I just wrapped up one week at Elephant Nature Park (ENP). ENP was the first elephant sanctuary in Thailand. The founder Lek has been working diligently over the past 25+ years to educate people and help elephant camp owners convert their camps into sanctuaries. There are 117 elephants at ENP who are rescued from riding, circus and logging camps. All the elephants have had brutal lives prior to coming to ENP - they’ve experienced extreme abuse at the hands of humans. For the elephants to be trained/domesticated they go through a process called phajaan - which translates to soul crush/break spirit. For days young elephants are tied up and beaten till they are submissive to their handlers. Often elephants during this process will try to kill themselves. In addition to the elephants there are over 700 dogs, over 2,000 cats, tons of cows and water buffalo and an unknown amount of rabbits and goats. In addition to the animals this park has offered career and income sources for many in the surrounding areas. Many of the workers are escaping conflict in their home countries such as Myanmar and bringing their families. There are now over 100 kids at ENP and they even offer schooling for these kids because they couldn’t get it from the Thai government, given they aren’t local. A truly amazing place that Lek and her team have created. During the week we did a variety of tasks to understand what it is like to care for an elephant. Here are the key tasks we did:
We avoided petting or bathing the elephants as they want to get away from these activities and provide elephants with a more natural life. Over time they hope to build a skywalk around the full park to allow visitors to walk around and view the elephants. In addition to elephant tasks we took many walks around the park to meet the different elephants and watched a few movies to learn more about the mistreatment of elephants. If you are looking to learn more, Love & Bananas is a documentary about an elephant rescue for ENP we watched on our second night. All meals were vegan and very tasty. We spent the evenings laughing and sharing our “laughs and not laughs of the day” at the local bar (a hut selling snacks next to the elephants). My top laugh of the week was - after finding some plastic in the night cages of the elephants, I asked my coordinator why there was plastic there and he just responded “It is the Humans”. As if I might have thought an elephant was sneaking a go-yurt at night. My top not laugh was people being totally unaware and constantly almost getting run over by elephants or water buffalo. During the week I met the most incredible people and am especially grateful for Michelle, Helen, Kayla, Kerry, Rich and Georgia for making me laugh and laugh. I don’t think I will have 6-pack abs from the work but I will from the laughter shared. I found the entire week to be very educational and fun. The volunteer tasks were sometimes physically demanding, but also good fun. I don’t think our jobs as volunteers were critical to the success of the park, but they had us do them to learn about all that goes into caring for an elephant and so we can spread the world globally on the mistreatment of elephants. That being said our coordinate did say he wouldn’t have a job if it weren't for us and “no money no honey”. One of the not highlights, but educational experiences was going to Chok Chai elephant camp down the street from ENP. The owner of this camp passed away without a will and has 4 wives, so there is an ongoing court case to decide the fate of this camp, but for now it is in the process of converting into a more ethical park. That being said the elephants are chained on very small chains on a small concrete platform. They are still using hooks to beat the elephants, but they have stopped offering elephant riding. It was tough to see elephants in that condition, but also important to understand the journey these camps are going through to convert to sanctuaries and also a reminder that feeding an elephant is very expensive. The final activity of the week was brown water rafting. My friend Michelle was obsessed with getting our coordinator to take us to his village to go rafting - constantly asking him about it all week long. Thus the final day we walked about 30 minutes to try our hand at brown water rafting (same as white water rafting but the water is brown). Michelle was basically racing to get into the rafts with excitement- I didn’t know a 34 year old women could have such a passion for rafting, but she did.! My goodness, I don’t think I’ve laughed harder in a 45 minute span than I did going through the jungle on this raft. Our poor guide had to do 90% of the paddling because we were too busy laughing and splashing the other boats. Such good fun to end an incredible week. On the final day I needed to get to the airport before the scheduled departure time to get to Koh Samui. I had to pay extra for this which they reminded me everday for all 7 days - I assume hoping I would change my mind. Sunday was election day, thus they asked if I could leave at 8:30 instead of 9 AM for my driver to vote. I said yes of course because I support democracy! I assumed this meant that he would drop me off at the airport and then go vote - NO he stopped in his home village to vote on our way. I had to pee so went into his home, met his mom and kids. While he voted he did leave me in the car without the windows rolled down or AC which felt inhuman and not how we should treat animals.
To close out - the most inspiring part of the week was learning about all the progress Lek has been able to make over the past 25+ years in the hearts and minds of people in Thailand and across the globe by being focused on her mission of improving the lives of elephants and animal welfare in general. When she started her work she was arrested countless times and completely disowned by her family. She has been leading with love, not judgment and working to educate camps on how to remain profitable by converting to sanctuaries. There is a long way to go as we saw multiple times over the week in the surrounding areas with people riding elephants, elephants chained up and generally being mistreated, but now less than 20% of camps are riding camps in Thailand - thanks to Lek’s work. Also, this week marked historic progress for Thailand with the military rule being voted out and the Move Forward Party winning. Hopefully, with new government will come the missing piece to elephant welfare - legislation, which is a critical missing piece today. Thank you to everyone at ENP for the work you do and opening your space to us for the week. Please don't ride elephants, attend circuses with elephants performing or support places mistreating elephants or other animals!
1 Comment
Kim
5/21/2023 03:59:23 pm
Once again a great summary of your time!! Love it!
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