Tina Thorburn GVI You Are The Difference

Greetings from Huoy Pakoot, a remote little village in the hillsides of northern Thailand. I’m sitting at the top of the hill, overlooking the acres of village land. Its a small community that has lived off this land for the last 300 years, where money is not a necessity and where buffalo roam, tinkling the bells that hang from their necks.

In the distance I see smoke rise, its the dry season and they are burning their fields. I’ve been told its a 7-10 year cycle of swidden agriculture, which coincidentally I did a giant research essay on last semester. Its a really interesting form of agriculture, wrapped in traditional knowledge and an acute understanding of the land and environment. Huoy Pakoot is also a traditional Karen elephant village. There are 300 villagers and 60 elephants, but I don’t see elephants. Or hear the bells that hang from their necks.

In the past elephants held an important role in the Thai logging business but in the late 80’s when logging became illegal the elephants were left jobless. Now, as you can imagine there’s a lot of responsibility in keeping a pet dog for example. Vet trips, walks, food. Now multiple that by a couple hundred kilos and you have yourself a beautiful, strong, captive elephant. In place of logging, elephants are now earning their keep by performing tricks for tourists.

Elephants and their mahouts, the traditional name for an elephant keeper, live in these camps for most of the year. The demand is high, lots of people want to ride elephants and see them do tricks, but the nature of the tourism industry is cruelly competitive. If your elephant can do more crazy tricks you might earn a couple more bucks, and as you can imagine, its not an easy feat to get an elephant to learn more and more complicated tricks.

Aside from the generally callous nature of the tricks, there is no time for the elephants to be, well, elephants. In the wild Asian elephants spend most of their time foraging for their food, tending to their young, all the while roaming the forest, covering miles each day. Now the captive Asian elephant population in Thailand has an uncertain future.

Seeing the negative effects these camps are having on their elephants, and the mahouts the village approached GVI in search of an alternative. So, how to you allow captive elephants be elephants? How do you create alternative livelihoods for the mahouts and the villagers to be able to feed their elephants and themselves? How do you create a better world for these elephants?

Well, to do this GVI essentially rents the elephants from the owners, and using village land we allow them to roam, to forage and to simply be elephants. During the week we conduct research on their feeding habits and social behaviour, while recording other local flora and fauna in the area.

So its the start of my second week here in Huoy Pakoot, and I can honestly say I wake each morning with a smile on my face.

My first week was tough, but thoroughly enjoyable. After two days in Chiang Mai I was happy to leave behind the smog and head west through national park to the remote forested hillsides that I now call home. We arrived and after an intense 24 hours of training and settling into our home stays, we hit the ground running. On Monday morning we wash bananas and were assigned to an elephant.

Loaded with bags of bananas we met the mahouts:

Padie Saiee, an older man, with kind eyes and a soft smile, who has been with Thong Dee, the 50 something year old matriarch elephant of our pseudo herd. They have worked together for 50 odd years and Padie Saiee refers to her as his wife (I recently found out he is not married, so literally she is his life), and you can see there is a deep seeded understanding between them that stems for the things they have seen and done together.

Boon Chew, a 14 year old kid with the cutest smile. He’s forever playful with them and has an innate skill with the elephants and an intrinsic understanding of their moods. He is currently in limbo, and is working between Mah Nah (my elephant!) and Pee Mai (her 4 year old baby, who just last week was taken off for training so he can be around people without causing harm, after all he will continue grow to be a tonne of energy and muscle).

Jhor Doh, a 20 something guy with a hidden smile who looks after Boon Jan and her 2 year old baby Song Kran, a cheeky little (any by little I’m talking relative) youngster with curious questioning eyes.

Ree Rah, a 15 year old kid, quiet and shy, which can be misinterpreted as rude. He is also working back and forth between Mah Nah and her baby, Pee Mai, who is currently being trained.

We walked up the hill to where the elephants had been chained for the night (they otherwise travel huge distances foraging, and have been known to get shot as they wander into farmers land) I felt the excitement build in my belly as the elephants came into view, trunks swinging in our direction smelling the bananas.

After a flurry of bananas, trunks, arms, trunk snot, giggles and deep hums of satisfaction from the elephants it was over and we turned to follow them into the forest. And this is how my days are spent. Following elephants.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday we following the elephants through the forest collecting data. On Tuesday and Thursday we bring them into the village in the afternoon for health checks. And its amazing how in a week I have come to appreciate each of their personalities and quirks. Thong Dee loves a good scratch after bathing, ignoring Padie Saiee’s grunts and commands as she rubs up hard against a tree or stump, satisfaction spread across her aged face.

Its funny, I came here for the elephants, but its the village that has won my heart. I absolutely love it here. The people are quiet, hard working and kind. We are all placed in home stays. My family is very complicated, there are two elderly Grandparents (in Pakinyoh- the local language, Grandma is pee, and Grandpa is poo. Still makes me giggle). The Grandma sits smoking her pipe, chewing beetle nut, between welding an axe collecting firewood. Her ancient eyes were questionable when I first arrived, and have now softened to some balance between acceptance and fondness.

There are two mothers, Salie and Ampon, and their 7 daughters. The kids are really where the joy lies for me. It took me a while but I’ve finally earned their trust. I now take a chalk board to dinner to draw elephants and animals and try to converse in Pakinyoh. I live in a little raised, wooden hut to the side of their house. As I lie in bed on a thin mattress in my 3m by 3m room I feel cozy surrounded by my giant pink mosquito net. I’m home, and perfectly content. What more do I need?

So as I sit here, on the hill, overlooking the sprawling forested village land I smile. All I have to do is close my eyes and I’m back in the forest walking behind elephants.