Since the 2nd day, we have been getting afternoon showers.  Like CRAZY down pours for an hour or two.  There is a temperature change and just before the sun sets we cannot see the mountains that surround us as they are covered in mist and low laying clouds.  The air is green as if we see the world with green sepia lenses.

Every morning pick ups come and need to be unloaded- all 3 groups helped unload a watermelon truck.  We formed 2 long lines and would pass what seemed like 1000’s of little watermelons and fill the empty bins.  Another group was washing the watermelons and pumpkin that were to be cut up later that day for elephant food.  It was easy work – in the shade and many hands made for light work.

We got a break from work in the morning and all piled into vans to drive to a neighboring school.  It is almost across the river from ENP but we had to go up to a bridge to get over.  All 40 of us piled out of the van into a big concrete play yard surrounded on 3 sides by 2 story class rooms.  The principle of the school spoke to us and told us that this was a special school for local students and hill tribe children.   There were 200 children K-12.

All of the children learn a trade (or many trades) while they simultaneously have their academic classes.  Most of the 1st floor buildings were broken into rooms or small businesses: coffee shop, cookie shop, foot massage, dance, musical instrument, jewelry making and river raft guide.

The kids would come and grab us and bring us to their classrooms.  It was so sweet – we saw the kids who were playing instruments during the blessing ceremony.  We were there about 2 hours.

We came back for lunch- all of the day trip people are here for lunch.  Any where from 50-100 people come for the day.  It gets really loud when they are here and we all have commented that we like the breakfasts and dinners better when it is just us.  Spoiled already.

After lunch we get about an hour to go back to our rooms, most of the days we fall asleep with our little tent fan on us.  We all sleep amazingly well- most of us are NOT used to this much physical labor.  I would like the thank Mom’s and my trainer Roxy for all those awful workouts we complained thru.  You should see me Roxy- a virtual rock star working like a day laborer!   Thank you!!

We met again at 1:00PM for our afternoon task.  Eck (one of our 3 volunteer coordinators) said our Team A task was to pick up banana plants.  Hmmmm we had no idea what that meant, the 11 of us just blindly piled into the back of a pick up truck and were whipped around in back for about 45 minutes up and down tiny narrow mountain roads.   The scenery is beautiful- green, so green it almost hurts our AZ desert eyes.   We would pass thru traditional villages with a temple, small wooden raised houses and always one big stucco house with a big gate around and a dish for tv.

We pulled off the road into about an acre of felled banana trees.  Some were piled 3-4 high.  Personally I looked at it and saw it for what it was, rat, spider and snake infested.  Our task was to pull off a stalk- they were about 3′-6′ long about 12″-18″ wide and peel the outer layers off.  Underneath they were filled with hot fluid and were squishy.  It was actually very gross work- our gloves were soaked in this yucky fluid from the trees, the trees were full of fire ants.  We would have have to put the banana logs on our shoulder to bring to the truck therefor our clothes were covered.  We had to fill the pick up truck- we piled into another pick up that was brought to haul us home.  We all were sweaty and dirty.  At one point a girl in our group Laura casually leaned over to me and said “Mae’s leg”, crawling up here leg was this snake/centipede 3″ long thing.  I casually reached over and flung it out the back of the truck before she could freak out.  All ninja like-

We got back in time to quickly take showers and change for the talk by the founder of ENP Lek.  WOW, I mean WOW.  What an amazing person.  You know how we are told that 1 person can make a difference……….but sometimes in my dark heart I think “so much to do, change is so very hard”.  Lek is one of those rare individuals who has made an amazing difference for the life of elephants in Asia.  She had just returned from Burma trying to get legislation passed to help the plight of elephants.

She showed a video- I won’t go into detail, but it was the most awful video I’ve personally ever seen.  Lek has video taped the barbaric practices used to “train” elephants.  Let me tell you- not ONE of them even remotely was humane.  If you see an elephant outside of its wild habitat it has been tortured.  Tortured horrible.  Period.  She is making it her mission in life to change these horrific practices and to give hope to the elephants.

There is hope- ENP is a model that is now being used by a number of former trekking companies.  Instead of the tourists riding on the backs of elephants they get to do what we do here: walk with them, feed them, pay to work with them for them.

There is a newer girl here- she was rescued about 4 months ago.  Her owner abandoned her tied by chains to a tree in the jungle.  By the time the forest rangers found her she had lost over 700LBS and was near death.  Today she is back to her regular weight but is damaged.  Who knows if it was from her initial training or from being tied in the forest.  She and her mahout are always away from the other family groups, she likes to be near them, but not to near.  Often we see here swaying back and forth, a form of self soothing.  Because of Lek she has safe place to spend the rest of here days.