Day 6-5/24/2010

Kandy today!! Elena and I started the day with the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. Legend holds that a fragment of Buddah's tooth is contained within the temple. The fragment was plucked off of his funeral pyre and smuggled into Sri Lanka in the hair of an Indian Princess. I saw this story illustrated several different times through a series of murals throughout the temple. The tooth itself is contained in a large shrine with a golden roof which is in the courtyard of several larger buildings containing smaller shrines and a museum about the tooth and the temple. A lot of people brought lotus flowers as offerings, and some brought food to set out. I had to go in barefoot, and I had to rent a sarong to cover my knees before I could go inside.

The view of the temple from across the lake

An elephant carving at the front of the temple

More ornamentation inside

When Elena and I were on the 2nd story of the museum, we looked out and saw a whole band of monkeys running across the street and onto the temple grounds. They were so funny, and 2 of them even had babies hanging on their stomachs.

Behind the temple was a museum dedicated to Rajah, the tusker who served the temple for 50 years. And inside is Rajah, beautifully taxidermized and preserved...it's really creepy.

We decided to hike up a hill to see the Buddah on the Hill, a statue that sits above Kandy and measures up to 89 feet. The monks here are a lot different from what I'm used to. We met one up at the Buddah statue that was really friendly and wanted to know all about where we were from and what we were doing in school. Before we left, he gave us blessing bracelets, which he blessed in Sinhala and English.

Buddha looking over Kandy

Everyone in Kandy was really friendly. They all wanted to know where we were from and where we were going and everyone was willing to show us around and help us find the things we were looking for. One guy took us to the open air market where the spice gardens buy their spices. We got a ton of tea and spices for half the price of the spice gardens! Overall it was a very successful day.

Day 5-5/23/2010

Today has been a wild day. Started it with a trip to a nearby temple for a spay and neuter clinic. In addition to working with the MEF, I am working with an NGO called DogStar. Started by an MEF volunteer, DogStar works with local dogs, either stray or owned, and gets them up to date on all their vaccines, spays or neuters them, and takes care of their coats and nutritional needs. One Saturday a month, DogStar works with the local University vet students to host a clinic. My friend Elena and I were working on the recovery area, and the second the first dog came off the table we had our hands full monitoring pulse and respiration rates.

Mr. Ripley getting ready for the surgery.

Pepper getting a little woozy from the drugs.

Prepping for surgery

The surgical table

There was a trio of puppies that came through at the end. They were sisters, and temple dogs. I have never known pressure like having a Buddhist monk scrutinize me while I revive his dogs. When the three ladies finally woke up, they all stumbled toward each other and flopped on top of each other in a big pile to sleep.

The set up was crazy. Operating tables were wooden tables covered in newspaper, and newspaper covered bricks served as support to keep the dogs' and cats' legs up during surgery. We had one eventful surgery...Pepper, one of the temple dogs, had already been spayed, so the surgeons dug around for about 15 minutes looking for a uterus that was already gone! She had a rough recovery, but the next day all of the dogs were running around the temple looking great.

So after the clinic, Elena and I rode a bus into Kandy, which is a holy city about 1 1/2 hours away from the MEF. The bus ride was wild, and the bus actually started driving away while I was still trying to squeeze on. We went to see the Kandyan dancing, which is a tribute to Buddha performed by extremely talented men and women. It's super acrobatic, and very, very colorful. The men do lots of flips, and everything is accompanied by drumming. At the end they performed a fire dance, and 2 guys put fire on their arms and chests, and even in their mouths! After that, they walked barefoot across coals...it was wild.

Day 4- 5/22/2010

Today has been pretty amazing. I started the morning with poop duty, then did vet checks and today I got to paint with the ladies! Rani and Lakshmi are quite talented painters. We set up easels for them, load up a brush with paint, and their mahouts direct them to the paper. They both have very distinct styles...Rani always stays within the edges of her paper, while Lakshmi likes to draw long lines that go off the edges. The first day we painted with them Rani was being stubborn, and she would only draw polkadots. Lakshmi didn't feel like painting, and she knew we wouldn't make her while she had food in her mouth, so she crammed a bunch of food in and chewed really slowly.

We (the other volunteers and I) also got to go up the hill to see Sumana and help with her second round of antibiotic injections. While we were preparing the medicine, she and her mahout were playing, and she started to make a funny grumbling noise. We asked Ruwan (the vet assistant) what it was, and he said "it is the love." How beautiful is that? Here is this great old elephant with huge sores on her sides from being mistreated by humans for her whole life, and she is able to forgive it all and lover her mahout. That's the sort of bond animals and humans should have, not one bred of fear and servitude.

We injected 100 cc's of amoxycylin into Sumana's back leg. Her mahout punched her leg to bring out the vein, and then Ruwan jabbed the needle in and pumped her full, switching syringes half way through. When he pulled the needle out, some of the antibiotics started to come back out the wound. Her mahout just punched Sumana for a while and it went away. No matter how many times we inject her or punch her leg or poke at her sores, Sumana is always gracious. She never fusses, never runs away, and has never been violent. Throughout the whole thing she just sits and lets us treat her. Sam, one of the volunteer coordinators, says she thinks Sumana knows that we're doing our best to help her.

My friend Elena and I decided to go for a walk after work and we ran into Ruwan on the street with his son. He invited us back to his house, so we went over for tea and cookies, graciously served by his very pregnant wife, who is an English teacher. Their son is 2 1/2, and he was adorable, showing us all his toys and his awesome dance moves. Ruwan pulled out his wedding album and we looked at photos of his wedding, which was quite extensive. They have a traditional western ceremony where they go to the court and sign marriage papers, but then they also have a big Sri Lankan ceremony at the bride's house, where they give the bride over to the groom. There's definitely a sense of openness and hospitality that you don't find in the United States. People are very friendly and love to have you over to see their houses and meet their families. Also, I feel like the American sense of privacy is much diminished here. People don't hide behind their closed-off doors so much, and they like to ask lots of questions about who you are and where you are going. It's really a beautiful thing.

Because it was my last day of work, I got to have my elephant ride today. I rode Pooja, who was led around by her mahout, Upali. It was SO amazing. First off, her back was very bony, but it was incredible how high up I was! At one point, Pooja reached over her head with her trunk and I reached out and she touched my hand. After we went up the hill, we went into the river, and Pooja showered me with a ton of water. Then she kneeled down right in the river and I dismounted. It was SO FUN.

Day 3: 5/21/2010

It was raining a lot today, so I didn't get to work with the elephants as much. Funny thing, Sri Lankan men are terrified of the rain. They either have an umbrella, or they cover their heads with a plastic bag at all times.

However, I did get to go into town and experience some Sri Lankan driving. First, there's a lot of motorcycles. They may be cool status symbols in the U.S. but in Sri Lanka they're just a way of life. A surprising number of people do wear helmets, but they zip in and out of traffic and get almost run over a lot. Then there are tuk-tuks, which are little 3-wheeler vehicles. Finally there are vans, which generally don't have very functional doors and are very bumpy.

A line-up of tuk-tuks

Taught English today at a nearby temple. The kids are so much fun, and they learn so quickly! The mothers sometimes come with their kids and do their best to help us communicate and teach, which is really cool. You can tell that the mothers really want their kids to learn, and the kids really want to too.

Day 2: 5/19/2010

Today was my first full day of work at the MEF. I've been assigned to work with Pooja and her mahout Upali, so my first task of the day is to go up the hill to her night bed and clean up her poop. Using my hands. Yep. We clean the balls of poop (about the size of a softball) up one at a time and throw them onto a big pile. From there, they get recycled at the paper factory next door, which breaks it down and combines it with recycled paper to make really cool stuff like picture frames and journals. The rest of the poop is used for fertilizer in the eco garden on the MEF grounds.

After getting thoroughly filthy, I followed Upali and Pooja down to the river where Pooja lay down and we scrubbed all the dirt and mud off of her with coconut hulls. She uses her trunk like a snorkle when she's laying down, and when I scrubbed her hip she started kicking her back leg, just like a dog.

I had a special treat today, I got to go out with the Mobile Vet Unit (MVU) to see an injured tusker. He's owned by a rich family who lives in the city somewhere, but he lives out in the jungle with his mahout, who had to have been at least 80. The tusker's name was Gamini, and he was in pretty bad shape. He had a skin condition that made him itchy all the time, so much so that he had itched the tip of his tail off. He had also knocked one of his toe nails off and a huge sore had developed over the gap, and the nail bed was separating out from the bottom of his foot. He needed to come to the MEF for surgery, but we have to wait for approval from his owners before we can bring him in. In the meantime, Ruwan, the MVU vet, poured hydrogen peroxide and iodine on the sore and treated it with some dusting powder.

Gamini and his Mahout. Notice that his tusks touch!!

Gamini's tail-or lack thereof

The big sore on Gamini's foot, and his missing toenail

The mahout treating Gamini's foot, while Gamini eats a tree

The whole time he was being treated, Gamini was eating a tree. Literally, he ripped it open using his tusks and feet and trunk and ate all the juicy meat in the middle.

Once we returned to the MEF, we went up the hill with a vet from the university to see Sumana. She's a 79 year old elephant who was mistreated before she came to the MEF, and has huge pressure sores on both of her hips to show for it. She was treated with antibiotics for a while, and then switched to a regimen of native medicines, and now they've put her back on antibiotics. While we were watching they gave her 100 cc's of amoxycilin. She's amazingly good-natured, and didn't complain once while they were jabbing needles into her backside.

Something I learned today: students here don't get to choose their subject of study at the university. They're just told what they'll study by the faculty. And if they fail out of doctoring they become a dentist, and if they fail out of that, they become a vet.

Day 1!!

Hi everyone! Internet access was difficult in Sri Lanka, so I'm going to be posting over the next couple of days from the past week.

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.