An interesting day starting with a trip to see a new elephant enclosure built by Bamboo volunteers earlier this year. We felt that the elephants were still quite distressed penned up. We then moved on to a local school to help to construct a pig pen….yes pig pen in a school. Concrete was made by mixing sand, concrete, rocks, all gathered by hand, walking 100 yards with each of the 15 baskets, mixing it quickly in a bath then pouring into holes to hold the posts upright.
Sadly, as my ankle was aching I was excused from doing this. I went up to the school playground and there were a couple of children who I played with.
After lunch, we went to the back yard to find 16 elephants of various sizes waiting for us to walk them to the river to play. I chose an enormous 20-year-old elephant to walk. She was beautiful and she responded to having behind her ears tickled. The water play was amazing, being in the water with the elephants playing around us. Quite surreal.
We headed back to the homestay, elated and full of tales to tell each other. Due to us all being exhausted most of us were in bed by 9…..ready for our local insomnia cockerel calling to all his friends at 1.50 Am!!
Rambling With Ruthie 