Oh, elephant, my elephant. Also: I am a slave who pays to be a slave

I hope you have already read Rony's latest post, but in case you haven't, read all about Cha'am, elephant safari, and the WFFT here. He talks a lot about how we feel, lots about his bears, and about what we do in the evenings.

I wanted to let you know a bit about our daily structure with the elephants. I have already basically introduced the elephants at the WFFT, and here's how we've been working.

At 6:30, we have the pre-morning feed. I'm not sure if that's what it's called, but it might as well be at that G-d-forsaken hour. June needs the most care, so whoever is on her watch (along with the sweet Bua) needs to make her these special pallets or peel and cut her fruit and hand feed all of her food to her. This means you get very dirty. Both because of what you are preparing, and because June has to suck on the food, since she has no teeth, and sometimes she gets so excited that some of the juice splats all over you.

Sounds gross, and it is, but only the first time. Then you're so dirty, you don't even notice it anymore.

Bua the sweetheart

Anyway, so in the morning we feed the elephants and we clean their enclosures, which means we remove all of their poo (for real) and the leftover leaves from whatever plant food they were given (sugar canes, banana, or corn). We also drain their water hole and scrub it clean, and then refill it.
Then breakfast, which we make ourselves. It's the only meal we make ourselves, there are cooks who make lunch and dinner.

After breakfast, we have feeds for all the elephants - and Sam, the horse - several times during the day, we water them several times a day, bathe them (except for Somboon and Khan Kluey, the baby, since he's wild and we don't really get close to him), clean their enclosures again, and also challange them with food. This isn't mean, they actually enjoy it. What we try to do is give them as much challenge as possible so they won't be bored, like tying some fruit in a bag and having them somehow rip their way through it. Khan Kluey picks up the back and hits it on his back to open it, and when that fails, he stomps on it and tears it with his teeth. Totally hilarious.

Khan Kluey, the 5-year-old baby

Somboon

Once every couple of days we go harvesting, meaning the elephant volunteers (except for one who needs to continue to feed June and the other elephants) are taken on the back of a pick up truck to some field to chop the plants with machetes (for real) and then load them on a truck. But we load them so high, and it doesn't matter which ones you're dealing with, you will always get a rash. We are out in the hot sun, covered head to toe, and still turn out red.

Speaking of red, I have a tan. Not just red. For real. :-)

Harvesting

We also have all kinds of special assignments, such as transferring previously-collectected elephant poo (for real) to one of the trucks and transporting it to another part of the center in order to use as fertilizer. Before you get all grossed out, the poo doesn't smell at all and it dries up real fast, so it is just like picking up a hairy baseball.

I hope you enjoyed the explanation :-)

Poo :-)

The day doesn't sound as full as it probably should have, but when everyone goes on harvest and one person is left to take care of 5 elephants and a horse, things get interesting. June also has a 6 pm feed, so whoever is taking care of June (usually 2 people) actually has a 12-hour day.

June

But the truth is that, although you're running around like crazy all day, it is so much fun. You do have some breaks here and there, and the truth is that everyone is exhausted, so it's OK.

The people are, for the most part, absolutely incredible. You wouldn't think that you can make really great friends in one week, but you can. I really hope I don't cry and make a fool or myself when we leave tomorrow at lunch time, but I have been told that it happens a lot.

The funnest part is that I have made some friends in Australia who we will meet up with while we're visiting Australia, and a couple of our friends from England will be in Australia at the same time as us and we have a day in the same place so we're going to meet up, too.


Tomorrow we head off to Bangkok for a few days, and then we go up north for about 12 more days. We'll write more when we're there, but I have a feeling we'll be sharing more of our experiences from the WFFT first.