Baan Pai Noi dec 2008
Nok Noi: the first elephant to have a bank account of her own
On and around the elephant island plenty is going on. Now the water has gone down, it is time to fertilize and to plant. The villagers and partner organization PDA have collected sprigs to replace the dead trees. Fortunately, the villagers are happy to come and replant, so there are no additional costs. For three days planting goes on quietly and the atmosphere is wonderful. Life in the village is very social. “You need to plant trees?” “When do we start?” And then people will just carry in tools and everything we need.
After an entire morning of hard work, someone builds a barbeque on a bunch of sticks; someone else brings in food; another person goes out for ice-cream and soda; and yet another finds mats for us to sit on. Every activity, like planting and harvesting rice, is taken care of as a community. Even the tractors, for example, are common property. It does make you realize, there’s another way to do things.
As previously reported, the villagers of Baan Pai Noi gained another piece of common property: Nok Noi, the first elephant at the elephant island. The villagers have become her owners through their village bank. After a whole life of working very hard at a trekking camp, she started a new life here a few weeks ago. The villagers already told us Nok Noi is doing better every day. Her mahout (Baan Pai Noi’s village leader) is with her all the time, and brings her food. Fortunately, she has already gained some weight. It is all still very strange to her, but that is not surprising. Nok Noi has only just arrived, her mahout still has to get to know her, and who knows what she has been through in the past. Her first spot turned out not very quiet. Noise from the road, and too many people passing by. Now she is on the other side, where it is more quiet and protected. Close to the river and the tree-planting site.
With all sorts of activities, the villagers will be enhancing the economic situation of their village. This too is a community effort. They make the money to pay off the sale of Nok Noi. Because of the visit of the Chang group, the first 10,000 baht (200 euro), and another 5,000 baht from the banana fund, have been deposited into the bank account. A number of group visits are planned for 2009. The next (smaller) Chang group will visit in January; later that month we will take a group of 100 nurses there. All this will provide enough money for the Nok Noi fund at the Baan Pai Noi village bank.
It is clear that Nok Noi and her mahout have grown accustomed to each other in the past few weeks. She still won’t take a bath (probably because it is to cold, and she gets most of her water from banana trees). You can see how Nok Noi recovers from the hard work in the past, when she didn’t have time to find food. Every day Nok Noi and her mahout go out for a walk, so she can find some other kinds of food by herself. The mahout makes sure she gets plenty of food, and checks her skin for parasites, which used to bother her a lot. This is why he boils a herbal mixture of tree bark and water every day, with which he scrubs her skin. The parasite will just fall off. Things are improving. Some things can’t be changed overnight, but we are getting closer.
Of course, the next step will be finding another elephant. Nok Noi has escaped from a terrible situation, but she is still alone. It is good for her to have a period to catch her breath and to get used to her mahout, but she shouldn’t be alone for too long. I don’t even have to bring it up, the mahout does: Nok Noi needs a friend. The nearby village of Baan Pai Yai is also bringing an elephant home. In this village too we have been able to start a village bank, thanks to Hivos. An elephant has been selected, a street elephant from a neighbouring village who is out begging in Pattaya. The villagers have heard of our project and asked if this street elephant can come to our island. The villagers of Baan Pai Yai will have to come up with a plan and decide if they are ready to take up this responsibility. They do have the advantage of an example, namely the villagers of Baan Pai Noi who have already taken this step.
Some other encouraging news: The gouvernor of Buriram is excited about our project. He is sponsoring the construction of Nok Noi’s accommodation and some of the tree-planting campaigns for next year.
Nok Noi’s arrival two weeks ago was quite an emotional event. This project has been a dream of mine for a long time, and now we really have an elephant here. Our hope is to decrease the number of elephants having to beg or work at trekking camps. We want to show how things can be done differently. But will the project be a success? We at Bring the Elephant Home will do our very best. The success of the project is now for a large part in the hands of the villagers. It is a unique project; if it works, it could be a very different future for street elephants. There are risks, but the bases of the project are sound.
In short, we have made another step forward. Last Saturday, Bring the Elephant Home trained 30 villagers and the youth organization of Baan Pai Noi and Baan Pai Yai ( the two villages sponsored by BTEH) in growing trees. After this training nurseries can be built and seeds collected, so we will be able to plant our own sprigs next year. Then, a plan has to be drafted to grow fruit for Nok Noi ourselves. The January groups could banana trees along the shores of the island. During the following rainy season we can then plant fig trees in between them. Not just for food, but also to protect the land from land loss after flooding.
