Elephant baths and brick laying

I was awakened early this morning to the chorus of a pack of dogs howling- the dogs who hang around our cabins. Much easier to wake to that than to roosters screaming outside your tent, as was the case in Haiti. Here, you do hear roosters, but far off in the hills, so that sound isn't overly abrasive. 

When I got up (soon afterward), there was the elephant trumpeting to join the symphony. I guess I'm naive, or something, but I wasn't really expecting to hear that full on elephant blast that I grew up on in cartoons, but indeed, that is one of the many sounds the elephants make. They do some low pitched sort of murmuring as well, and have all kinds of other vocal noises, but Ian said that a great percentage of their communication is inaudible to the human ear- which I find very cool as well. 

Um, I couldn't resist...caught this guy in action, going from both ports!

They are incredibly beautiful to watch, and more complex than you might imagine from first glance, each with its own personality and quirks. Lek invited us to join her and a small group to go down to the water when the elephants were going in for their daily bath- that was priceless. 

So amazing to watch- funny to see them rolling around playing, looking so happy. Lek loves her animals, and you can see the joy she has on her face, sharing this love with a new group of people. She is truly connected to them, and can get really close to them. 

Lek, giving kisses?

Lek & Isaac, enjoying a moment by the elephant

Beautiful Lek!

As when you give a dog a bath, these elephants couldn't wait to get up to the sand pits and throw sand up onto their baths. The sand actually protects their skin from the sun & from insect bites. It was amazing to see them get a trunk full of sand and throw it expertly up onto their back...a few of them lay right down in the sand and rolled around. 

Dirt bath!

The dogs, watching the elephants go back to the feeding platform

When we were returning to the platform, there was a commotion with a pack of dogs on the elephant field, and one of the elephants, who is blind, was disturbed, and she started running- and hit her trunk (or maybe her head) quite hard on a tree. Lek said that happens regularly- the mahouts can't prevent every hit like that. Poor thing. 

So, that was the highlight of the day, but of course, we did other things too. We spent a good part of the morning stomping in the pile of clay to soften it up- we had two young Thai boys helping us, and with my phrase book, and lots of gestures, I managed to learn a couple of words, and they were interested in repeating some English back to me, so that was fun. They occasionally added more water to the pile, and we used our heels to break down any lumps we found.

We started laying bricks- the Thai boys flew the coop to go work on something else, so essentially, we have to make the rest of this up. 

It's not that complicated- it's laying brick, but I would have like to see how they would tackle it, in case we're missing something obvious, or not so obvious. For instance, at the end of the day yesterday, there was a group of Thai men at our building site, and they were shaking their heads a bit, so in my non-existant thai (except I know how to say, "Is this not good?"), I understood that they want us to put rebar in every so many courses (which we were going to do, but we're waiting on the materials- since I couldn't tell them any of that, I just nodded). 

I really don't like not being able to communicate. At least in Haiti, I could sort of get by with French and a bit of creole, but thai isn't a language to pick up overnight. My goal is to add a word or two each day, and I think I'll have to start bringing a notebook along with me, so I can write phonetic pronunciations of words I learn.