Della Volunteering Among The Animals: 02/2011

21 February 2011

First impressions once again...

We have 5 elephants here at the centre: June and Bua Ngun, the old ladies (approx. 75 and 70 years old),

Pai Lin (approx. 65 years old), Somboon (approx. 35 years old ) and the young and unmanageable Khan Kluey (approx. 2-3 years old).

Here in Thailand, elephants belong to their mahouts. Added to that, owning a 'pet' elephant is legal and begging in the streets with it is legal as well. Therefore, there is no reason for a mahout to want to part with his elephant unless he is offered a very good price or the elephant is too old to work. (See Elephant Manifesto in previous posting). So, to summarize, Edwin, the man who started WFFT, has purchased these elephants. In the case of Somboon, she was in a very bad car crash which happens frequently with begging elephants as they are taken through busy streets in big cities. Khan Kluey was unmanageable as I said, and couldn't be broken.

The other evening I was walking through the village during the festival and there were three street begging elephants with their mahouts. When I approached it to caress its trunk, the mahout asked me if I wanted to feed it (I would of course pay for the 'priviledge' of doing so..) I said of course not. While caressing the elephants' trunk, the elephant grasped my arm and immediately the mahout raised a stick with a big hook at the end to frighten the elephant. I yelled at the mahout. I think he must have been a bit dense anyway as I was wearing my WFFT T-Shirt where Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand is written in Thai. Ohhh, what a world we live in.....

Anyway, back at the 'ranch' and happier moments, yesterday was my first day working with June and Bua Ngun. What did I learn?

a. Elephants eat ALL THE TIME! We spent most of the day cutting fruit for June, which we also had to peel because she no longer has teeth and has a very poor digestive system. And I must say that although June had a very tough life until she came here last year, she now lives a very cushy life with an endless supply of food, medical care on site, caring people, not unlike being in a resort really:-). The other food we prepared were bowls of pellet balls made of pellets (sort of like dog food but for elephants), calcium powder and bananas, all of that mashed up and hand fed straight into their trunks or mouths. That was fun and not at all dangerous as they are so used to humans. And then I went on to...

b. Cutting banana leaves with a machette....have I ever used a machette in my life?? Nope, but never too late to learn I guess :-)

June

In the truck taking banana tree refuse to compost. I am SO grateful for my rubber boots!!

Pai Lin feasting on a tree:-)

Pai Lin bathing

And from the biggest to the smallest and just because I couldn't resist including this pic, this is one of our SLOWWWWW Loris, a nocturnal animal, but luckily for me, wide awake one morning when I went to clean his enclosure. They are just the cutest!! Back to elephants.....

c. Elephants don't poo as much as I thought and it is not unpleasant to pick up their poo, it is quite dry actually, kind of like mud....so not nearly as unpleasant as the bears'. And useful too as it is used here for compost for the trees.

d. I assisted Lucy, our resident veterinary nurse, in cleaning the elephants' wounds and scars, now, that was exciting for me, and gave me an inkling of what I might like my future job to be, ha, ha.

Today, I am with Pai Lin although this morning, I started by watering trees which is quite pleasant early in the morning before it gets hot. We were supposed to do harvest, but Eck, our senior mahout, decided we had enough fruit for now, so the next harvest is 2 days from now. Instead, we took Pailin on a really nice long walk which ended with her going for a bath.

Then we did some clearing of the refuse of banana trees and brought a couple of truck loads to a compost area in the forest. Pretty disgusting work to be honest....And then, unexpectedly, it rained! Now, that may seem like a normal occurrence to all of you who are going through winter weather at the moment, but here, it felt decidedly odd. What happens after rain, which only lasts under one hour, is that it gets even hotter, so we're back to our normal sweltering heat again.

And that's about it for now. The pace on elephant duty is so much more calm and slow than on wildlife duty that it almost feels as if I'm on day off. Yesterday morning, I was almost begging to go back to wildlife duties, but now, I'm actually starting to enjoy the slow pace and I think it's a nice way to end my stay here.

Cheers for now ;-)

18 February 2011

Moving on to other forms of wildlife

I haven' t posted anything in a few days and this is actually my last posting as volunteer with the wildlife...indeed, on Sunday, I start my two week stint with the elephants. Yes, elephants are wildlife too of course, but here at the centre, they are divided into WRC (Wildlife Rescue Centre) and EREC (Elephant Rescue Centre).

As I'm typing away, I'm trying to remember all the things I did in the past week. It was a week of mixture of pleasure and work. Pleasure as in I got to go to the beach with a couple of friends here from the centre. We spent a nice full day in Hua Hin, half at the beach, mostly in the water, and the other half just roaming around the night market, drinking cocktails (they are unreasonably cheap here!) and basically just relaxing. I returned from our outting with a massive sunburn which is now pealing suitably.

I must tell you all that working at the centre has been one of the more physically challenging things I have done in my recent years. We work long hours in rather intense heat (the warm season has just begun, so it's close to 34° C every day now). Most of our work is in the sun and involves sweeping, scrubbing, climbing sometimes, pulling this, pushing that, cutting and chopping this and that (the blisters on my hands attest to all the fruit cutting), carrying heavy water buckets. All I have to do is look at a broom and I start to sweat! And I am VERY DIRTY all the time!! Along with the black and red ants, the zillions of flies and other pesty creatures, perhaps you get an inkling of what it's been like so far. So to make things clear, just in case any of you out there thought I was on a prolonged vacation, that is not so!! In fact, I've finally shed those 3 kilos I couldn't get rid of ;-)

Again, on the pleasure side, I also got to go back to the Petchavarin Resort for a much needed foot massage and lounging by the pool. And the festivities in the village (which I mentioned in a previous posting) have begun for 5 days so I've been out a couple of nights for dinner, a very simple affair here in Thailand as you can see from some of the pics below. I've sampled a lot of Thai food since getting here! All very spicy indeed which I particulary like.

As I said, Sunday, I start working with the elephants. I am really looking forward to that because the pace is much slower than the pace I've had to keep up until now and more importantly because there is so much interaction with the animals. But of course, I will tell you all about that as I go along. It feels rather strange actually to be moving on to the elephants because it means that one part of my volunteering here is already over. It's been 5 weeks already, it's gone by incredibly fast, I can hardly believe it. I have learned so much over these weeks starting from scratch and now eagerly looking forward to more volunteering in the near future. I have mixed feelings of course which will only intensify when I have to leave altogether, but the nice thing is that I have that fantastic project in South Africa to look forward to, so I think I will leave here fulfilled and looking to the future. I have enjoyed first and foremost discovering the world of the animals and learning about their plight and some of the ways I can be of help. I have enjoyed working outdoors all day in weather which suits me. I have enjoyed getting dirty (yes, even that!). I have enjoyed the fact that some of the work is completely mindless, repetitive, manual and enjoyed the fact that I have had to use my brain for alot of the work too.

There have been those magic moments when I saw Miauw walk, or when I saw the Lorises playing in their enclosures at night (they are nocturnals), or when I saw the deer run by me when I was feeding the Gibbons in 'the jungle'. I will sorely miss the Gibbons' singing which accompanies our work all day long. I have fallen in love with the bears and their funny attitudes of sleeping on their backs or running around like overgrown teddy bears...

I have not enjoyed the moment when Mami, our Siamang Gibbon, who is incredibly powerful and hates women, pulled my hair and scared me to no end because I didn't know what to do to make her let go. (I now know but it's after the fact, maybe it will serve me at another time). I have bumped my head any number of times going into or under low enclosures, I have got bit by a bear and electrocuted by the wires surrounding the bears' enclosures...and despite all that, would I do it again? Yes, in an instant....after a few days' rest:-) It is very rewarding work and I have come to the conclusion that there is no end to the misery that animals are made to endure from the hands of man, but every little bit of volunteering helps to make a slight difference and I can only encourage all of you reading my blog to go out and do your bit, may it be with animals, children or nature....we all contribute to make world a better place.

A baby flying squirrel was brought to the centre. As such, some of the volunteer babysit him and feed him 4 times a night, 3 AM (!) so here I am syrins feeding little Steve....

A fish foot bath.....does it work? Not sure, really.....

The streets and market of Hua Hin

One of my favourites....he has the most gorgeous eyes, don't you think?

Food House 2: food preparation for 106 primates twice a day, every day. From the board to the basket and on to feeding...

Mocha...

Being picked up to be taken to the resort for my foot massage:-)

In the pool at last!

Festivities in our village of Kao Look Chang.....

Did I mention? Thailand is great!!! Sawadee kaaa.....

08 February 2011

Reflecting on things....

Well, I've been here almost one month now, I can hardly believe it. At times, it feels like my second home!

Days go by so fast, the pace is set by the various tasks, and before you know it, another day has gone by. We get up so early in the morning and convene in the volunteer house before setting off on our duties for the day and very often the conversation you hear at 6:30 AM sounds like : » what are you on today? « « I'm on Bears 2, how about you? » « I'm on Primates 3 » and so on....

We are divided into teams of 2 to 4 people and we have a set protocole of things to do and the order in which to do them as well as the hour at which these tasks should be started and completed. And, as many of our duties depend on the duties of others, it is relatively important that we stick to the schedule.

It can be a little stressful at times, for example team Primates 1 needs to have 106 bowls of food prepared by 7:30 AM and the same by 3:30 PM. They have one hour in which to get the bowls prepared for teams Primates 1, 2 and 3 who all go off in different directions to feed the primates. In other words, if they are late preparing, then all three teams are late feeding, and so forth...

For the past couple of days, I have been leading team Bears 1 which is quite an easy one. What we need to do firstly is get the bears out of their enclosure and into their den, so that we in turn can go into their enclosure to clean it. It can be tricky at times as bears are either stupid or pretend to be stupid, in any case, they are stubborn, and sometimes we can waste 15 minutes trying to entice them into their den with food! The other day, I was doing Bears 2 and getting a bit frustrated because one of the bears just wouldn't move.....so I did exactly what you're not supposed to do which is throw food to them by putting my hand through the bars. Good thing I had my working gloves on! One of the bears tried to get a little taste of my hand....And as if that weren't enough and I had not yet learned my lesson, I put my hand through again (am I totally stupid or wreckless, or both??) and gave myself an electrochoc on the electric wires surrounding their enclosures....Apparently that had happened once to a volunteer who couldn't let go for a fraction of a second and her whole arm went blue, so I guess I was lucky, I only jumped back, very surprised...Oh well, no harm done, I'm still around to tell the story...

Anyway, to get back to the bears....we feed them fruit mostly which we scatter all around the enclosure, trying to hide it in a hole or up on high to get them to use their sense of smell and work a bit for their food. As most if not all of these bears have grown up in small cages with people hand feeding them chocolate, candy and other inappropriate foods, they have never had to use their natural instincts to search for their food, so we try to encourage that. It is really fun watching them eat, they absolutely love their food! And then they go take a nap, often lying on their backs with their hind legs sprawled out and one arm over their eyes to keep out the light.

I did get a day off a few days ago and went hiking a bit in a nearby national park. (see photos) It was a very beautiful setting, a tropical forest and the hike to the waterfall was quite challenging as it was mostly downhill all the way and then of course, all uphill on the way back. I hiked for about 3,5 hours, hoping to see wild animals but none were to be seen that day unfortunately. Was good exercise though.

Many volunteers have left this week, many new ones have arrived and the atmosphere changes constantly. The ones which were here the past 2 or 3 weeks have been quite young and I have found it a challenge to communicate with them or share anything with them in any significant way. This was quite unexpected for me. I didn't know what to expect really and I thought that by coming here, I would meet and communicate in a positive way with many like minded people. That has not been the case and in that respect only, the experience is disappointing. The crowd this week is a bit older so I am finding that easier to deal with, but basically I concentrate on my work and all the things I am learning which was really the reason I came in the first place, and I have indeed been learning lots...a whole new world is opening up for me.

I have been using some of that recently acquired knowledge to give tours to visiting tourists which is really fun and a welcome change to the work.

The week after next, there will be festivities at the temple in the village as they will be celebrating Chinese New Year. In Thailand they celebrate everyone's New Year, not only their own. For those of you who are interested, it is the year of the rat so up until recently, there has been a huge (and very tacky) paper maché rat in the centre of the village with blinking eyes, but I think they moved it to the temple area now in preparation for the festivities to begin soon.

I will sign off now and just to make you a tiny bit envious, I send you « warm » greetings from Thailand where the weather is above 30°C and we are sweating in the daytime. And to refresh ourselves, we go and jump in the nearby lake. Sleeveless Tshirts in the evening and flip flops on our feet at all times. Ahhhhhh, great stuff! What a life!

Rumour has it that it is freezing in Europe and the US. Sorry my friends. I don't miss it.

Cheers

Tropical forest type vegetation

Self portraits....

Waterfall at the nearby national park

Life at the centre...preparing enrichments for the bears...a mixture of papaya, banana and sunflower seeds, yummyy!!! (then we stick it inside rubber tubes or tyres and they go on a food hunt.....fun!!)