Elephant Nature Park: Week One

I felt at home as soon as I arrived at the Elephant Nature Park office in Chiang Mai. I knew it was going to be an amazing experience by the first 5 things I encountered through the door:

1. Beautifully helpful, cheerful, and happy staff helping me through check in and registration
2. Free T-shirts (1 for each week you're volunteering)
3. The best banana muffins I've had in a long time which perfectly served my Hobbit-travelling-style food requirements for second breakfast (especially after holding my map upside down when booking my hostel, resulting in an hour long trek across Chiang Mai at 5.30AM on Day 1...)
4. Free water bottles and over the shoulder HOLDERS. I kid you not, this is the best piece of kit I've obtained throughout 3 months of backpacking, and I am going home to make my millions by crocheting similar contraptions ready for the wild demand when Cambridge receives its annual quota of 3 days of summer. 
5. Similarly bleary-eyed volunteers from all over the world who didn't look at me weirdly when I immediately dove into the pile of banana muffins and joined in with my overtired excitement about the bottle holders

3 muffins (ok yes, 5 in the office and 2 for the road don't judge me they were so good and there were lots of them, I was basically just making everyone else feel comfortable enough to dive in too) and 2 cups of tea later I rolled into a minibus and the dream was beginning: I was on my way to Elephant Nature Park for 2 weeks of volunteering with my favourite animals! 

This girl is so much more elegant than I am. Just look at that leg lead.

Most volunteers choose the 1 week programme, and that's what I'll be chatting about here. To look at all the things I got up to in my second week, pop over here!

The first day started with a walk around the park with our group leaders, meeting a few of the elephants and generally getting to know our new home for the week. Next up was an orientation meeting with all the other volunteers in the park for that week. Walking under a sign which read "by the power of one" we crammed all our excitement and anticipation into the conference room and sat through one of the most influential videos I've ever seen. I remember the day I watched Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" as clearly as anything, and the ENP introduction video will stay with me in the same way. One thing links them together: I just didn't know before. 

Phajaan: noun. AKA 'spirit breaker', 'elephant crusher', 'elephant breaker'

Elephants are incredibly lucrative animals. They are considered exotic and exciting beasts, thrilling to watch perform tricks which are completely incredible for their size and shape, and a 'must-do' experience to ride. They're easy to keep (if you keep them in squalour), cheap to maintain (if you feel minimal food is acceptable), and simple to control (when you have a hook and nails to hand). Particularly attractive are the babies. They don't know what they're meant to be yet. This is a video which I did not make but I feel is important to share, as I feel I can't describe the impact of a Phajaan as well as your eyes will see it.

When not lucky enough for an elephant to accidentally wander into their traps or camps, elephant seeking troupes often go on missions to find baby elephants who can be separated from their mothers, even when this means killing the mother in order to get to the baby, and then taken to a wooden cage not much bigger than the elephant itself. Here the elephants will be chained and tied into stress positions designed to be painful and inescapable, such that the baby will eventually learn that resistance is futile and they will never escape this torture. 7-10 days of constant torture follows, involving hooks being dug into their foreheads until they stop crying out, chains and ropes being tightened until they leave deep gashes and grooves in their legs and necks, and their trunks (the most sensitive part of an elephant) being burnt, punched, whipped, and bludgeoned. During the ordeal at least 1 watcher must be present to keep tabs on the elephant. That's not a care mechanism, though. No, the watcher's job is to keep an eye on the detainee to prevent the worst from happening: elephants can commit suicide. In a state of such incredible depression, pain, and despair, an elephant can step on its own trunk and suffocate itself to release itself from the Phajaan. The Phajaan is considered to have been a success when the elephant hangs in the chains surrounded by its own blood, faeces and urine, effectively lifeless, and cannot recognise itself or its mother as elephants. Then it is ready to become a money spinner. If it survived.

I've tried to tackle some of the many questions which arose for me about this topic in this post, including when we draw the line and who gets to draw it, as well as the conflict of cultural relativity in animal treatment.

Mud bath time!

With this new understanding of why we are doing what we are doing, all the volunteers headed into our designated groups for our first activities. We all felt the weight of the importance of the park and our gratitude that such a place exists mix with the negativity that the park needs to exist and that there are so many elephants who won't make it to the park. The atmosphere was one of tangible determination to do as much as possible over the next 7 days to help the elephants we could help and to support the park in every way we could.

Clearing up the park like bosses

Over the next few days the groups cycled through 5 main daytime activities: poop scooping, crop cutting, cleaning up the park, walking around and meeting the ellies, and making food for the day visitors to feed to the ellies. The highlight of each day though was running down to the river in the mid afternoon armed with buckets and melons, primed and ready to soak the ellies who were ready for their baths and get soaked ourselves in the process! Normally ellies wouldn't bathe as thoroughly in the wild as we bathe them at ENP, but it's necessary to help with ticks and other insects which are otherwise just irritating as hell for them. It also lets us get into an inevitable water fight with each other and generally cool down and mess around in the heat of the day! Doing these tasks was really important to understand the day-to-day life of the ellies, their pasts, their individual needs, as well as an overall appreciation of just how incredibly intelligent and social elephants can be and how much attention and commitment it takes to keep them happy, safe and stimulated.

Please address me henceforth as Princess Poop when riding on my chariot of variously digested excretions

I mean, that's one shelter over one evening.

 
Walking around the park to meet the ellies was my favourite activity. Each elephant is so distinct in their personality and features, but it takes a long time to click into recognising them! Each day we would get a little more familiar, remember a few more names, be able to spot a few by their gaits and a couple more by their pals, and gradually we built up a fair knowledge of some of the 68 elephants living there. Some people felt a connection with a specific elephant more than the others immediately, others it took a while to click to their ellies, and others still, like me, just fell in love with all of them at the same time! It was also just brilliant to see how the park interacts altogether: the dogs chase the water buffalo, the buffalo eat the leftover corn, the elephants keep the buffalo in check, the cats wander up to the horses and cows without batting an eyelid, and the pigs love life with their own sprinklers when the dry season kicks up.

Mae Perm and Jokia were regular features during park walks - they're best friends and are absolutely inseparable.
Mae Perm leads Jokia around as she is double blind, and Jokia provides essential compassion and companionship to Mae Perm.
Beautiful gals.

Day visitors get to feed some of the elephants respectfully

ENP has a very strong and positive relationship with their local community. Each week children from the local school come to play music for the welcoming ceremony and elders from the community come to bless the volunteers and our work at ENP. We visited the local school during one of their lunchtimes to speak English with them and to just generally play around in English and learn more about their school life as we were all led by the hand by students between their various vocational centres including massage, white water rafting instructing and simulations, bakery and cafe, bracelet making centre, and topping it all off by playing volleyball and making fart noises by trapping air in orange flowers and then clapping on them! Skillz yo.  

Expert corn (which turned out to actually be grass in the end) cutters in the boot

 

We had a lot of downtime built in for volunteers to chill out and socialise all together which is really great. Most of my downtime was spent chugging the unlimited tea and hanging out with my new buddies as we watched the younger ellies winding up their nannies by running and hiding around the park, whole herds having mudbaths together, looking down as the big girls scratch up against the skywalk, snuggling with the 30-odd dogs running around the platform, and generally having a great time! I met a lot of truly excellent people from all over the world during my first week and I've made such great friends it's wonderful. Evenings were filled with cat snuggling, dog cuddling, incredible Thai massages from surprisingly powerful Thai women, Thai language and culture lessons from our group leaders and a cheeky coke and mars bar from the tuck shop. Jam packed days combined with early sunsets and beautifully peaceful darkness (except, you know, when the 400 dogs howl up in unison, but that's pretty awesome too) led to the best sleeps I've had in years and waking up pumped for the next ellie adventures!

These are the important deliveries, y'all

Hanging out on the skywalk always brought playtime gems

There's a palpable energy in ENP. Within one park there is so much love, care and compassion it's tangible and surrounds the base like a bubble of happiness. It made me so much more aware and thoughtful with things I had never even thought about. The food, for example, was entirely vegan/vegetarian and I absolutely LOVED it. I have never known aubergines and courgettes to be used in so many ways, but I know that my student meals next year will be empty without them! The buffet took a significant hit when I turned up because dayum that sweet and sour pineapple was hella happening. Homemade soda bread straight from the oven with breakfast was an absolute dream, beaten only by these four words: deep fried long beans. MMMMHM. To many this is just dreamy food, but to me it's been a bit more. I've always been an avid carnivore and I love the taste and texture of meat, and growing up with it I consider meat to be the equivalent of an onion: you're not cooking if it's not involved. I still eat and thoroughly enjoy meat, but I'm trying to be more mindful about eating it and actually appreciating what I'm eating rather than just cramming it in as fuel. I felt I was just as replete on a veggie diet but also had more energy and less of a sluggish post-food coma than when I eat a mainly meat based diet, so for me it makes sense to add in more veggies and dial back the meat until I really really want meat itself, rather than just a plate filler. 

Dayyyyum, aubergine

 

When we walked into the conference room we walked under a sign which said "by the power of one". The power of one began this project and demonstrates what greatness can be achieved by a lone soldier. I've written about Lek here, because I needed a bit more thinking space to tackle that micro giant of a lady. Moreover, because of Lek I have been able to find a group of amazing humans who I am so privileged to call my friends, grounded with a mutual bond between us, our experiences, and our elephants. For every soul which walks through those gates, ENP saves lives, makes futures, and creates love.

Only about half the squad in this, but the blur just shows you how much fun we had all week!

It was so sad to see so many of my pals leave, but it meant onwards to the second week at ENP for me and a full immersion in day-to-day care for our ellies! Read about that awesome week here.

Beautiful ends to beautiful days

Note: better quality photos will be being uploaded as I manage to get them off my various SD cards and upload them! Worst comes to worst it'll be a lovely throwback in June...