Cutting the Grass (lawnmower not included)

It's incredibly beautiful here.

 I think the most labor-intensive, miserable, heat-stroke inducing chore we were given was cutting grass for the elephants.

The grass fields are located directly across the river from the park. However, the closest bridge is about a mile in the other direction. So basically, we hiked 2 miles into the jungle to whack down and bundle giant grasses that the elephants LOVE, hauled and loaded said bundles into a trailer and then walked the 2 miles back. This particular task required long-sleeved shirts, long pants, hats, gloves and wading boots. I was pretty sure I was gonna die, instead I just fell down a few times. They don't call me Grace for nothing!

Another job we did was weeding a swamp that also happens to contain about 50 recently planted saplings. When I say swamp I'm not kidding. The only thing missing was a gator or two. We were almost knee-deep in murky, leech infested waters, pulling weeds by hand to clear a 3-foot radius around each tree.The truly worst part of it though was the spider. Just one, but big enough and ugly enough to send me searching for the nearest elephant to jump on. But she must have thought I was uglier b/c she took one look at me, grabbed her egg-sac and ran for her life. Fine by me.

I also helped to muck out a very disgusting pig pen, complete with 3 biting little piglets. We shoveled elephant shit daily and I was the lucky one chosen to shovel pony shit as well. He wasn't the sweetest pony on the planet and no one else was willing to go in his stall and risk life and limb. I guess he was really proud of his dental work b/c he kept showing me his teeth.  I just told him to get lost and showed him my own dental work and he stayed out of my way. Brat.

So that was basically the contents of our day: elephant shit, pony shit, pig shit, cow shit, dog shit and then more elephant shit. Keep in mind that this property is very large and things are really spread out. So I probably walked more in those first two days than I have in, oh, say, -- the last year. No kidding. Noodles and banana dumplings notwithstanding, I'm coming back smaller than when I arrived.


BUT on Tuesday night Lek saved me. We were checking out the flea meds I brought and I told her I had vet tech training so I could trim dog nails and check for ticks or give meds if she needed me to. When she heard that she turned to Pom, the park supervisor, and said, "I want her working with the vet now, no cutting grass."

OMG! Me?! Working with Dr. Prathis? I can't tell you what this meant to me. Suffice it to say my ears were ringing and I had the sudden urge to pinch myself - hard - to make sure I was awake. (and not b/c I didn't want to cut anymore grass, although i didn't.)