Elephants Volunteering

I don't even know where to start. This week was incredibly beautiful. We arrived and were first shown around, got t-shirts and water bottles, and then were led to our rooms. I was in a room with 3 other girls who were all incredibly nice. In general, all the people were extremely friendly and loving, and thankfully hardly anyone spoke German, which meant for me: speaking English for a week, and that made it even better. We were divided into three different groups in which we had to complete four different tasks every day. In the mornings, you either had to clean up elephant poop or prepare food and then feed the elephants. On the first afternoon, which was Tuesday, we just took a walk around the area and got to know the elephants and their stories. On the second afternoon, we cleaned the water tanks, and on the third afternoon, we went to shovel 💩. On Friday, we had a walk and talk with the founder's husband, and he went into more detail about the suffering of elephants and answered all kinds of questions. On Saturday, the only afternoon task was a group photo. In general, we had a lot of free time. Breakfast was at 7 am, and we started working at 8 am until around 9:30 or 10. We had lunch at 11 am, and afternoon work started at 1 pm and went until around 2:30/3 pm. From then on, we had free time until 6 pm, as dinner started at 6 pm and after that we had free time again. There were "specials" such as movies, dances, or ceremonies. One of these specials was the birthday party of an elephant. She turned 10 years old and got her very own cake with watermelons, bananas, papayas, and rice. We even sang for her.

In our free time, small groups naturally formed, and I spent time with incredibly amazing people whom I hope to see again. We played the game "Werewolf" very often and had the greatest fun, I love this game!

The food was exclusively vegan and Thai, which unfortunately wasn't the best for me, but I still got full and always found something to eat!

In addition to the cute and incredible elephants, there were also water buffaloes, dogs, and cats there. The dogs were incredibly cute, especially the puppies, which I visited from time to time. I would have loved to adopt one and take it with me. In retrospect, we actually didn't spend a particularly long time with the animals, but you could always see them and observe them, and that was enough! It was so amazing to watch the animals and listen to their trumpeting, especially with the 3 baby elephants! However, feeding the elephants was still the highlight, even though one of the elephants vomited on the last morning, which was not particularly nice, but also funny to watch. After a week, however, we were all ready to go back to normal showers, air conditioning (as it was 40 degrees and there was no cooling on the farm), and the food that we actually wanted to eat! On Sunday evening, we spent time with the people who stayed in Chiang Mai, and on Monday we separated.