We were so excited about finally going to start our week of volunteering at the Elephant Nature Park! In the morning we got picked up to go to the office, where we payed for our stay and got a T-shirt and a water bottle, before we headed for the park.
When we arrived the park it was already time for lunch. We were happy with the buffet style food, but unfortunately quite a few of the dishes were a bit spicy for Tachi. After lunch all the volunteers gathered to have a talk about safety and how to treat the elephants. Most of the elephants in the park are old and disabled females that have been abused and injured by their last owner. When they get older and do not serve good for the owner any more, and they want to sell them, the Elephant Nature Park buys them. Due to their past they may have a very unpredictable behavior. It is important not to stay in their blind spots as they may feel threatened and try to defend themselves. After hearing about some of their stories, and what to do and not, we got some time to check in to our rooms and relax before our welcome ceremony.
The welcome ceremony was a traditional Buddhist ceremony for good luck. They would sprinkle water over us and give us white bracelets.
After dinner we felt tired and wanted to get to sleep early to be ready for our first day of work. We had gotten our own room that obviously was meant for the couples. It was very hot, but we managed to get some sleep.
Waking up to the elephants blowing their trunks was an amazing experience, and made us ready to work to help them. We were divided into different groups that would circulate on the jobs for the week. Our group was scheduled to cut corn the first day, so we loaded up the truck and drove off for the corn fields.
Ready to go cut some corn
It was actually the remaining corn stalks we cut to feed the elephants. We managed to collect corn stalks from 3 fields to fill the truck. Our lunch was served out in the fields, so when we got back to the park we had the rest of the day off.
Cutting corn for the elephants
At 3pm every afternoon we could join the elephants down to the river and give them a shower. This is a daily activity that the elephants need to cool down. Actually the elephants have so thick skin they cannot sweat. Their ears have numerous blood vessels, so to cool off they flap their ears so that the warm blood can help release excess body heat. It was interesting learning all these facts about the elephants, and we also enjoyed cooling down a bit at the river.
Cooling off with the elephants
Every night we would have free time to get to know the other volunteers, play games, get massage from the local ladies, or just relax and observe the everyday life of the elephants. The second night, after dinner, we all gathered for a crash course in Thai culture and language by the Volunteer Coordinators. They were so funny, and really did their best for us to enjoy our days in the park. The next day our morning job was cleaning the park, meaning to fill up the truck with elephant poo and rotten leftover food and move it to a compost dump. While we were dumping off the last compost the truck was surrounded by a herd of elephants with their curious little baby. We had been told to keep our distance from the elephants, but some of the volunteers wanted their pictures with the baby. One of the volunteers got to close and the baby waved his trunk and pushed her over. The rest of the herd rushed over to protect the baby, and we had to back off, as the herd would not hesitate with anything to protect their youngest. After some time the herd moved on and we could finish off our job. We got some time to shower and clean up before lunch.
They have several other animals in the park, dogs, cats, water buffaloes and cows. After lunch we had to load the truck with very heavy bags of cow poo. It had been a long day of poo, so that night we just relaxed and played cards with other volunteers.
The next morning started once again with cleaning poo from the elephant shelters. By the size and texture of the poo you could you could tell about their diet and their age. We were happy that after lunch we didn't have to do work involving poo. Our VCs got us in the back of two trucks and we headed off to gather banana trees to feed the elephants. On the way it seemed like our front truck shifted gears wrong so it stopped and started rolling back into the second truck. Luckily there were no injuries in the crash, and we continued to the banana plantation. As the cars were filled up with the banana trees, we had to walk back to the park. It was a nice walk through the local village.
A really nice thing about staying at the ENP for on week was that David had the chance to play soccer almost every afternoon. He was really missing that :) Every afternoon the VCs and the mahouts meet up to play, but this week they got lots of new teammates from the volunteers. The mahouts are the ones who follow the elephants every day, and takes care of them. Most of them come from Myanmar to work with the elephants.
Playing soccer with the VCs and the mahouts
One of our favorite jobs this week was washing and preparing the food for the elephants. We had to wash loads of watermelon and cucumbers, but at the same time it was a quite refreshing job. Our VC set up a speaker so we got to listen to music as well.
The elephants have different diets depending on their age and condition. Some of them have difficulties chewing their food, so we had to cut away the watermelon peel. We also made some snack balls from tamarind, sticky rice and salt, they love them and it helps their digestion.
Washing watermelons to feed the elephants
After preparing the food all of the volunteers were gathered to go to visit the local school. This school receives students from a few different villages, some nearby, but some from very far away. Every week the kids prepare local cookies, drinks, post cards, bracelets and other things that volunteers can buy to support the local school and the kids education. We got to visit their classrooms where they were practicing traditional dance and music, making handicrafts, and we could also play with them in the playground.
When we got back from the school visit our afternoon plan was a walk in the park, hearing about the elephants' stories. We got to hear some heartbreaking stories about how some of them were abused in the illegal logging industry, beaten in the most horrible ways to move the enormous trees. Some of the elephants have stepped on landmines and are still under treatment. Many of the elephants were stabbed in one or both eyes so they would not be a threat. It is believed that female elephants attack by swinging their trunk to their left, and the males to their right, hence the females would be blinded on their left eye and males on their right. In the park there are few males and they are separated from the females as they tend to be more aggressive. There were so many sad stories to hear, but walking in the park and seeing how happy they are now we could see how their lives have changed to the better. It was indescribable walking among them, in their own habitat. So many beautiful moments where we could see how they love and care for each other.
Two elephants showing love for each other
The more elephants there are in the park, the more food trucks come in and need to be unloaded. As the park has now more than 40 elephants the food trucks arrive 3 times or more a week, as in comparison to earlier when it only arrived once a week. Saturday morning two food trucks arrived with watermelons and pumpkins, so we were two groups who had to change our jobs to unload them. It was a lot of fruits, but after the job we were lucky and got to bring some watermelons out to feed the elephants in the park.
After lunch the only scheduled program was to take group pictures. When these were taken we chose to join the volunteers on their second week with their job. If you decide to do a second week as a volunteer you work more close to the elephants. We got to help make some challenges for the elephants, where we hid some fruits inside a tire that we hung up in their shelter.
Unfortunately we didn't get to see how the elephant solved their challenges, but finally we would get to meet Lek, the founder of the park. She had been very busy this week preparing to receive 5 new elephants in the following weeks. Lek has an incredible passion to help the elephants, and that showed very much in her presentation. She has been doing a lot of research in how the elephants get abused, and showed us some of the facts and footage she has collected through years of traveling around and visiting the owners. It was a very emotional presentation where we saw things we never could have believed was happening.
Every domesticated elephant has had a long and horrible period of torture to break their spirits, with the goal that they would obey their owner. We saw that in any business using elephants they have to go through this cruel abuse. Even as ignorant tourists we are also a big part of supporting this torture as any elephant in a circus, in the streets as amusement for tourists and in trekking camps for tourists to ride on their backs, have all been through this kind of torture. It was unbelievable to learn how little we know about the treatment of animals used in human business and to amuse humans.
We would like to thank ENP for a week we will never forget, and giving us the chance to learn so much about the elephants.
With this being said, we hope that anyone who reads this will give a second thought to anything they see or do that involves animals. You might not know just what lies behind!
To find out more you can visit elephantnaturepark.org and saveelephant.org.
Very interesting, and a beautiful blog post 💜
ReplyDeleteVery interesting, and a beautiful blog post 💜
ReplyDelete