Maesa Elephant Camp, Day 3

Before I tie up yet another narrative thread that has been dangling for far too long, I must first say that March has probably been the best month that I’ve had in the last two years. Of course, the fact that I had two INCREDIBLE trips in March—one trip to Vietnam, the other to Siem Reap, Cambodia (and posts about that to follow)—hasn’t hurt matters, but it’s been so much more than that. It’s like all of the stuff that’s been simmering and cooking over the last few years has finally come together. Work has been going well, life has been going well, and it’s like I’m stretching my winter-weary joints out for the first time in a long time. All of the work that I’ve set out to do here—internal and external—is wrapping up exactly as I had hoped, even if the journey to get here has been nothing like I had hoped. It’s all been a roller coaster, but it’s all had its perfectly calculated purpose. The story of these two years has a happy ending ☺.

And so…..Maesa Elephant Camp, day three. When we last left our heroine, she was galloping (or, well, limping painfully) into the sunset on the head of an elephant (or, well, on a BED because I was in an insane amount of pain). I had sprained my foot badly the day before while attempting the “advanced dismount” off of my trusty steed’s raised hind leg. Note to all aspiring mahouts: It’s a LONG ASS WAY DOWN from an elephant’s hind leg to the ground. Be ye not so void of depth perception!!

Anyway….during the afternoon after I had sustained my injury I did a fabulous job of not freaking out. Sure, my foot was the size of a full-grown durian, and lookin’ just as sketchy. Sure, I was fairly certain that I had broken something in there, which would complicate my life in Bangkok (a.k.a. the LEAST CRUTCH/WHEELCHAIR/INJURY FRIENDLY CITY IN THE WORLD!!). Sure, I was extremely bummed that this had to happen during an experience that I had pretty much waited for my entire life. The fact that this mahout camp was something that existed in Thailand did play a part in my decision to choose Bangkok over Bogota as my site of overseas employment (albeit it was a small part, but a part nonetheless). I kept the freak out demons at bay all day, instead opting to curl up with my book, enjoy the lovely breeze that was drifting through my luxurious mahout hut (and I say that sans sarcasm….I was put up in some fabulous digs), and will myself to feel better in the morning.

Around midnight I woke up because the pain medication had worn off and the nerves in my foot were having a throbbing house party under my skin. The roosters that were pacing under my window had begun to crow (seriously, the idea that roosters crow only at dawn is a myth that has been fed to us by Sesame Street and other children’s programming that would lead us to believe that roosters are these heroic harbingers of the dawn. Hell no. They’re just effing annoying). The elephant camp employee who slept at the bottom of the hill below my hut had began to hack loudly (I eventually hobbled to the window to make sure that he was ok, because I thought what I was hearing was a death rattle. And there he was, happily puffing away on a tobacco pipe with one hand while holding bits of coughed up lung in the other), and I knew that I would get no more sleep. And that’s when the freak out demons crept in. They just love those early morning hours, when your boundaries are all blurry and your defenses are down, and they take full advantage of the watercolor haze of your consciousness and claim their territory.

I started sobbing uncontrollably. I cried because my foot hurt, I cried because I felt completely alone, I cried for Max, I cried for the fact that NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING seemed to go as I had planned. I had looked forward to this trip for well over a year, and of course, I had to be the first ever guest at the elephant camp to sustain an injury (the fact that I was one of three guests to ever attempt the advanced dismount was not something that had dawned on me at that point…..). I was this tiny pinprick in the universe, and it felt like all of the clouds in the sky were being funneled into me, their misleading lightness being converted into white wet weight. My caretakers had told me the day before that if I wasn’t better by morning, then I should skip the third and final day of the program and go straight to the hospital. I couldn’t envision myself getting dressed, getting home, and somehow resuming my life in Bangkok. I didn’t know how I would manage the stairs that I climb a gazillion times per day at work. I felt stagnant and inert and drained, and the sobs came in great, heaping waves—crashing and vibrating through veins and muscles and anything inside of me that would have them.

And then, well, I had enough. FUCK THIS. Y’know, life doesn’t always work out like how we dreamed it. In fact, if you are a wide-eyed dreamer with unrealistic expectations like myself, it rarely does. I was sick of this sniveling, snot-filled victim that I somehow found myself becoming. I couldn’t stand it anymore. My sheets and pillows couldn’t endure it anymore. I was going to finish this MOTHERFUCKING ELEPHANT CAMP if I had to be carried on piggyback or a stretcher or a palanquin.

I pulled on my mahout outfit, tied my checkered scarf around my waist, hobbled out to my patio, and waited. One of my caretakers came down the gravel path, took one look at my foot (which was spilling out of my shoe), and looked at me worriedly. I just smiled. “I want to finish the program today. I just might need a little help.” He laughed, did a low wai to me, and said, “You very strong!”

It had rained that morning and everything was wet and muddy. Wanpen, my elephant, hates the mud and shook her head like a prima donna as I rode her to where she would be getting her bath. Instead of bathing her in the river like we usually did, we brought her to one of the wash stalls where I could clean her with a hose. The camp employees all laughed as I hobbled around Wanpen, barely able to keep my balance, and scrubbed the mud out of her little baby wrinkles. She grabbed the hose from me and drank long gulps of water from it, then sprayed me with it. Cheeky little monster.

I could no longer mount her as I had before: She would bend her front leg, I would step on her foot, and then her thigh, and then swing my leg over her neck, nestling myself just behind her ears. I had gotten that mount down perfectly, and could do it three seconds or less. However, since it required me to put a lot of weight on my right foot, I would be unable to do it. Instead, Wanpen had to lie down so that I could scramble over her shoulder and onto her back. When she would stand up, I would experience a little earthquake. This huge mound would shudder and oomph upward under me, shoulder bones rippling under wet, tough skin as I steadied myself by pressing my palms against them.

We headed up to the elephant show grounds where I would ride in the elphant parade while Wanpen played her harmonica. Before the show we stood in a pen where the tourists could feed the elephants bananas as the elephants did endearing things like take off visitors’ hats, or hug them with their trunks while they squirmed and screamed. When the tourists would hand Wanpen 20 baht, she would bend her trunk over her head and pass it back to me. I was amazed at the show the elephants were putting on, though I’m not gonna lie….I wasn’t feeling as confident as I had the two days prior. While I had previously felt as though I was made for riding elephants, and that I could just go on ahead and conquer the world on the head of one, on the third day my foot was killing me, I had lost a lot of trust in Wanpen’s mahout (who had stood idly by as I injured myself), and I had a strange feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach. Something just didn’t feel quite right that day. I shook it off and told myself that I was just nervous because I had gotten hurt the day before, and I was just being a silly little Nervous Nelly.

We finally headed up to the show arena, and we all marched in in order of height. Wanpen wrapped her trunk around the elephant’s tail directly in front of her while a smaller elephant took position right behind her. There were at least a hundred people there, snapping all kinds of pictures, and I was waving like a freakin’ Miss America contestant. After the first little parade, I slid back from Wanpen’s neck onto her back and she rocked out on her harmonica, shaking her head and waving her front leg. The elephants were complete hams, and they fed off of the crowd’s applause.

After the parade, it was time for Wanpen and I to paint a picture together. She was one of the camp’s most talented elephant artists, and she had a particular flower that she liked to paint, which was dubbed “Wanpen’s flower.” I decided that I wanted a bonsai tree, so we mixed up the green and brown paints and started painting. I pointed on the canvas where I wanted her to paint while also giving vocal commands, and her mahout gently tugged her ear. I was standing right next to the beautiful dinner plates of her eyes, and they were blinking softly in concentration. She could barely paint because I started draping myself over her trunk, hugging it tightly and squealing because OMG SHE WAS TOTALLY PAINTING AND SHE LOOKED SO CUTE AND HAPPY WHILE SHE WAS DOING IT. After we finished the bonsai tree (which turned out BEAUTIFULLY and is one of the most unique pieces of art that I have gotten in Asia) she gave me a ton of trunk hugs, and playfully took off my hat, and patted me on the head, and I posed for pictures sitting on her knee. I fed her bananas and she wrapped her trunk around me to get to the ones that I was hiding behind my back. Her trunk felt like an arm in its structure and strength, and her eyes were so filled with presence and personality. She is a tremendous flirt and gave me trunk kisses and exhaled small trumpeting sounds to ask for more treats. I melted into a big, gooey puddle of elephant love. My elephant obsession reached pathological proportions.

It was time for me to rest and pack before going on one final trek. When I emerged from my hut, Wanpen was chilling in the painting area and snacking on some grass. I walked up to her, speaking to her in my gooey saccharine voice that animals and babies bring out in me, and patted her between the eyes as she sniffed me all over to see if I had brought her anything to eat. And then, out of nowhere, she stuck her trunk in her mouth, wetted the end of it, and USED HER TRUNK TO MASSAGE MY INJURED FOOT. It was almost eerie in how it felt like strong, gentle fingers. I looked at her mahout in total surprise, and he just laughed. “She knows!” he said.

We took her to get another bath at the wash stall before heading out on our trek. And, well, that’s when things got REALLY interesting……..

I’ve rambled on enough for one day. I’ll finish this story tomorrow!