toy in their enclosure or make all of the food one color for a day. The next day they change it all again. Sometimes the gorillas have movie nights. They especially love 101 Dalmatians. Unfortunately Primarily Primates has a had a problem with PETA manipulating photos and videos of the sanctuary to make it look like they are harming the animals in their care so I will not be posting any photos from there. Instead you can enjoy this picture of some of us working on enrichment.

Our final day in San Antonio was a free day. First we went to the zoo. In all the times I had been to Texas, I had never been to the zoo. After that we went to Pearl in downtown San Antonio where we proceeded to stop every person who passed us with a dog. We clearly couldn’t get enough of being around animals. We also went to the Alamo and had dinner on the River Walk. It was a great last day.

Each place we visited showed a true passion for what they were doing. It was nice to see that places like this exist in areas you’d least expect. It felt really good to give back to animals in need. Seeing people live out their dreams and give back to animals was very inspiring. This is not a trip I will soon forget. Thank you to everyone who made this trip great!