I forgot to say that the day we arrived was the founder of the Elephant Natural Parks birthday and they always try to do something special for it linked to the environment. So our afternoon activity was planting trees this was done along with children from a nearby school. It was nice to see the group walking towards the planting area armed with trees and shovels and we had great fun planting the trees even though it was extremely hot.
This is David's tree.
On the second morning we woke up bright and breezy and headed for breakfast at 7 o'clock, then we
went onto our first job of the day shovelling up the elephant poo. The volunteers are split into four
groups and these are allocated jobs, these included poo duty, preparing elephant food, cleaning the park, making garden poles, planting and fertilising trees.
David shovelling the poo. Sadly I had to put down my shovel to take this photo.
A truck full of poo.
In the afternoon we went out weeding, which seems a strange thing to do in the jungle but we were actually weeding around all the newly planted trees so they wouldn't get strangled.
During the day we also had a talk from a worker at the sanctuary called Jodie, she told us more about safety issues around the elephants and about the elephants behaviour. This was followed by a question and answer session with her, we learnt lots , Jodie is obviously besotted with the animals and her passion for them showed in the way she talked about them.
While we walk around the area, have our meals and do our jobs the elephants are constantly roaming around enjoying their freedom.
The concrete posts are for the elephants to scratch on, and boy do they enjoy using them. David loves watching them scratch themselves.
At this platform the elephants get some of their food, people have to stay behind the red line to feed them so the elephants can't hurt them, which they might do accidently. Food should be put to their trunks so they can then feed themselves and not directly into their mouths as sunscreen, bug spray and other germs from the hands could go in their mouths, also the elephant may chew on your hand by mistake.
I love watching the baby elephants and the elephants walking in a line.
In the evening we had a Thai lesson learning about customs and language. It was led by one of the Thai guides, it was really funny and interesting. Confusingly they will have one word, written with the same letters, which has different meanings depending on the tone in which it is spoken. The words can have totally different meanings, such as church, tiger and mat, which are all written the same way.
The Thais also have this way of greeting or thanking you with their palms together in front of their body. Where they place their hands depends on who they are greeting, the hands are at chest level for people of the same age, chin level for elders, nose level for parents, forehead level for monks and on top of the head for the king.
Wednesday basically followed the same pattern but in the afternoon we fertilised trees which are around the male elephant enclosures. There are three male elephants here that are too old to remain in the herds they hopefully will be released back to the wild or within a safe area .
We also had a talk from the founder of the Sanctuary who highlighted the plight of the elephants in Asia and basically asked us to spread the word. A lot of what we have heard and seen has been a real eye opener and very emotional, if people really knew how elephants are broken to become easy to handle by humans they would be horrified. So please think carefully before going on elephant rides while on holiday or buy paintings done by elephants.
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