I will be doing a sponsored climb of Adam's Peak, a holy mountain here in Sri Lanka, to raise money for Millennium Elephant Foundation. If anyone feels as much of a connection to this cause as I do, please sponsor my climb for the enclosure here. Or, you know, anyone who didn't get me a birthday present ;)
I have made a donation page connected to my charity's page for easy donations. Even $1 is appreciated, and will pay for a bolt to hold the fence together!
http://www.justgiving.com/eblakeramsey
Being here at Millennium is much different than I expected. I was not prepared for how connected I would feel to our cause here. Frankly, I was not prepared for what the cause was going to be. First of all, I thought that I was going to be at Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. I expected to be moved by the idea of helping injured and orphaned Elephants, but for the main attraction to be bottle feeding and playing with elephants. As important as it is to help them, all of this would probably be more for myself. The trip was booked selfishly, with my own personal desire to interact with elephants higher on the priority list than any benefit they would receive from me. Not to say I wasn't interested in doing good or helping elephants, the entire purpose of quitting my job and coming here was to make a positive impact in some way, I just didn't realize how important I would find the work I am doing.
So I am not at the Elephant Orphanage, Millennium is a separate elephant habitat from the orphanage, even though they are both in Pinnawala, and Millennium is actually a charity. I do get to wash an elephant in the morning, and the most intimate interaction I've felt since I've been here has been feeding her fruit and stroking her trunk while her large eyes thank me. My Rani is beautiful, and washing, touching, or feeding her is everything I ever imagined; but the rest is so much more. Here at Millennium Elephant Foundation we "rent" elephants who are captive across Sri Lanka and concentrate on giving them a better life. Captive elephants have a hard life, and aw are working toward making it better. We feed them amply, a simple enough idea, but one which is not adhered to with elephants I've seen here outside of Millennium; I should not be able to see an elephant's ribs. We are campaigning to spread knowledge about simple changes that can be made to make captive elephants' lives better, the houda (the chair on top of an elephant's back for giving elephant rides), for instance, is very cruel. The straps holding it on are like a corset, creating internal injuries and external sores. All elephant rides at Millennium use only a padded blanket.
The human/elephant conflict is also a big issue that Millennium has started shifting resources to mitigate. Wild elephants here are destroying farmland in quests for food, which is harmful to both the farmers and the elephants, who are getting killed in retaliation. Farmers' livelihoods are being destroyed by the elephants, and the farmers are killing the elephants responsible. Nobody benefits. The farmers, in a desperate attempt to protect their crops, have built tree houses along the edges of their land, which they use to watch for elephants. They try to merely scare them off, but will kill to preserve their land.
Millennium is kicking off a new project to observe the elephants with the farmers to determine where they mostly emerge, saving the farmland, and creating a tourist attraction out of the tree houses. Outside the farms we will plant a row of crops that attract elephants, bananas, papaya, etc. Between these crops and the farm we will plant things that elephants don't like, chilis, oranges, etc. Tourists will be able to pay farmers to stay in their tree houses and hopefully see wild elephants drawn out by the crops, but the elephants will not enter the actual farm because of the repellant crops. The farmers, not only saving their crops, but making extra income from the tourists, will stop seeing the wild elephants as enemy. Everybody is happy. I think that I will spend 1 or 2 weeks at the conflict boarder while I am here to help with this.
In addition to trying to improve the lives of elephants across Sri Lanka, we are also trying to improve Millennium itself. Our elephants live tied down because we do not have an enclosed area in which they can roam. They can walk around only when their Mahout (elephant handler) is beside them. Although they do get walked around and taken to the river to bathe multiple times a day, it is our dream to build them a fence where they can wander freely. I am doing a challenge, and asking for sponsorship to try to raise money for the enclosure.
http://www.justgiving.com/eblakeramsey
Any help is appreciated, I hope that you all feel this cause is as worthy as I do.
Miss you all!
Monday, June 4, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Week 2
**My new favorite thing: myself.
This may sound vain (probably because it totally is) but I'm just feeling so great. I think that it's a very important part of life, knowing how to truly love yourself. At home it's not like I particularly dislike myself, generally I feel pretty ok with who I am, how I act, what I do, etc. Sometimes I would find myself acting in a ways that would make me dislike certain parts of myself, and obviously there's always propaganda saying that I'm not beautiful enough, but generally I like myself at home. But I think that I've been falling short of real love. I'm done with telling myself that I'll love myself when. When I lose 10 lbs, when I can run as far as I'd like, when I act in a certain way, when I can hold down a relationship...I love myself now. Loving myself doesn't mean that I can't still have goals, I can still try to be a better person without withholding love and awaiting perfection. The funny thing is that the more I love myself the easier it is to be a better person, which makes it easier to love. It's a cycle, but it's the opposite of vicious. Not to say there haven't been and won't be rough days, but I have been so happy this week. I am doing something that I can put my heart into, and I have a positive outlook, which I think even the others here can see. This week I was one of 4 nominees for a newly implemented "volunteer of the week" program. An anonymous volunteer wrote "I would like to nominate Elizabeth for her friendliness, generosity, hard work in the garden, and her phenomenal effort in the fruit shop on Friday." I am so touched by this, it makes me feel so appreciated and like my inner joy might just be manifesting to the people around me.**
I'm behind on my journaling and even more on typing it up for the blog, so this week's entry will be short. Really, the biggest thing has just been how amazing I feel.
8 new volunteers arrive on Monday: Jemma, Liz, Lea, Mardi, and Vicky are Austalian nurses here together for 2 weeks. Marion (unfortunately not a librarian) is from New Zealand here for 2 weeks. Jesper and Karina are a brother sister pair from Denmark here for 8 weeks. On Tuesday Sian and Hayden, 2 friens from England, arrive for 7 weeks, and on Thursday Mary and James, a couple from Ireland come for...I want to say 6 weeks. The volunteer houseing is getting quite full, and everyone coming seems very nice. I try to make sure that everyone feels welcome and invited to mingle with the established group. The Australian women are older and keep mostly to themselves, but I really enjoy their company when I do chat with them.
My birthday is wednesday and I have the most amazing birthday that --like an elephant-- I will never forget. I get up, wash Rani, have a wonderful day working in the garden, fruit shop, and mingling with everyone. It's been a while since Rani has done a painting, so for my birthday I request that she make one for me. I have pictures of her making my painting, which I then buy. And now I have a very special birthday present from my beautiful Rani. After work a group of us go out to a movie in the small city 10 km away. I think my ticket was 250 rupees or something absurdly low (although I'm not sure because someone splurged and payed my ticket for me). I was hoping The Avengers would be playing, but it was Battleship instead. The screen wasn't the best quality, the seats were uncomfortable, the movie was horribly cheesy, and it was wonderful. I had such a blast. Oh, and the power went out halfway through the movie and we were sitting in darkness for about 5 minutes wondering what to do. It was such a good time, we'll go back in a couple weeks, I'm sure.
On Friday I am on the fruit shop for an hour and, due to a scheduling conflict, end up staying on for another hour. I had both my notebooks with me so that I could either journal or write my book (yes, I'm writing a book, more on that in a moment), but don't end up touching either of them because it is so busy at the elephant rides. 2 large groups come through in addition to the normal string of tourists on their own. I have 2 fruit plates made up, 2 elephants come back and I sell them both, and then I can see another elephant coming and have to rush back to chop more fruit before they return! I am a selling machine, and chopping like a fiend. I don't even have time to be afraid of the bees crawling on the fruit while I'm chopping.
A new fund raising idea for our up and coming gift shop is for volunteers to write books that we will sell here. The coordinators have purchased publishing rights for 6 books up to 32 pages in length and have a friend who is an illustrator. I immediately offer to try my hand at writing a children's book. I used to occasionally make up stories for the boys when I was a nanny, so I think I can do it. And if everyone likes it when I'm done, I might get to be a published author in Sri Lanka! And have a really easy addition to my mom's autographed book collection.
This may sound vain (probably because it totally is) but I'm just feeling so great. I think that it's a very important part of life, knowing how to truly love yourself. At home it's not like I particularly dislike myself, generally I feel pretty ok with who I am, how I act, what I do, etc. Sometimes I would find myself acting in a ways that would make me dislike certain parts of myself, and obviously there's always propaganda saying that I'm not beautiful enough, but generally I like myself at home. But I think that I've been falling short of real love. I'm done with telling myself that I'll love myself when. When I lose 10 lbs, when I can run as far as I'd like, when I act in a certain way, when I can hold down a relationship...I love myself now. Loving myself doesn't mean that I can't still have goals, I can still try to be a better person without withholding love and awaiting perfection. The funny thing is that the more I love myself the easier it is to be a better person, which makes it easier to love. It's a cycle, but it's the opposite of vicious. Not to say there haven't been and won't be rough days, but I have been so happy this week. I am doing something that I can put my heart into, and I have a positive outlook, which I think even the others here can see. This week I was one of 4 nominees for a newly implemented "volunteer of the week" program. An anonymous volunteer wrote "I would like to nominate Elizabeth for her friendliness, generosity, hard work in the garden, and her phenomenal effort in the fruit shop on Friday." I am so touched by this, it makes me feel so appreciated and like my inner joy might just be manifesting to the people around me.**
I'm behind on my journaling and even more on typing it up for the blog, so this week's entry will be short. Really, the biggest thing has just been how amazing I feel.
8 new volunteers arrive on Monday: Jemma, Liz, Lea, Mardi, and Vicky are Austalian nurses here together for 2 weeks. Marion (unfortunately not a librarian) is from New Zealand here for 2 weeks. Jesper and Karina are a brother sister pair from Denmark here for 8 weeks. On Tuesday Sian and Hayden, 2 friens from England, arrive for 7 weeks, and on Thursday Mary and James, a couple from Ireland come for...I want to say 6 weeks. The volunteer houseing is getting quite full, and everyone coming seems very nice. I try to make sure that everyone feels welcome and invited to mingle with the established group. The Australian women are older and keep mostly to themselves, but I really enjoy their company when I do chat with them.
My birthday is wednesday and I have the most amazing birthday that --like an elephant-- I will never forget. I get up, wash Rani, have a wonderful day working in the garden, fruit shop, and mingling with everyone. It's been a while since Rani has done a painting, so for my birthday I request that she make one for me. I have pictures of her making my painting, which I then buy. And now I have a very special birthday present from my beautiful Rani. After work a group of us go out to a movie in the small city 10 km away. I think my ticket was 250 rupees or something absurdly low (although I'm not sure because someone splurged and payed my ticket for me). I was hoping The Avengers would be playing, but it was Battleship instead. The screen wasn't the best quality, the seats were uncomfortable, the movie was horribly cheesy, and it was wonderful. I had such a blast. Oh, and the power went out halfway through the movie and we were sitting in darkness for about 5 minutes wondering what to do. It was such a good time, we'll go back in a couple weeks, I'm sure.
On Friday I am on the fruit shop for an hour and, due to a scheduling conflict, end up staying on for another hour. I had both my notebooks with me so that I could either journal or write my book (yes, I'm writing a book, more on that in a moment), but don't end up touching either of them because it is so busy at the elephant rides. 2 large groups come through in addition to the normal string of tourists on their own. I have 2 fruit plates made up, 2 elephants come back and I sell them both, and then I can see another elephant coming and have to rush back to chop more fruit before they return! I am a selling machine, and chopping like a fiend. I don't even have time to be afraid of the bees crawling on the fruit while I'm chopping.
A new fund raising idea for our up and coming gift shop is for volunteers to write books that we will sell here. The coordinators have purchased publishing rights for 6 books up to 32 pages in length and have a friend who is an illustrator. I immediately offer to try my hand at writing a children's book. I used to occasionally make up stories for the boys when I was a nanny, so I think I can do it. And if everyone likes it when I'm done, I might get to be a published author in Sri Lanka! And have a really easy addition to my mom's autographed book collection.
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