My morning task, along with two other volunteers, was to water the plants around the enclosure. Simple enough, right? I do this at home. I have a wonderful garden and I water the plants all the time. Nope. Here are three buckets. There is the pond. The pond is within the enclosure and the plants that need tending surround it. There is no irrigation system. WE are the irrigation system. It’s brutally hot and it’s 8:30am. Done. I have a new appreciation for my 100 foot hoses and hose connectors at home.
My 10:00am task to ‘shift poo’ at one of the fields was put on hold since the truck got stuck in the mud. So many questions… There are bins of elephant poo used for compost and the paper factory. This needs to be transported and broken down for use. We got the truck out and moving again and returned to the village. Too risky to keep going if it’s muddy. We were a group of five volunteers and a coordinator. Too many people to go missing, so we went back.
The elephants had a nice walk today. Certainly not as long as yesterday, but they’re happy to get off the chains for any amount of time. The walk ended at the enclosure and there’s alway sugar cane and swimming for any elephant that wants it. And what elephant wouldn’t.
A Fool Wanders, A Wise Man Travels 