Newsletter October 2008
A guest at the table.. Donkey Fifi, who is living with Desiree, is taking things too far sometimes. Ancient (40-plus), blind, deaf and suffering from dementia these days, she often causes hilarious situations. One day, Desiree’s culinary efforts had been put on the table, and she was calling her family members to come down to eat. But even though she can’t hear a thing, it was Fifi who reacted first. She hesitantly walked onto Desiree’s porch for a sampling of the food. And she did not really want to be put outside again… Sad day September 13 was a sad day for all of us. Little donkey Shabu, who had been hit by a car the day before, had to be put to sleep. At first things did not look so bad: a broken leg can heal. But Shabu’s situation was much worse: she also had a broken hip. A donkey can’t walk on two legs so we had to make this difficult decision together with the vet. Shabu’s death caused lots of tears: a beautiful, young female donkey has died. Environmentally sound shopping A bit too late for our family day, but our shopping bags have finally arrived. No more plastic bags at the supermarkets; start using our colorful donkey shopping bag. We are selling them at the supermarkets, where you can buy them for 5 florins, but our donkey store sells them as well.
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Our latest Christmas cards We are proud to introduce our new series of Christmas cards. Cheerful and happy cards with a bit of humor put in. Of course we are going to sell these. A single card with envelope costs AWG. 3,50; a set of six costs AWG. 17,50. More than 100 cost AWG. 2,75 each. Order quickly, because they are flying off the shelves. Christmas might look a long way off, but in a few weeks, before you know it, it will be here. With an ordinary card you support your store owner, with these fantastic cards you support our donkeys.
A big success: our family day Sunday, October 5th was party time at the sanctuary. Visitors came in droves and there was lots to do and to buy. Actually, it is Animal Day, but on the initiative of the donkey sanctuary in Australia, October 4 has been named World Donkey Day. This has to do with the holy Franciscus, who is said to have been able to talk to animals. As usual, we celebrated Animal/Donkey Day on a Sunday. Adults and children had a wonderful time on the 5th. There were a lot of activities and many `cos dushi’ to eat. Only Desiree’s bananas could not find a buyer, even when their price dropped drastically throughout the day. The bananas resembled the Dow Jones Index , dropping lower and lower. The bananas were the only things that did not sell well, by the way. For the rest we all enjoyed a perfect day with perfect weather.
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Filming a television commercial For one day our sanctuary was transformed into a real movie set. At ten o’clock in the morning an American film crew of at least 30 people arrived to film a commercial for the Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA). We almost got scared when we saw so many people and stuff; it looked as though they would stay for two weeks at least. Tents, chairs, tables, food and drink, everything was unloaded from the vans. Main character of the commercial was the popular American stand-up comic Louis Black, who has stood in the glaring sun for two whole hours together with our president Ramon and donkey Ban-Ban. Louis was clearly more important than either Ramon or Ban-Ban, because during every break an umbrella was held over his head. Well, that’s life. Filming proved to be serious business, but there were quite some laughs as well. Just when everyone had to be quiet, the donkeys or chickens would sound off. Or the gentlemen donkeys started showing their affections for their female colleagues. We assume that the producer will have to leave a lot of material on the cutting floor: these shots are not for publication… All in all it was a fun and even profitable morning, because we sold quite a lot of teeshirts to the crew members. We also received a donation for our efforts. We hope that Ban-Ban won’t get airs when the commercial airs on television.
Egyptian donkey incarcerated for theft Cairo- A donkey has been incarcerated for 24 hours after he had stolen a corncob from a field, the Egyptian media announced recently. The animal was caught near a control post in the Nile Delta. The owner of the field had complained that he had been missing crops on a regular basis. A judge sentenced the donkey to imprisonment. His owner was fined 50 Egyptian pounds (about 6 euros). The donkey’s identity has been kept secret.
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Winning Cookie The Martens family, staunch supporters of our sanctuary, has won a `one-year adoption’ during our family day. They may call themselves the proud adoptive parents of our latest and youngest addition `Cookie’. There was a jar with matches and people could guess the amount of matches in it. The Martens family guessed 833; they were closest to the 857 inside the jar. Karin Martens is selling our Christmas cards and also our fabulous shopping bags at her store `Het Binnenhuys’, so we are very pleased that she has won.
School visit gets rained out Several school visits were cancelled due to rain, thunder and lightning early this month, but BanBan and his crew did get to visit playschool Te Aworo in San Nicolas and Certified Groceries. There we sold our new calendar and Christmas cards. When we got home in the pouring rain, our ambassador-donkey ran off to find a dry spot. He was lucky, as he found shelter in a left-over tent from the recently held family day. Desiree tried to get the other donkeys to move there as well, but while she got soaked, they did not move an inch and stayed nice and wet. At home she had more luck: she pushed old Fifi underneath the carport, using sheer female power. It was like a slapstick movie.
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