Advertisement
Published: October 11th 2007
Edit Blog Post
With Pon
He was obviously very happy to be there! At the start of this week it felt as though my most major achievement would be in not hitting someone. Only joking of course, I would never contemplate doing that to my lovely Thai friends, but sometimes…….
I actually spent alot of time trying to calm Mrs. Noi & Arnon's panic at having so many volunteers next month, trying to explain to them that, even though we did have a lot of volunteers they were not going to be all arriving and staying at the same time. I think I've managed to (just about, but who knows?) convince them that we have enough rooms for everyone to sleep in without US having to move out. Arnon has apparently gone to Khao Yai to guide a tour, so it’s just been me, Mrs. Noi and Ao at the studios and a volunteer that arrived on Monday. It’s a good job I didn’t book my tickets home for last week as Arnon had suggested or Ao would have been left to look after the volunteer by himself. He wasn’t very impressed that I’m going to England on Saturday, before the volunteer leaves on Monday!
We now have cable TV back on at the
apartments, not in the rooms though that doesn’t seem to bother anyone, on the TV in our ‘lobby’ (anyone who has volunteered at the camp will understand the punctuation there - it’s just a little name I like to give it!) which puts the scaboodle on me wanting to move the TV into the old office and create a ‘TV lounge.’ Once it was installed Ao sat me down and told me that every morning I had to watch BBC World to see the news from home. Can’t wait for tomorrow morning then! He also gave me a lecture about drinking with the mahouts - he obviously saw me on John & Helena’s last day - and told me that I shouldn’t buy beer for the mahouts or let them take advantage of me (in the drinking sense!) I tried explaining to him that it was actually them that had been buying the beer and had invited us to join them. I’m not sure whether it’s cultural or personal but Ao does seem to have a problem with the mahouts, sometimes infuriatingly when I need him to ask them something. Roll on the days when my Thai is good enough
to be able to ask myself. That may take a while though, one of the newer mahouts Tiaow (again probably not correct spelling but to me it sounds like miaow with a t!) has taken to teasing me as I try to process what has been said to me and work out my reply by making a tick-tock sound combined with a look of concentration on his face!
I’m getting to know the newer mahouts a lot better now - the beer drinking may have helped methinks - and now thankfully/amazingly/about time too, know the names of all the elephants at the camp and which mahout they belong to. There are still a lot of family members/hangers on that I haven’t got a clue about though, although it’s not just me. I asked the man who announces which elephants will be taking tourists out & Ali the banana seller the name of one of the elephant’s mahouts & they didn’t know! With the volunteer this week, Savina, I worked with one of the newer ones, Tia and his elephant Su-Da. Just like with Djuk a couple of weeks ago he’d been really quiet/uncommunicative/shifty looking but he’s actually a great bloke.
He does like a drink though! Not that Savina was complaining!! On Thursday night when we stayed at camp he wandered over with a bottle of beer which Savina added to, then I added to & he added to several times more…… Not wanting more accusations like last week I kept my glass out of his way so that he couldn’t keep topping it up. Savina didn’t though, so after a night spent watching and trying to understand the Thai card game again (I think I’ve managed to work out that the aim is to make 9 out of 3 cards, that picture cards count as ½ & that 10’s don’t count, there were still a few bits that I couldn’t understand though…) the last I remember of Savina is her falling up/down/through the steps into the bamboo house we were sleeping in (I got to sleep inside - yay!) and Tia stumbling off to spend the night in a hammock. The next morning we had much confusion when we got up to collect Su-Da from the forest; first we thought Tia had gone without us, then Ao said his dad had told him he was still asleep in their
My gorgeous breakfast.....
really, this is what we had house….then he waved at us from the hammock. He was in very good spirits for so early in the morning i.e. still pissed! The hair of the dog theory rules here so when we got back from the forest at 7.30 he was offering me more beer! I managed to abstain though as I didn’t think it would go too well with the inventive breakfast that Ao had prepared us - a fried egg, carton of milk & packet of crisps! Tia is also buddies with Tiaow, so I got to know him better as well & ended up working with him on Saturday when we had a couple of blokes on the ½ day elephant program. He seems lovely and has been a true gentleman carrying my bags and holding out his arm for me to link for him to escort me to the car at the end of the day. He likes his picture taking a lot & keeps asking me to print them for him. If I do get a nice photo of one of them I do usually get it printed for them but I wasn’t having much luck for him, first we lost all the
pictures off the camera (Ao’s camera!! He won’t be letting me use that again!) then the printer at the shop wasn’t working. I’ll have to get some for him when I get back from England. Along with a tie. He decided he wanted to wear one on Saturday but didn’t have one. I’m sure my dad will have a spare one he won’t miss. I suppose I do owe him a favour after burning his forehead with my straightening irons last week (he was my morning appointment after being so impressed with our efforts for Dik). Strangely he didn’t want it doing again this week. The 2 people on Saturday were Ken & Jacqueline’s sons (they’d done the ½ day a couple of months ago) & Ken came along on Saturday too. He’s got some building materials for us, which is brilliant as we desperately need to get some more mahout houses built. Mrs. Noi said to me before I left that whilst I’m gone they are going to start building a large volunteer house and a small house for me! Saturday was also Savina’s last day and, as always, she was really sad to be leaving her elephant and
mahout after only a week (I think there were a few tears.) People are always surprised at how upset they are at going, it doesn’t surprise me anymore as I see how quickly people become attached every time. Obviously it’s very special being so close to an elephant but the people, especially at the camp, are so amazing, kind and welcoming - I’m going to miss them so much when I’m home, even if I am only going to be away for a couple of weeks. We ended up being late leaving camp, I said my goodbyes and told everyone that I’ll miss them whilst I’m in England then just had time for a quick shower before I left for the airport. I wonder what will have changed when I get back - will everyone still be there, will there be new people to get to know, will I have a bamboo house?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.064s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
helena and John
non-member comment
hello
glad to see your holding fort while Arnon is away! enjoy your time at home and see u at the end of nov. all the best Helena and John