Surin, Thailand: Life on the Project
Hello Surin!
Eventually, after all the traveling, JM and I made it to Surin! We arrived late in the afternoon with our other two volunteer friends – both girls from Germany, 18 and 19 respectively (L & K). When we arrived, we were greeted by Ocho, the organizer, and led to our living quarters. JM and I stayed in a home-stay across the street from the project “headquarters”.
(For the lack of better words, I am calling our “meeting spot” HQ. It was where we met for group outings/chores, ate breakfast and dinner, and where we hung out during down time. Makes sense right?)
Our home-stay was with a mother, her two daughters and her nephew. It was possible that her aunt also lived there. (I know her mother lived in the house behind her, so the family was close – I just don’t know who was living there permanently.) JM and I had separate rooms upstairs. The rooms had lots of windows, a fan, a “mattress pad” on the floor, pillows and a bug net! The net and fan were absolutely NECESSARY! (My room was the pink one; JM’s was blue.)
Once we dropped our stuff off and had introductions with our host family, we made our way back to HQ for the blessing ceremony by a local shaman. This is when we met our other volunteer friend (R from San Francisco) and the mahouts. The ceremony was meant to bring all the volunteers protection and good luck during our stay on the project. While I didn’t know what was being said, the ceremony was beautiful. The shaman blessed each of us, followed by each of the mahouts. During their blessing, each tied a string around our wrists, wishing us good luck and protection. The ceremony was a beautiful start and held true throughout our trip – no one was hurt and we all had a great time together.
Fun facts: When the strings fall off, you were to place them at the highest point you can reach. The use a sharp object to take them off was prohibited and you couldn’t throw the strings away once they fell off. One of mine fell off during one of our flights home. I placed it in the luggage bin, so it could continue to wish me luck and protection when I travel in the future. I still have most of my strings, but took them off, so I can cuddle at the hospital on the weekends. They are currently hanging on the highest point on my mirror.
Following the ceremony, we got settled with some homemade Thai dinner and had introductions to the project. The first night we had a “Thai lesson”. Sey, who was essentially our translator and guide, taught us the basics – hello, thank you, elephant (“chang”), pronouns – and some conversational statements. He also taught us the “Rules of Thailand”. For example, cover your shoulders when in public; never step over someone who is sitting or laying on the ground; never touch someone’s head; never point with your feet. (The head is the highest and sacred part of the body, while the feet are the lowest and considered”dirty”. Actually makes sense!) We were taught to bow our heads when we said “hello” or was acknowledging someone – it was a sign of respect. While I couldn’t communicate in Thai, I managed to get hello, thank you and the rules down pat!
“Sawadeekha” (hello). “Kap Koon Kha” (thank you). “Kha” is said at the end of sentences by females; “Krab” is said by males.
I don’t want to get too far without introducing all the volunteers JM and I spent the week with! I have already mentioned L&K, who we traveled with with Bangkok. I also made note of R. We had a 6th volunteer with us, T. She came the second day. Something happened with her flight/van/bus ride, which caused her to come in a day late. All week, we were one happy bunch!
Click here to see the “bios” of each volunteer we had the pleasure of meeting: Fellow Volunteers
So back to the project: There was a large chalkboard in HQ that showed our schedule for the week – Monday through Sunday. On the schedule, we had chores, walks to the river, teaching, and meals. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told the schools were closed, so no teaching or visits to the temple would be happening. Also, it wasn’t planting season, so our only chores were “cleaning the forest”, “building the baby enclosure”, and “cutting sugar cane”.
I thought I had a clearer picture of the board, but I can’t seem to find it right now. Ultimately, that chalkboard was our week’s guide and clock. We were assigned to group A or group B. JM and I were on one team; the girls on the other. R just did his own thing and went to clean the forest. And T also usually cleaned the forest or would stay back to study. Each day we swapped chores – JM and I started off with cutting sugar cane…and using machetes. JM was beyond excited about that! Then cleaning the forest the next day. By the end of the week, we all cleaned the forest together because we were getting so close to meeting R’s expectations 🙂
The rest of the schedule stayed relatively consistent. Breakfast at 7am, with chores starting at 8am. After chores, we hung out with the elephants and the mahouts, until lunch. Downtime. Then we would either hang out in the forest or go on a walk to the river for baths and food until 4pm. More downtime between 4-6pm, then dinner at 6pm. Depending on the day, we had different activities planned during the day.
As far as cutting sugar cane went, the volunteers were cutting for the elephants feed for that day! So, we cut down a pretty hefty pile of sugar cane for them to eat. Right at 8am, we jumped in the back of the pick-up truck and drove to the sugar cane fields. I am not 100% sure who owned them or if the project owned them, but they were in a very secluded area- out in the middle of nowhere! (I couldn’t get you there or back if you paid me!) When we arrived, we jumped out of the truck and walked into the field…and started cutting. There was a system to cutting, too. We used the machetes, cutting from the bottom, and threw the stalks into a pile. You had to make sure the piles lined up pretty well because it made carrying them back to the truck much easier.
We were instructed to wear long sleeves and pants, and there was a good reason for that. It did get hot, but wearing layers was worth it based on the pointy leaves and dirt that covered the fields. And we would cut until we were told to stop…not sure how they gauged when enough was enough, but we listened for Sey to tell us to stop. Once the truck was filled with everything we cut down, we jumped back into the truck and rode back to the forest to drop off the sugar cane for the elephants to eat later. Simple as that…except it was definitely a hard working task!
Oh, I forgot to tell you that I got to try raw sugar cane. I am not really a fan, but it was fun to try. I would suck the juice out of the stalk and throw the stalk away. If you tried to bite into the stalk, it ended up being tough to ripe away from the rest and was kind of mealy – no thank you! The juice was nice and sweet, but I could only take a little bit of it at a time. Worth trying in the moment 🙂
Cleaning the forest was a much different chore. The forest was where the elephants hung out for the day – you will see more pictures in my post about the elephants. From what we were told, the mahouts were getting lazy and not cleaning the leftover sugar cane and was just sweeping it into the treeline. It irritated R more than anything else! R was dead set on making the forest clean for someone coming in the upcoming weeks. If I recall correctly, the visitor was one of helpers to start the Soi Dog Project. So, R had this “game plan” for cleaning the forest. We cleaned up all the side areas of the forests, where the elephants eat and hang out. We raked left-over debris into piles and loaded them up in the tractor to dump in the “burn pile”. Needless to say, our group kicked ass and cleaned up the forest pretty darn well before we all left.
Once our chores were finished, we would hang out with the elephants for the first “hangout session”. We would either walk the elephants to the river or would hang out with them in the forest – we swapped between the two every other day. If we hung out in the forest, it was more of watching them eat, feeding them or petting them. To kill time, we sometimes stopped by to see the baby first or practice our sling-shot aim. If we walked them to the river, it would kill much more time. The river a few miles away from HQ. When we got there, we gave the elephants baths and feed them cucumbers! Coolest experience – you will see pictures in an upcoming post, solely about the elephants!
By 12pm each day, all of us were hungry, so lunch was well placed on the schedule. For lunch, we would choose from the menu at Nana’s wife’s restaurant and eat as a group. I talk about Thai food in a post later this week, so stay tuned for “Extras About Surin”.
After lunch, we learned how to kill time, since we tended to have a lot more downtime in the afternoons. The group would walk on the sidewalk-less streets back to HQ. I always walked – one to get my steps, but two, I didn’t want to sit for too long once we got back. During these walks, though, we all learned a hell of a lot about R! He was rarely quiet, which sometimes made it hard to focus on the elephants or surroundings of Surin. But his heart was in the right place and it was very clear during our week with him. Oh, and should I tell you that R was in absolute AWE of JM? It was like he was star-struck when JM walked onto HQ. HAHA, JM, don’t hate me!
Once we returned from the walk after lunch, the group would hang out a little before going to hang with the elephants, until 4pm. We swapped the activities in the afternoons, similar to the morning. Some days we sat in the forest; some days we walked them to a pond where the elephants would wash/cool off before heading home at 4pm. At that time, the mahouts would take their elephants home and call it day.
Once the mahouts and elephants left, the volunteer group would slowly wander back to HQ, until dinner which was at 6pm. Most of the time, the days ended shortly after dinner. The town pretty much was quiet and shut down, too. I noticed that Thai people were up at the ass-crack of dawn, working or doing chores, and would be in bed, watching TV, shortly after dinner and darkness set in. So, it wasn’t like there were places to “party” or “get wild” – no clubs, no bars. Families just spent time together, which was very nice to see.
Did you know? We got to take “normal” showers every day, except the first Sunday. Right after meeting R for the first time, he offered the use of his hotel room and shower. JM and I immediately took him up on his offer. So, after dinner, JM and I would head over to R’s hotel room to hang and shower before calling it an early night – and I mean, early night! Most of the time, I was tired anyway, so didn’t mind getting a little extra sleep. I did, of course, really appreciate a real shower! That was one thing I learned about being in Thailand – I really take showers in America for granted. “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone!”
After a good nights rest and waking up at the rooster’s crow (yes, I’m not kidding), we would do it all over again – chores, elephants, food, elephants, rest, food 🙂 During the week, the schedule had some various activities intermingled that we did not do on a daily basis. I broke out these things into another post, for the sake of getting too long again. Stay tuned for “Intermingled Activities in Surin”.
I am sure I am forgetting some major parts of life on the project, but as you know, I have been slacking and waited much longer than I wanted to write all these posts. Maybe JM will comment and remind me of something. Please tune in for the rest of my post this week! At the rate I am going, I will have one for each day through Saturday – grrrrreat!
Kap Koon Ka “thank you” for your patience through these long posts (I am learning for future big trips! I will do things differently.) I hope you are enjoying the recap of my Surin trip – since we were there for a week, there is essentially A LOT to talk about. Stay tuned until next time 🙂