Elephants and Orphans – My Time in Nepal

Edited December 1, 2024

 

It’s amazing what happens when you walk out the door some days…

One day while volunteering at the children’s center in Sauraha, helping with 11 amazing kids, an opportunity I found on Workaway.info, I decided to visit the Elephant Breeding Center near Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal near the border of India. (Baadreni Road Royal Chitwan NP., Bharatpur 44204, Nepal)

After sharing my little packets of Starbucks instant coffee with the children (they were so excited to try coffee for the first time! We had to buy milk, which comes in bags -not in cartons- and boil it before drinking. The 11 of them shared 3 of my precious packets of instant coffee, stirring an inordinate amount of sugar into their stainless steel tea cups) and after walking Ritu, Asmita and Sabina, the three youngest kids to the front gates of their school, I headed out in the heat of the late morning to walk the 3 miles to the center. Hera, the husband of Sushila, the amazing woman who runs the orphanage, asked me if I wanted a ride on his scooter to the Breeding Center but I told him I needed to walk for training for my Camino hike in Portugal in May. He smiled, shook his head, said I was crazy (“bolo“), and told me to enjoy the day.

I passed a beautiful woman herding her goats, trying to keep the two baby kids with the rest of the group, to no avail. She was nice enough to pose for a picture…

A few men on scooters buzzed by and then stopped to ask if I needed a ride, and also seemed puzzled that I preferred to walk, but shrugged, smiled and said “namaste” before driving off.

I spotted a hard-working man, busy making repairs with his vintage sewing machine in his ancient shop made of corrugated metal, cinder blocks, and scrap lumber.

As I got closer to the EBC, I came upon two gigantic elephants lumbering patiently along the dusty dry road in the shimmering heat alongside the scooters and ancient rusty bicycles and strolled along with them for a bit. There’s something about the big sad eyes of an elephant that makes me love them so very much. I can tell there’s a gentle soul in that massive body, a peaceful being inside all that wrinkled rough skin.

We chatted for a bit (well, I chatted, they politely listened while gently flapping their ears) and then I proceeded along – their pace was much too slow for me.

By the telltale droppings along the road, I could tell I was on the right path to the Center.

I stopped at a small café before crossing the Ladhari River and ordered a can of cold lychee juice and some Lays Masala Spice potato chips and watched the water buffalo standing neck-deep in the murky brown water, cooling off in the river before the farmer urged them along and they emerged from the muddy muck to continue slogging along their way.

After I crossed this rickety bridge made of bamboo and old rice bags filled with sand, I spotted the elephant breeding center about 500 feet or so past the end of the bridge. As I walked along the well-worn dirt trail to the Center, who should cross my path but this ginormous steel gray one-horned rhino!!

Only perhaps 100 feet from me, he paid no attention to me (thank goodness!!) as he plodded along through the field of tall grasses and headed into the lush jungle. Looking like a hippo wearing metal plate armor, he casually disappeared into the thicket of verdant vegetation as I followed at a (I hope) safe difference, taking picture after picture, glancing about nervously to spot any nearby trees with low-hanging branches in case I needed to make a mad dash for it. But seriously – did I think I was going to scurry up a tree? At my age?? Adrenaline would be the only way THAT would happen!!

Now I sit, in awe, as I wait for the breeding center to reopen at 4 pm when the elephants return from their afternoon safari in the jungle of Chitwan. What a day so far…and it’s only 2 pm!!

Nepal. What a country. What a place. ❤️

 

“and above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” 

~ Roald Dahl