Getting to know the Big Four

    Tuesday morning brought a cautious breakfast (plain rice only, black coffee) and then off to spend the morning with the Big Four!  Gee-Nowl, Easy Rider, Buffy (my favorite, for unknown reasons) and Happy Lucky.
    I had a SPLENDID time.  The Big Four live in an area that is closer to the Project center and is a varied and interesting terrain--some very damp and jungly and some amazing clearings where tall grass, much loved by grazing elephants, grows.  The elephants have to be chained at night, because if left to their own devices, they well might stray to some one's farm or a village and wreak havoc.  That would cost the Project dearly and certainly lose some of the Project's goodwill in the area.  So, they are--regrettably--chained at night.  Then, around 8:00 a.m., they are unchained and left pretty much to their own devices.
    Each elephant ("dombray" in Khmer) has its own personal mahout, who accompanies that elephant at all times it is off the chain.  That mahout controls his elephant with oral commands, or if those don't work, a tug on the ear.  No hitting of any kind is permitted.  I learned something about oral commands that I intend to use when I return to the unruly Airedale Aramis:  one's command is much more likely to be followed if you observe the animal and see what he or she is about to do and then command him or her to do that very thing!  Works wonderfully!
    In the afternoon, some short-term visitors came for a couple of nights--a wonderful British family celebrating their eldest son's obtaining his degree at Cambridge--and I went out with them in the afternoon, again observing the Big Four and then bathing them, which turned out to be my all-time favorite activity.


Click here to meet them up close and personal.

    4:30 p.m.?  Time for the bug spray to be applied!  It's when the malaria-carrying mosquitoes come out, and since I stopped taking anti-malaria medication, I've got to be extra conscientious.  This IS a bona fide malaria zone.