Good bye Stralians

     On Friday evenings, we four tourist/volunteers were transported into Sen Menorom for the weekend.  This gives the staff at the Project the weekend off and also facilitates visitor exchanges.  The three excellent Australian women I'd spent the week with--Jill, Asher, and Klara--had only signed up for one week at the Project and so were set to leave early Saturday morning.  I knew I would miss them.
     All three of them were so very gutsy.  They slept amongst the spiders and "muzzies" without complaint.   They packed excellent bug spray from home--called Bushman's, 80 % Deet--and were breezily unconcerned about malaria.  They worked hard when hard work was called for.  They loved the elephants.   AND they were great company--funny, cheerful, and supportive.

     Sometimes I think you can tell something about a person by what photos they took.  These are two of Jill's photos (wish I could claim them for my own!) 

   





This is Ry supervising us cultivating around the newly-planted banana plants.  She was clearly unimpressed by both our skills and our work ethic.









 
 And this is Ry and her little girl.











     Klara, whom you've seen in an earlier blog, amazed me by embarking on this trip to Cambodia pretty much on her own, despite being only about 21 years old and not at all the reckless type.  She'd spend a week and a half in Phnom Penh before coming here building houses for Habitat for Humanity, and she greatly impressed me by bravely attempting conversation with people who spoke NONE of her language and vice versa.  While I doubt if she was actually understood much, I'm sure the message she conveyed was always one of kindness and goodwill.
     I haven't had the occasion to meet many Australians in my lifetime, but if these women were at all representative of the national character, that's a country that's in good shape.
     We all checked into what seemed like a SUMPTUOUS hotel in Sen Menorom and each took showers of at least a half-hour in duration.  I thought I'd gotten the first suntan of my life, but be damned if it didn't wash off in a hot shower.  Then we all went to the Green House, which has to be the friendliest establishment in Cambodia, pounced on their free internet service to re-open communications with husbands and boyfriends, and had drinks and dinner.  Then we went back to the hotel and exchanged email addresses, and when I awoke in the morning, they were all gone.

Back? Down? Again? To Heaven

     When there's a location called "Heaven" around, the use of prepositions gets tricky.  Most frequently used is "down," but in my opinion "down to heaven" sounds plain weird!  But weird or not, that's where we went. 
     Day by day I was learning to carry and wear less and less.  Gone was the jacket--better to get wet from rain than from sweat.  Mostly gone was the cap--a sweaty head is a miserable thing.  Gone were the socks AND the metal water bottle (too heavy and cumbersome, and the dreaded plastic bottle was lighter and fit in a pocket).  Only one camera at a time (this day it was the new movie camera Scott bought, and do I ever like it!)  And I ADDED a walking stick, which was particularly welcome going down those slippery steep clay trails and Scott's fishing vest, which consists of a whole bunch of pockets held together by mesh.  I was less glamorous than usual, even, but I did NOT vomit, which is a good thing.

     And, feeling so much better, this time I was able to participate in the best of Heaven's activities, among them getting into the stream and washing the Supremes by throwing buckets of water on them. and building a little rock dam, so the water would back up enough to give the Supremes a deeper pool to splash around in.  Here's the splashing:

     I suppose these elephants may not appear to be particularly abused, but these ladies have gut-wrenching histories.  One, Onion, was rather unruly in her younger days, and so her owners carved a HOLE in her forehead where they could insert a hook to control her better.  When she arrived at the Project, her head was encrusted with mud, but when she was cleaned up, there it was, perfectly square and of course subject to repeated infections.  Another was unfortunate enough to be owned by people who believed that infertility could be treated with pieces of female elephant genitalia.  The wound that resulted from THAT belief also became infected periodically, and I was glad to learn that the antibiotic powder I'd brought from home gave her almost immediate relief.
     Here's my co-volunteer Klara (can you guess she's from Australia?) talking about one of the other elephant's ill-fated misadventure into a farm.

     These elephants have had a history of hard hard work.  They are mainly quite old.   Bob's in his 70's apparently, and my good friend Buffy is, like me, 58.  Most of them spent their working days in the logging industry where they carried heavy loads.  This is very painful for elephants, particularly on their backs, and some of these elephants' backs still show the wear of the loads they carried.    
     Some were "tourist" elephants, obliged to carry tourists around in wicker boxes all day.  Those boxes are NOT made with the comfort and safety of the elephant in mind, like, say, horses' saddles are, and the worst of it is that they are unable to eat the requisite number of hours when they have to plod around the same old trail all the time.  They get malnourished and dehydrated.  It is good to see animals with that kind of past enjoying their new life "down in Heaven."
     We also built a little rock dam, so the water would back up enough to give the Supremes a deeper pool to splash around in, particularly for when the rainy season is over and the creek levels decline.  I found this project so satisfying that I made this clip of the finished product.

Art in the Jungle

     This morning while watching the Big Four pursue their full-time job of EATING, I couldn't help but notice that one of the mahouts, Chorn, was carving something. 
     Have I talked about the mahouts?  Each elephant has it own full-time tender (and as you know, Bob has two).  "Mahout" is apparently a word imported from India to describe the tender/elephant relationship.  Here the mahouts are members of the Bunong tribe, the tribe whose property the Project occupies.  One of the aims of the Project--besides the obvious one of rehabilitating elephants--is to insure that the tribal people can make a decent living on their land without being forced to sell it off.  There is tremendous pressure from the Chinese to sell land to be clear cut for rubber plantations.  Apparently, rubber is increasingly valuable.  I thought it was funny when Jack said "Rubber is the new plastic," but it's really not at all funny, especially when one sees mile upon mile of clear cut land that was once national park but has now been sold by the Cambodian government to the Chinese.
      There is a great variation in the mahouts here at the Project; some are very businesslike and impersonal, and some seem to have a genuine emotional attachment to their elephants.  Some are eager to learn English and want to communicate with tourists as much as they can.  Others seem indifferent (though never hostile), or maybe too shy to interact much.

      In any event, it turned out that in recent weeks some of the mahouts have taken up carving little elephants out of spare chunks of  lumber, maybe teak, or maybe something else.  They've been selling them in the lounge at the Project, and 100% of the proceeds go directly to the mahouts themselves.  The sale of one carved elephant is equal to one full day's wage, and so obviously they are eager to carve more elephants.  I photographed Chorn carving and made arrangements to buy the elephant he was carving.

  


And here are the carved elephants to be taken home, Chorn's carving of Easy on the left and Cheam's rendition of poor old  Bob with his 1/2 of one tusk on the right.
   





    And speaking of "art," I had decided to try my hand at DRAWING while at the Project, having launched on this drawing business about three weeks before I left for Cambodia.  Well, and a couple high school art classes lo, those many years ago.  I was rather pleased with my first effort--Gee-Nowl at breakfast; here it is!
     The mahouts were only moderately 
interested in my efforts and made no offers
to purchase.  They also declined my offer to draw in my notepad.
     

  

Restored to Health and Euphoria

    That Cipro stuff works, I can tell you.  Whatever ill effects I was suffering for whatever reasons are GONE GONE GONE!  And maybe it's my imagination but I think the electrolytes give me extra zip too.  Anyway, I awoke raring to go.
    Two more guests arrived, planning to stay just a couple of days, Belgian women.  Bernadette works for a non-government charitable organization (NGO) in Phnom Penh and she'd met her friend Anne at another project in Tanzania.  Bernadette has been a friend of Jack's for quite some time, and it is she who is responsible for Jack's having such a surprising dog at the Project.  Apparently some one brought a Great Dane puppy to Cambodia but then couldn't keep him.  Poor guy, the dog that is, wound up spending around 9 months in a kennel, and Bernadette talked Jack into taking him to Sen Menorom.  The "puppy," now 16 months old, is devoted entirely to Jack, though he seems to like Jemma and for that matter everybody else too.

Here's Xerex and Jack posing in front of Jack's amazingly disreputable (though reliable) truck.
And here I am posing with Xerex, who is almost exactly the age of our Aramis.
    We spent the morning with the Big Four.  I don't think I would ever tire of watching them eat their way through their daily EXTREMELY unhurried routine.  I love the slow deliberateness with which they walk, and I love their beautiful horse-like eyes, which appear very sad to me.  
    We got to bathe the Big Four again, and that has to be one of the most exhilarating experiences ever.   Gee-Nowl and Easy like to drink from the hose, and it's so astounding to hold the hose for them and actually hear and feel the water getting sucked up their trunks.  Their trunks do not empty into their throats (!) so they then put the end of their trunks in their mouths and empty the water down their throats.  I learned from the mahouts to ask these two ladies Gee-Nowl and Easy "Drang?  Drang?" which I guess means "Drink?  Drink?"  and they consume an amazing amount of water.
    Buffy and Happy don't like to drink from the hose.  Rather they tank up at the various spring-fed streams that abound at the Project.  But they dearly love to be bathed.   While I was bathing her today, I felt something weird going on with my foot and looked down to see that Buffy was running the tip of her trunk over my shoe, apparently checking me out.  I was flattered.
    In the afternoon, it was WORK!  Remember the "volunteer" aspect to this trip?  Well, we cultivated the banana plants by hacking and hoeing around them.  The plants went in only a few days ago, and if the soil is loosened up around them, each planted banana can shoot out as many as 3 or 4 eventual trees.  They are especially important, not SO much for the bananas themselves, but because if an elephant gets sick and can't get to water, it is relatively easy to drag a few banana plants to the elephant, and there is enough water in three large banana plants to keep a sick elephant from dehydration.
    Cultivating bananas is hot and hard work, and all of us were a bit nervous because we were told to be on the lookout for snakes and scorpions.  We all had blisters on our wimpy western hands in not much more than an hour's time.  So that was that.

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.

Getting my feet back under me

   After a morning of feeling sick and elderly, I decided to re-group.  No more malaria medication [feeling I'd rather treat malaria back home than ruin my entire trip by feeling sick the whole two weeks]; start taking Cipro, the all-purpose antibiotic prescribed back home for "just in case"; extra potassium to stave off dehydration; electrolytes; and taking the afternoon off.  I felt right on the verge of getting REALLY sick and didn't want to actually get there.
   So, I snoozed for the afternoon, but was wakened around 4:00 or so by Jack wondering if I wanted to go bathe elephants.  Why, yes, I did!
   That's how I met the Big Four.  These are the four female elephants who live in another location from the other five.  They are the largest, the oldest, and have lived at the Project for the longest time.  They are Gee-Nowl, a huge wonderfully-tempered old girl and her best friend Easy Rider, who is much smaller and stouter and also very very pleasant.  Then there is Buffy, who turned out to be my particular favorite, who's been at the project longest, and is FIFTY-EIGHT years old! and her best friend Happy Lucky, who has the saddest eyes I've ever seen.

  And here we all are getting acquainted with a lovely shower.
  And what did I learn today?
  1.  I'm older than I was prepared to acknowledge.
  2.  That #1 is not as scary as I thought it would be.
  3.  That it's an amazing privilege to be tolerated by an animal who had literally had a hole carved in her forehead so she could be better controlled.
  4.  That although Jack talks as if he has absolutely no sentimental attachment to the elephants, he clearly loves them and they return the favor.
  5.  That elephants need to eat about 20 hours per day, and they actually have no stomach, just lots of intestines.
  6.  That elephants need to bathe twice a day, to cool themselves and to prevent dirt from building up and causing infection to develop and because baths are obviously REALLY enjoyable.
  7.  That elephants walk with slow, dignified, deliberate steps and don't appear to rush anywhere, but do get to where they want to go no matter what might be in their way.

  8.  That Jemma is a young Australian woman who is doing some graduate work here, and although she's only been here for six weeks, is courageous enough to be left in charge of the Project when Jack leaves in two weeks' time for a much-deserved trip back home to England, his first holiday in three years.  Here's Jemma posing with a 5-inch long cicada she found--one whose unbelievably loud screeching we hear daily.

First Night and Day at the Elephant Valley Project

    OK, I admit it.  I was scared.  I guess I was not expecting the place to be so JUNGLY!!!  I'd seen the photos of the houses on line, it's true, and I knew, for example, that there would only be electricity from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., but I really wasn't prepared for the dark and the isolation.  I loved my little house from the very beginning, but I was very nervous.  It had a nice red tile floor and recycled planking for walls and a grass roof.  Plus it had a bathroom with a toilet that flushed )even when there wasn't electricity and a shower that usually produced water even when there wasn't electricity.  Coldish water, but that was welcome in the heat.
    After a really good Khmer meal cooked by the chef Tul, I was eager to get myself tucked in under my mosquito net (or, as "the Australians" called it, a "MUZZIE net" before the lights went out.  There were spiders in my house that looked to be the approximate size of our dog Aramis and a shy but large [10-12 inch-long] gecko living there too.  The spiders did make me somewhat uncomfortable, so I named them all "Charlotte" and tried to think of them as pals. [See what years of psychotherapy can do for one?] And I tried to think of the gecko as a pal because I was told they eat the spiders.  SO, me and my pals settled in for our first night, and I was pleasantly surprised.  I wasn't creeped out, I slept soundly, and I don't think anybody bit me.

    And in the morning it was time for ELEPHANTS!!!!  I got all decked out in my prescribed elephant-watching gear.  Socks, sturdy shoes, cap, jacket (it was raining a little), cameras, water bottle, extra strength bug spray, and who knows what else.  Off we headed for "Heaven," one of the valleys some of the elephants live in, quite a trek from the project's center, first up a pretty steep path and then down, down, and down a VERY steep, VERY slippery path.  It was hot and humid, and I puked.  I felt VERY sick, from either the Khmer food, the heat, the excitement, dehydration, or most likely the malaria medication I'd just started taking.  Jack said that it made quite a few people sick, and worse, made their skin ultra-sensitive to sunlight.  I felt like one big nasty heat rash, but vomiting helped and I felt better, especially when I caught my first glimpse of a Project elephant, and it was . . . . pause for dramatic effect . . . .BOB!

    Bob, the only male at the project, more than a little unruly, the only elephant who requires not one but two mahouts to keep him under control, Bob, the only one of the nine elephants we were not permitted to approach.  So, why is Bob so surly?  Could it possibly be because his previous owner pounded on one of his tusks with a hammer every day until the tusk fell out and could be sold for ivory?  That half of his other tusk was sawn off for the same reason?  That he was starved, dehydrated, and chained to a house for weeks in order to make him more submissive??  You decide.      Four other elephants live in "Heaven"--Bob's friend Onion, who finds Bob attractive, but whom Bob only likes "as a friend".  And then there's the Supremes, three inseparable female elephants who are amiable and calm and loved to be pampered with nice baths.  Millot is the Diana Ross (click on the link to view Millot) of the trio--we fed her some let's-get-acquainted bananas--and here are the three luxuriating in their morning bath.