Day in the Life of an Elephant Sanctuary Volunteer

The elephants have entered the room. And there’s nothing awkward about it. 

I’m back stateside from a two-week stint in Thailand where my friend and animal communication teacher, Nikki Vasconez, and I rolled up our sleeves to immerse ourselves in the volunteer world of Phuket’s first ethical elephant sanctuary, Phuket Elephant Sanctuary. It’s a peaceful home to a dozen elephants who have spent decades working under exhausting conditions in tourism, entertainment and logging industries across the country.

And I know what you’re thinking: So, how was it?

I gotta be honest. For a while, I’ve had a complicated relationship with that well-meaning question. 

I’d come home from a jam packed experience—say, a deployment where five weeks felt like fifteen– and struggle to package bajillions of emotions, thoughts and memories into a neat bundle of sentences that (I hoped) accurately painted a picture of what was inside me. Hello, PRESSURE. 

Once, I had a big-sis type friend tell me to be ready with my “bumper sticker” version of a response. You know, a short-ish blurb that provides a few highlights to satisfy the dear listener who may (or may not) actually be interested in what I had to say. It helped. Usually.

But if you’re here, I assume you appreciate some kind of depth. Because … that’s what The Deep End is all about.

So I’m breaking the bumper sticker rule with a long-exposure snapshot into the magic that has anything but left my mind for the last couple weeks. A mini elephant series on the blog may be in our future because when it comes to understanding these majestic giants who are unafraid to take up space, small and simple just isn’t gonna cut it. 

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4:30am - 6:30am: I rise with (or sometimes before) the sun thanks to the whooping call of a jungle bird I can’t identify–a cross between a rooster and a kookaburra.  This week provides a glimpse into what my life may look like if I were (gasp!) a morning person. Besides the fact that my body is still getting used to the 12 hour time difference from DC, there is an electric energy to the air that makes throwing off the covers a whole lot easier than when I’m stateside.

8:00 am: When the day of my cute beach shack eventually arrives, I want the outside to look like the terrace of Dee Cafe, a tropical deck oasis adjoined to the hotel accommodation we’re staying at for the week. It’s a five minute drive from the sanctuary and a short walk to several local markets and fruit stands. Here, Nikki and I catch up over steaming Americanos and fresh squeezed liquid gold orange juice. We’ve both communicated with elephants this morning remotely from our rooms and now we get to compare notes about what they said. This morning, Nikki shares that Sroy Fah said something about drinking kinda funny—as in, the way she slurps. My eyes grow wide as I share that she also showed me there was something notable about her lips. We’re on a little detective mission to verify this today!

8:45 am: The Phuket Elephant Sanctuary staff picks us up in a sweet outfitted open-air truck covered in a rainbow of stickers to take us to work. A whole fleet of vehicles transports guests to and from the main office to the sanctuary grounds—a very organized operation!

9:00 am: Time for breakfast overlooking the swimming hole. Every fiber of me appreciates the balance of hard work with hard rest encouraged by the local Thai people. Our guide greets us before a big breakfast served in a thatched roof hut, usually of eggs or tofu with fresh stir fried veggies and a heaping mound of rice. 

10:00 am: We roll up our sleeves to clean the elephant bedrooms where, at night, each elephant gets tucked into their own spacious area until morning. The fence around the perimeter of these thirty acres isn’t exactly elephant proof. Case in point: the staff found this out early on when a very smart four-ton girl unlocked her bedroom with a giant key, wandered over to the nearby property and slurped up nearly $150 worth of fruit from the neighbors’ in the middle of the night. Oopsie! 

Also, elephants eat 10 percent of their body weight every day. Only 40% is digested and the rest acts as perfect fertilizer for the earth.What goes in must come out and–shocker–sometimes sprouts into plants two days later. So we scoop that poo like champs and load it into wheelbarrows alongside the remnants of munched on pineapple leaves from their bedtime snack and haul it over to the giant compost pile. On one side of each bedroom lies a jacuzzi-tub sized water bowl supplied by the waterfall that runs adjacent the sanctuary. And on the other, a mega sand mound acts like an elephant pillow for these gentle giants to lean against during the four hours they sleep per night. Because these sanctuary residents are older elephants with injuries from their past lives as overworked, exhausted laborers in riding camps, shows and logging camps, sometimes their legs won’t let them lie down all the way. Their giant footprints left crinkled in the sand remind me of the lines from my pillowcase that form on my face after a night of deep sleep–which only comes by way of feeling safe and relaxed.

11:30 am: I change out of my wellie boots giving my socked feet a breather while letting an ice-soaked washcloth drape around my neck. The refreshment is welcome and, as Nikki well says, I’ve never been so happy to be drenched in 90 degree heat and 85% humidity. We look like perky drowned rats compared to our near perfectly dry guide who has been working alongside us at breakneck speed. 

Our arms are happy-tired from scrubbing and power washing the inside of a swimming pool-sized hydrotherapy pool the day before where elephants go to relieve the weight of their heavy bodies after a visit to the clinic. But we know the work is nothing compared to the 18-hour days these elephants have been forced to work in their previous lives giving rides to tourists and hauling logs and heavy machinery. “See the light scars around her back feet? That’s where the logging chains were,” our guide explains. She also points out the hair that’s stopped growing and the flattened curve of an elephant’s back from endless rides–a complete deformation of her natural body. But now, this elephant looks content feeding on bananas from the side of the pool as her caregiver, called a mahout, cracks a smile our way. Each mahout spends seven days a week caring for their dedicated elephant. All it takes is a barely audible whisper from the elephant’s favorite person to dunk her whole body under water before coming back up for another bite of banana— which she eats by the whole bunch at once.

12:00 pm: A sprawling buffet of fresh pad thai, stir fry, endless fruit and veggies meets us in the main pavilion where, yet again, we are encouraged to devour as many platefuls as we wish. It’s like Thanksgiving, jungle style. The sound of the pounding rain is music to our ears, but even better news for these elephants because: mud bath time. Also known as Mother Nature’s sunscreen. I watch an elephant scratch her booty against a tree a few meters away as I scoop another mound of rice noodles into my mouth.

1:15 pm: These sheets of rain act like a steam room and my skin couldn’t be happier as we venture into the jungle, winding uphill along bumpy pathways to scout for another popular elephant snack: freshly cut bamboo. I strap a basket to my back and pull out the gardening shears to harvest as many branches as I can fit in my arms. Our bounty completely shields the back of the high powered golf cart and a guide who looks just as thrilled to be soaked as we do. We are so in good company here. I assume we’ll drop off the load for the elephants to eat later. But no, the day only keeps getting better. Cattelya (pronounced like Kattel-ee-ya) and Kannika (of course my mind is like, hey that’s Katie + Nikki in one name!)  are best friends who spend every waking minute together and they are hungry NOW. And surprise! It’s us who gets to cast the grassy leaves over the side of a long canopy walkway overlooking the sanctuary into their mouths. They meticulously use the finger at the end of their trunks to uniformly bunch up the bamboo stalks, whap it against their legs to clean the grit off and pop the leaves onto their massive pink tongues leaving the stems behind.

2:00 pm: Our guide, Rudy, steers the golf cart carrying the rest of the bamboo pile, slowing to a halt near another giant watering hole. “I think they’re about to go to the water” he hypothesizes. He’s right. Another best friend duo, Venda (pronounced Wenda) and Tong Kwaw, glide in for a post-rain shower dip. When I see their trunks snorkel up from the mocha colored water, half their heads still dunked beneath the surface, I think: oh, they’re playing! They sniff the air like cobras rising to enchanted flute music. “No play. They smell our bamboo! From way over here!” another guide smiles. This place is largely ruled by elephants on their own time, designed for them to live as close to wild as possible. We toss them a bamboo snack and I quickly understand that I am not the only one here who finds eating in the bath a luxurious treat.

 

3:00 pm: We round out feeding time (okay, let’s be honest, every hour is feeding hour here) by delivering hand-made rice balls and fruit to Fah Moi, one of the blind elephants in the sanctuary.  I fall in love with a new sound: the slurp-pop-crunch of her four massive teeth grinding up watermelon. It’s just as delightful as the crrrrack! of her jaws snapping a whole pumpkin, which she prefers to the pre-sliced variety. 

Then, we prep a laundry basket-sized fruit buffet for Sroy Fah, who gets her own special area in the sanctuary since she prefers time away from other elephants. We’re mesmerized and silent watching her eat. Until we realize the sound she makes sucking juice from the watermelon wedges. Like a… you guessed it, slurp. We ask the guides, “Does every elephant do this?” To which they reply, no. We look wide-eyed at each other knowing what she told us this morning is true.

4:30 pm: From separate directions, three, four, then five elephants glide to a central point accompanied by their mahouts: it’s off to their bedrooms for some quiet time. Each of their surprisingly hushed footsteps feels like some sort of sacred ceremony during which I should be bowing. If my only job was to watch elephants walk for all of eternity, I’d be happy. I ask Rudy why it is that all mahouts at the sanctuary are male (asking for a friend). Turns out that elephants favor deep rumbling voices over higher pitched ones prone to women. And there’s a lot of physical labor involved (although, I have been basically strength training here). Each mahout lives on site at the sanctuary along with their families. Some wives work in the open air kitchen and I even see a toddler playing with a toy truck as we make our way back to our little hut for dinner. In my life back home, dinner hour straddles 8 pm, but here, an early bird supper fills my belly in perfect rhythm with a bedtime not long after the sun dips behind the palm trees.

5:30 pm: Back at the volunteer lodging, I strip away my damp long sleeve shirt and field pants and surrender to taking a normal person’s shower since there is no mud pit fit for humans. I grab the empty waste basket in the corner which doubles as a laundry bucket and my castile soap bar, which I’m glad I tossed into my bag at the last minute. Wringing out my shirt, I see there are still some streaks of dirt clinging to the fibers: a mark of pure joy I’m glad doesn’t fade by morning.  Enjoy this story? Consider joining my email list where subscribers get first eyes on my blog entries + personal notes from me.