an orang utan and a marble

Am moving bungalows today - hardly blip inspiring.... but i chose to bring lots of little momento type things with me to Vietnam - this one is a simple old marble that an orang utan gave me. I worked with Puspa (a Sumatran orang utan held at my old zoo) for about 10 years. I did training with her - not tricks or entertainment type training but training based only on positive reinforcement - designed to keep her stimulated mentally but also allow us to take care of her with much less stress for her. By the end of the 10 years I could give her an injection into the tricep (avoiding the need to dart her if she needed anaesthetics), could ask her to position her body in different ways and let me check her all over for problems, listen to her heart etc. When we parted she was very close to letting me take blood for glucose testing - but stubbornly refused the whole time to open her mouth for teeth exams....
With this type of training the animal is free to walk away at any stage so it is all about what they are willing to do and trust.
She gave me this marble early on so I wrapped it in wire and hung it and it has been with me ever since.
We built up a great friendship over the years and it was heartbreaking to say goodbye. I was off to China to volunteer with the bears and she was being sent to another zoo where we hoped she would have a better life as my zoo was breeding orang utans for release into the wild and they needed the room.
I hate seeing these beautiful, intelligent, solitary beings being forced to live in captivity. The only justification for me in working at this zoo was they are fighting hard to use the captive orangs to save the wild population. Puspa's grandson Semiru was released into the wild (in a monitored program) at Bukitigapulu in Sumatra about 5 months ago and is doing well... but i still miss my friend Puspa.
and so thats my story of an orang utan and a marble

PS but most importantly!!! thank you all for the well wishes and support - I am healing and breathing better with the nebuliser etc - despite all the step climbing and sweeping, and scrubbing....
my hands are healing so fast I can feel it day by day!!!!
and yes - am catching up with family in Bangkok in about 5 weeks and they are bringing mega Vit C and multi vits :)
Hope you're all well - finding it hard with internet outages to track what everyone is up to