My second week at Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand was with the elephants and it really was fantastic. I’m mostly going to talk about my time at “the hospital” because these elephants were the first elephants I worked with and I really loved working with them. Chokdee and Malai Ngun live at the hospital and they are the most gentle elephants. A day with them consisted of preparing their food, taking them on walks, bathing them, preparing enrichments for them, and cleaning their enclosures.

Now any wildlife animal can’t be 100% trusted, they’re wild animals and are capable of anything but I could tell these 2 elephants really enjoyed the presence of humans and enjoyed just about anything we did to them or did for them.

For being such a giant animal, both these elephants took food from my hand in the most gentle way, I forgot half the time that there was an elephant walking behind me taking food from me.

Malai Ngun (a large necklace made of money meant to bring good fortune to the person who wears it) is a 65 year old elephant that came from a logging, trekking, and begging background, she is also blind in her left eye but it doesn’t slow her down from keeping up and getting her fruit snacks during her stroll. Chokdee (luck ) a 50 or so year old elephant that comes from a trekking, and logging camp.

These elephants despite their backgrounds still like the presence of humans and it just amazes me, if that isn’t the definition of forgiveness, I don’t know what is. These gentle giants taught me a lot about myself and as I said if they can forgive a human that put them in a stressful environments and painful encounters I don’t see why humans can’t forgive humans for much smaller scenarios and especially being in the veterinary world it gives me a whole new outlook on the human-animal bond.

Click here to read more stories from other SPC Study Abroad students who volunteered at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand.