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| Thor |
Anyway, so poop-scooping. It was fun when there were elephants around, we got to watch Dok Mai and her mama while we were at their habitat, but Mama kept growling at us which is a seriously powerful and awesome and terrifying sound.* They were behind bars, so it was all good. I did a lot of pushing wheelbarrows of poop to the pile that Aek told us is called "Shit Kingdom." My blister broke near the end and Aek took me over to the station to disinfect and bandage and the disinfectant that they had was whatever my mom used to use on scraped knees in the '90s because it hurt like a bitch.
*I was actually wrong about what the mama elephant was doing - it was something more akin to the purring of a cat. The elephants do it to calm each other or themselves.
The vegetarian food here is awesome. They cook tofu to almost perfectly imitate meat, to the point where I'm so paranoid that it's not just actual meat with a sign that says tofu that I sometimes don't eat it.** Lunch was pad thai, spring rolls, pineapple slices, and fried rice. (Basically the meal of my dreams.)
**The problem with journal-ing is that it forces you to see yourself in a harsh and often revealing light later on. Obviously this journal should say DISCLAIMER: NEUROTIC.
After lunch our second job was to load banana trees and branches into trucks to bring back to ENP. We rode in the back of the truck again, and about five minutes outside of ENP we stopped and got out to help push a truck full of watermelons up the road because it was breaking down and couldn't shift into first gear just like the van in "Little Miss Sunshine." It was pretty fun, the group of us running behind a watermelon truck. I stopped when we started smelling gas and the truck was giving a lot of exhaust. (Brooklyn "got exhaust in her eye" - stupid cunt.)
Along the way I spotted some of the trees that had the blessed scarves from the monks tied around them. I pointed them out to the other girls and Jessica said, "Good eye!" which was almost a compliment but I fucked it up by accidentally making it seem like they should've seen it in my weird attempt to bashfully refuse the friendly gesture. Also along the way we asked Thor about these little temple-looking houses that are randomly all around Northern Thailand. She said that they're "spirit houses" that keep the area safe. She also told us that when David and Victoria Beckham visited Northern Thailand, they bought 10 spirit houses to bring home.We loaded trees and branches, Alex got stung by a hornet, when the trucks were full we drove back and unloaded and got to feed Navaan and his mama and aunties some branches. He was very entertaining.
Now I'm sitting in an elephant talk that I thought was going to be with Lek but is actually with some white lady named Jody. She's worked here for ten years and is covered in tattoos. She was just talking about Hope and his mahout and how they have a special bond. (Apparently there are Austins and Trevors working here, too - makes me feel a little better.) Hope wears a bell around his neck because according to Aek, he's a "naughty boy." I got 3 carvings and a shirt at the gift shop and I think I might go back and get a carving of Hope. He's 13, Lek saved him from having to go through the training crush, which, to me, seems like what a panic attack would look like if you could see it. The other 3 carvings I got were Dany, the first ele that I met and a solitary elephant, Jokia and Mae Perm (their carvings are attached because they're best friends), and Navaan and his mama. I want to get Hope, too, he has a tiny bell around his neck and I LOVE that. I wonder if Jokia and Mae Perm's mahouts like each other, because that would be tough if they didn't.
Jody is saying that there are no working elephants who are not tortured during training and ENP is the only place that trains with positive reinforcement. We were just speculating about that on the drive to the bananas. I want a carving of Jungle Boy, too. He's the one with tusks.
I haven't gotten a picture with Tilly yet, but I did get to see her while we were poop-scooping. She was beautiful.
- When an elephant's ears are out, it is feeling unhappy or threatened.
- Hope and Ton Suk (Jungle Boy) steal each others' girlfriends; Ton Suk doesn't need to do anything because he's very handsome and has tusks but Hope is flirtatious and charms Ton Suk's ladies away from him. (Ton Suk is chained because his musth patterns are messed up and he could hurt someone.)
- Squeaking and Rumbling: Squeaking is like complaining and rumbling (which I had thought was growling) is meant to comfort.
We also heard the heart-wrenching tale of Medo and her best friend, Mae Mai. Medo is the most visibly handicapped elephant - she looks like her legs are two different lengths and walks very painfully. She was very dependent on her friend to look out for her. Mae Mai died very suddenly and for several weeks after she was buried, Medo would go to her grave every day and lay down on it, which is not only uncharacteristic for an animal that only spends a few hours at a time lying down when asleep but even more so for one who is physically handicapped. It took Medo a while to find a new companion, but she eventually did, Mae Lanna.
Mae Lanna had been very attached to Asii, an older male elephant who died when he fell over and would not let the staff members get close enough to help him back up. After that happened, she would got back to where Asii had stayed and touch the poles and carry around the tires that they had used to prop him up, and Medo would stand off to the side and wait for her grieving friend to finish, because she knew what it felt like to lose a companion.
Things I know about Ruby other than that she was born a man: She is 22 years old and training to give one-day tours of the ENP. She doesn't like living rustically and is the kind of girl that gets thrown into the lake because she makes a fuss about how cold it is.
Things I know about Thor: She learned English by watching American TV shows and movies and she lives in Bangkok.
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