No Gold Watch!
There comes a time in everyone's life where the daily grind, however much you've enjoyed it, has to stop - either company policy sets an age after which it deems you can no longer do your job; or, to my mind more likely, the muscles, joints and brain starts seizing up and you feel it's time to pursue life's other interests (ie. eating, sleeping) a little more fully.
Well the official age for an elephant in Thailand to retire is 61, and as some of you know, Pang Yom reached that age some time ago and did retire back to Lampang. However, she must fall into the latter category as she came back within six months and has been working here ever since.
Aware of her age (now some 63 years) and noticing that she's not quite as sprightly as she once was I have been looking to retire her for some time now and trying to find a way to do it in which she won't get bored. So we tried an experiment late last month, we retired her (the vet. has said she can still do limited light work) and rented another elephant to help out with the, less than arduous, tasks around camp.
The T.E.C.C. have decided that she is better off staying with us as our feeding regime and natural fodder situation is slightly better here and she will get to hang around and be the star of a quiet camp rather than live out her days in their sanctuary - she's one of the elephants who seems to enjoy human contact. The Foundation will care for her and try to keep Jamrat, her mahout, in some way solvent...
...and maybe, every once in a while, we'll give her a little work to do as she's so good with kids and with the nervous (actually yesterday was our parent company, Minor International's, charity day and they paid for 50 orphans to come into the hotel - and I did spy her giving a few of them a bareback ride).
The new arrival in camp is Pang Tongkhoon a 21 year-old Surin elephant who, until recently, was selling bananas on the streets of the big cities but who seems to be well suited the quiet life in camp - she's a great ele and Anantara will cover all her costs as she will be working for them - her abridged biography is now on www.helpingelephants.org.
Finally, on a serious note, spare a thought for the people of several Northern provinces (ironically, in the watershed of the Yom, the river for which our glorious granny was named) who suffered enormous flooding. Especially for Katherine Conner (who some of you know) of Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary, the floods hit on what was to be her opening day - it seems that Katherine, her land and her eles are all OK but the local village (which I have visited in the past) was devastated. If I know Katherine she has already gone all out to help the human and animal population of the local village!
Many thanks
John Roberts
PS. Oh, yes, sorry, we couldn't give Yom a gold watch as we couldn't find a strap big enough - she's not really into bling anyway.
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