Day 1: 5/18/2010
Got a late start today due to the jet lag, so I began my day with vet checks. Basically this is a routine the elephants go through everyday that involves getting their feet cleaned and checked for injuries. There are 6 elephants at the Millennium Elephant Foundation (MEF), and this is me cleaning my elephant, Pooja's, feet.
After everyone's feet are done, we feed them balls of dough made out of grain and water that are filled with the vitamins and supplements they need for the day. Some get more than others...Sumana, the oldest elephant at the MEF at 79 years old gets 8 or 9 different types of vitamins a day!
It's so interesting to watch the elephants think. We got a big new tusker in today and he was trying to eat. He figured out how to step on the palm fronds to use his trunk and rip the individual leaves off.
In addition to working at the MEF, I'm also working with DogStar, which is an organization that works with a university in Sri Lanka. They host spay and neuter clinics and they vaccinate a lot of the local dogs. One of the other volunteers, Elena, took me up to a temple to visit some puppies they had been treating. The country is mostly Buddhist, so a lot of the temples have dogs and cats under their care. These puppies lived in the volunteer bungalo for a few weeks to regain their strength.
Fun note: The squirrels here are tiny like chipmunks, and they have 5 white stripes down their backs and chirp like birds! And there's king fishers too, which are suuuuuper bright blue, beautiful birds.
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