By Rudy Simon
I had been home for a week after backpacking when I got the call to go and work in Borneo, Indonesia as a foster mother to orphaned Sun Bear cubs. This was my third time working in Asia. Originally there were only five cubs, but over the course of my three-month stay, I quickly became a mum of nine!
For a period of time, I lived with only one other carer in the middle of the Bornean rainforest in ‘the baby house’ at the BOS orang-utan sanctuary in Samboja Lestari, East Kalimantan. I had to quickly sink into the routine of several night feeds for our youngest cubs Lucy and Eliza as well as forest walks during the day with our older cubs. Working full-time every day and night in the intense environment over a period of three months was hard on my body, but I pushed it as far as I could.