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| Small but mighty |
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| Nope not slowing at all |
I first learnt about Lek Chailert through National Geographic when my thumb struck a glossy photo of a woman coiled up inside an elephant trunk. "Ooh, nice photos... Hm, that's sad," goes the thought process, "that's a needle in a haystack job" - and on went my day. Refugee crises, famines, despot dictators running countries into the ground, and I had a clarinet lesson in 15 minutes and I still couldn't find my best reeds. Up I jumped and down the mag fell, taking with it the weight of the world's problems and all thoughts of the other side of the mountain.
In my final year at university I touched on the idea of cultural relativity regarding animal treatment, which led me back to elephants. It wasn't a set essay and because of the mounting pressure of those which were I had to drop it pretty quickly, but the seed had been planted. Fast forward a few months to sitting wide eyed and completely overwhelmed with planning pressure and trying to make decisions which depended on multiple spinning plates in STA with Mama Beeg and I made a "Yep, You" decision again. It had been in my mind that I wanted to work with elephants in Thailand for a while, but I couldn't tell you why other than I've got a great respect for elephants and I thought I'd probably like Thailand, and they have elephants there. Bada bing bada boom, 2 weeks volunteering at an elephant sanctuary for elephants rescued from abuse. Lush. Pack that one away for 3 more months.
As time rolled on I got more and more excited, but also more defensive. I didn't want to look at my travel plans because it would show me how much I had left to plan, I'd need to search for the holes and plug them, I needed to sort out XYZ and it was just really, really difficult to plan a million things at once for something which is meant to happen months down the line with a thousand things happening before it as well. So I put it off. I ate some chocolate, I made some challah, I ate the challah, and it's too late now so I'll look at it tomorrow ok that'll be fine it'll all be fine.
Flash foward to sitting in Cambodia airport quietly eating a Burger King soft whip after a teary goodbye to my boyfriend after an awesome week of temple hopping and I googled Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai. Cue foot bouncing of a 2 year old when they're told they can have cake for breakfast tomorrow if they're really good - I WAS SO EXCITED. Every word I read made my heart sink and bounce in equal measure. I didn't know anything before, and I was learning so much.
Lek's real name is Sangduen Chailert, daughter to a mountain tribe in the highlands of northern Thailand, and given the nickname "Lek" because it means "small", and Lek is tiny in form. In substance, however, she is everything but. Lek started out as a tour guide, organising toruist groups to go and see elephants, putting together riding packages, and generally managing the greatest commercial asset Thailand has in the nature stakes. When Lek accompanied some of these groups, she realised something was not right. These were not the same elephants she grew up with in the hills - those ones had sparkling eyes, not dull ones. She became an independent investigator, discovering the terrible behind-the-scenes work that goes on to make elephants ridable: the Pahjaan (read more about this here). The Pahjaan is a "spirit crusher", designed to brutally torture baby elephants into a depression so deep that they will readily bend to human commands to learn tricks such as balancing on their front legs in circus shows, carry 500kg baskets with tourists attached for 10 hours per day in 40 degree heat, and haul illegally sourced logs for boutique furniture trades and specialist ornaments. If they show any sign of independent thought or action, the elephants are whipped with chains, punctured with fists of nails, or have hooks which resemble pick axes dug into their foreheads. This is the training required to have an elephant who can paint and be painted, ridden, and perform tricks as well as tasks.
I've written about my ideas on this further here, so let's get back to Lek. When Lek discovered this cruel and dark process she made it her life's mission to break the Pahjaan. She has become a voice for all abused elephants, and now speaks as an internationally recognised world ambassador for animal rights and nature conservation. Lek started her first park with very little money but a lot of conviction. She went around talking to investors, getting shot down by many, having the government bar her at every stage, even setting the police on her multiple times. Finally she pulled together the money to open a park in 1996, and the first generation of elephants began to be saved. Lek is constantly hunting for more land for the elephants, as well as juggling international advocacy arrangements with consistently fighting for elephants to be sold into her care. Unfortunately, most owners will not sell any elephant they believe can be profitable - for elephants on the brink of starvation, heavily sick, or terribly disabled, the price is still aroun 20,000 USD minimum. It's an impossible task. How can one person save elephants with no money, no owners willing to sell, limited land available, and so many elephants desperately needing to be released from their abuse?
Lek is very open about this challenge, and the challenges that remain. She says herself that the park is not perfect, but that she strives every day to make it as close as she can. There is constant construction work, huge delivery schedules, hundreds of volunteers to coordinate, and yet she still manages to come and speak with the volunteers personally every week. She shows us that we have to educate ourselves and others, because surely nobody would willingly put elephants through this abuse if they knew what was happening. Most importantly, though, Lek shows us on a daily basis "the power of one". That's the motto the park was built upon. It's the power of one dream, one decision to drag that dream down from the sky and make it life, and one person to drive that mission forwards and bring it to fruition.
That scared me.
That's a lot of pressure.
As time rolled on I got more and more excited, but also more defensive. I didn't want to look at my travel plans because it would show me how much I had left to plan, I'd need to search for the holes and plug them, I needed to sort out XYZ and it was just really, really difficult to plan a million things at once for something which is meant to happen months down the line with a thousand things happening before it as well. So I put it off. I ate some chocolate, I made some challah, I ate the challah, and it's too late now so I'll look at it tomorrow ok that'll be fine it'll all be fine.
Flash foward to sitting in Cambodia airport quietly eating a Burger King soft whip after a teary goodbye to my boyfriend after an awesome week of temple hopping and I googled Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai. Cue foot bouncing of a 2 year old when they're told they can have cake for breakfast tomorrow if they're really good - I WAS SO EXCITED. Every word I read made my heart sink and bounce in equal measure. I didn't know anything before, and I was learning so much.
Lek's real name is Sangduen Chailert, daughter to a mountain tribe in the highlands of northern Thailand, and given the nickname "Lek" because it means "small", and Lek is tiny in form. In substance, however, she is everything but. Lek started out as a tour guide, organising toruist groups to go and see elephants, putting together riding packages, and generally managing the greatest commercial asset Thailand has in the nature stakes. When Lek accompanied some of these groups, she realised something was not right. These were not the same elephants she grew up with in the hills - those ones had sparkling eyes, not dull ones. She became an independent investigator, discovering the terrible behind-the-scenes work that goes on to make elephants ridable: the Pahjaan (read more about this here). The Pahjaan is a "spirit crusher", designed to brutally torture baby elephants into a depression so deep that they will readily bend to human commands to learn tricks such as balancing on their front legs in circus shows, carry 500kg baskets with tourists attached for 10 hours per day in 40 degree heat, and haul illegally sourced logs for boutique furniture trades and specialist ornaments. If they show any sign of independent thought or action, the elephants are whipped with chains, punctured with fists of nails, or have hooks which resemble pick axes dug into their foreheads. This is the training required to have an elephant who can paint and be painted, ridden, and perform tricks as well as tasks.
I've written about my ideas on this further here, so let's get back to Lek. When Lek discovered this cruel and dark process she made it her life's mission to break the Pahjaan. She has become a voice for all abused elephants, and now speaks as an internationally recognised world ambassador for animal rights and nature conservation. Lek started her first park with very little money but a lot of conviction. She went around talking to investors, getting shot down by many, having the government bar her at every stage, even setting the police on her multiple times. Finally she pulled together the money to open a park in 1996, and the first generation of elephants began to be saved. Lek is constantly hunting for more land for the elephants, as well as juggling international advocacy arrangements with consistently fighting for elephants to be sold into her care. Unfortunately, most owners will not sell any elephant they believe can be profitable - for elephants on the brink of starvation, heavily sick, or terribly disabled, the price is still aroun 20,000 USD minimum. It's an impossible task. How can one person save elephants with no money, no owners willing to sell, limited land available, and so many elephants desperately needing to be released from their abuse?
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| Spot the Lek |
Lek is very open about this challenge, and the challenges that remain. She says herself that the park is not perfect, but that she strives every day to make it as close as she can. There is constant construction work, huge delivery schedules, hundreds of volunteers to coordinate, and yet she still manages to come and speak with the volunteers personally every week. She shows us that we have to educate ourselves and others, because surely nobody would willingly put elephants through this abuse if they knew what was happening. Most importantly, though, Lek shows us on a daily basis "the power of one". That's the motto the park was built upon. It's the power of one dream, one decision to drag that dream down from the sky and make it life, and one person to drive that mission forwards and bring it to fruition.
That scared me.
That's a lot of pressure.
National Geographic is famous for incredible photographs and interesting stories from unusual perspectives. Before I read the stories I would always thumb through the photos, finding the one I couldn't look away from and then reading that story first. It's been a dream of mine to publish with them for years upon years - I remember finding out that I would need to be a US citizen to be able to work for them in their main office, and I seriously considered going to university in America to start the process. Later I learned I could guest write if I became a successful academic, and that their side publications might offer some hope. I have a lot of dreams because if I can only follow one out of a hundred dreams then I feel like I've still nailed it, and sometimes the dreams we can follow are dictated by circumstances outside our control. Some of my dreams require exclusive commitment, like becoming an underwater archaeologist or a UN ambassador for forensic anthropology in war crime trials, and some are much further down the line, such as opening a punny restaurant or owning a house with an orchard and treehouse in which to brew cider. I
also have a lot of dreams because it's too scary for me to put all my
eggs in one basket and gun for it, when I don't know whether an
insurmountable roadblock might kick me down and then I have nothing
left. I also have a lot of dreams so I can join in with someone else on the same one, because what can one person do?
I sometimes feel like I could actually impact the world further than getting close to the world record of Freddo consumption, and other times I feel like I'm just one of a number of people who will be forgotten in time and mentioned in a history book only as part of the British population of the 1990s-late 2000s, one of the angry students who got screwed by tuition fees, or one of the 8 million visitors to the Taj Mahal in 2013. Lek gets shot down by critics for helping just 70 out of the thousands of ephants in abusive work in Thailand right now, but to each of those elephants she has changed the world. Because of Lek, Yai Bua knows how it feels to go to sleep with a full tummy, rather than leather hanging from bones like damp cloths on the line. Medo has friends who walk slowly to the jungle with her, rather than whipping her and pushing her crushed hips. Sau Yai explores the jungle as a playground rather than a slavehouse. Lucky feels touch as a compassionate gesture, rather than the slap which precedes the hook being jammed into her forehead. Pornaswan walks through mud and grass daily, rather than being left for death by infection when a land mine blew her foot to shreds. To each of these elephants Lek has changed the world, step by step, elephant by elephant. So there's the hero in Lek for me: nothing is too small.
When I was at Uni I had an amazing seminar tutor. She was one tutor, but she changed the focus of my degree. Because she changed the focus, I got more invested. Because I got more invested, I took a forensics class. Because I took the forensics class I was introduced to a world I fell head first into, and now that's the direction I want to go in for now. I've never believed in the little fish, thinking that only the masses can actually change somethings. From Lek I fully believe in the power of one and I can see how it's already affected my decisions before I even knew what to look for. Sometimes it takes one person to start a snowball and get millions on side, and other times it just takes one person. Sometimes it just takes one person writing about another person for a child on the other side of the world to see and flick past without registering that a seed had been planted.
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| LOOK AT THOSE BUNDLES OF JOY |
When I was at Uni I had an amazing seminar tutor. She was one tutor, but she changed the focus of my degree. Because she changed the focus, I got more invested. Because I got more invested, I took a forensics class. Because I took the forensics class I was introduced to a world I fell head first into, and now that's the direction I want to go in for now. I've never believed in the little fish, thinking that only the masses can actually change somethings. From Lek I fully believe in the power of one and I can see how it's already affected my decisions before I even knew what to look for. Sometimes it takes one person to start a snowball and get millions on side, and other times it just takes one person. Sometimes it just takes one person writing about another person for a child on the other side of the world to see and flick past without registering that a seed had been planted.
I've got a lot of dreams and I've got a lot of work to do to get to some of them. I'll keep trying, though, because maybe it might change something for somebody - it might just change something for me, but that's still a world I'm changing and that's still a dream I'm dragging down into life.
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| I'm standing in poo here, yet again |
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