Reflecting back on this first week in Thailand, a lot of life changing and impactful moments have happened in these short eight days that we have been here. The most impactful and eye opening moment I have experienced has to be seeing how the mahouts that are part of the Surin Project treat and take care of their elephants compared to the mahouts that are not.
Being a realistic person I came into this project knowing that we do not live in a perfect world and there are still hundreds, if not thousands of captive elephants that are still mistreated and forced into performing all throughout the world. Even though I had known this coming to Thailand, I was not expecting to have such a hard time seeing and being surrounded by mahouts that used force to control their elephant. I have always been an emotional and empathetic person that wants to help in every way that I can but as I am growing up the problems that I am drawn to are much bigger than I am.
This week in Surin has been rewarding in so many ways and I am eternally grateful that I was able to experience this all first hand, but in a way I feel like because the problem is so big and wide spread that me being a single person is barely making an impact.
Sitting here writing this reflection something that a friend once said to me keeps popping up in my head. She said to me “I’m glad there’s people like you in this world that care about the environment and well being of animals or else our world would have gone to shit decades ago.”
Being surrounded by the other volunteers and mahouts that have similar mind sets that I do, I realize that I might not make a direct impact but as a group we are helping and from there we are educating and informing those around us when we go home. In an idealistic world, all the animals would be able to roam free and live their lives without any harm, but that’s not the case and I am beginning to except the fact that even though the impacts that I make are small, they are still impactful in some way and that’s more than a lot of people can say.
