On Monday, the day before the accident, was our first group
elephant bathing. My first week at the camp there was only one other volunteer
and my second week I was by myself, so the bathing experience was pretty calm.
We just scrubbed our elephants and that was that. No water fights. But this
Monday afternoon bathing was completely different! The river was higher than
normal because it had rained over the weekend, so we had to bathe the elephants
in a smaller river. This river was located across the main road and outside of
the actual elephant camp. There were five volunteers total, which meant five
elephants and five mahouts. We all were trying
to squeeze into this small river, where each elephant actually lays down. It
was interesting, but so much fun! Because we were in such tight quarters, it
was so easy for a water fight to ensue. Hong, one of the hairiest elephants I've
ever seen, loves to play in the water! She would splash her trunk in the water
and spray water everywhere. My elephant happened to be lying right in front of
her too, so I got soaked. Not to mention, one of the other mahouts thought it
would be hilarious to scoop water in his basket and dump it on me! I tried to
get him back, but he was out of the water before I really had the chance.
Needless to say, I was so looking forward to the Tuesday afternoon bath!
It started off as a normal day. It was Tuesday, September
17th and I woke up around 6:10AM. I got dressed and left with the other
volunteers to meet our mahouts to help clean our elephant's stalls and go to
the river to bathe our elephants. As usual, we all finished cleaning the stalls
around the same time and climbed on our elephants to go to the river. My
elephant, Suk Chai, being the smallest of the group, was always towards the
back of the pack. This was good though because he did well when following the
larger elephants. He didn't scare as easily.
I wasn't a fan of water fights during the early morning bath
because it was too cold. There was always a chill in the air in the mornings
and evenings at the camp. In the evenings the refreshing coolness was quite
nice, but not so much at 6AM when you're about to get waist high in a cold
river. The mahout who had poured water on me the day before attempted to splash
me on this morning. I was like, hold up. It's way too cold for that. Except he
didn't know much English, so actually I just shook my head, hugged myself and
shivered. He got the message, so we just scrubbed our elephants and headed back
to their stalls.
I went back to my room to shower and get ready for the day. I
and Antonia, who was my roommate, had decided to help in the kitchen that
morning. We peeled, washed, and chopped cucumbers. Peeled and cut carrots, this
stained my hands orange. And we chopped up cauliflower. Afterwards, we went
over to the veterinary office where we packed vitamins from 11AM-12PM. Next was
the oh, so delicious buffet lunch, which I skipped most days to eat a PB&J
sandwich back in my room. I watched an episode of Dexter on my Kindle Fire,
almost took a nap, but didn't have time because at 2pm we met up with Jin, the
coordinator, to go to the Longneck Village nearby. The Village was amazing.
It's so interesting to see how other people live their lives. What they see as
normal, we find to be bizarre. The women and children are so beautiful though.
We stopped in the store on the way back where Antonia and I
got an ice cream. It was so hot outside that day. I was looking forward to the
4 o'clock bathing and the water fight that I was going to start. When we
returned to camp, we changed and got ready to meet our mahouts for the usual
afternoon routine.
When I got to my elephant's stall, my mahout was not there
yet. I was not allowed to enter the stall without the presence of the mahout
for safety reasons. So I said, "Sawadika" (hello) to Suk Chai and he
reached his trunk over the wooden posts as if he was returning the greeting. My
mahout showed up shortly after and we put on our gloves to begin picking up the
elephant poop. Then we swept the leftover grass. While my mahout was unchaining
Suk Chai, I noticed that most of the other volunteers were already on their elephants
heading towards the river. We were running a bit behind, but I didn't think
anything of it. My mahout commanded, "Nah Long" to Suk Chai, which
means to lay down. I climbed up onto his neck and my mahout climbed onto his
back. Suk Chai still wore a chain around his leg while we were walking. The
other end was draped over his neck. He also wore a red rope with a bell
attached around his neck. As always, I would put all my weight in my hands,
which were on the elephant’s head, to lift myself up so my mahout could move
the chain and rope behind me. Otherwise, they would rub and irritate my legs.
When riding an elephant, there isn't really anything to hold onto. I would just
lean forward with my legs bent backwards and put some weight on my hands which were atop the elephants
head.
We weren't too far behind the other elephants, but they were
much farther ahead than normal. I can usually reach out and touch another
elephant while I'm on Suk Chai. I would have to watch out because the other
elephants would sometimes get so close they would almost run into my legs. Of
course, I didn't have to worry about that now because we were walking by
ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment