Elephants' untimely illnesses have the mahouts spitting whisky
Like a parent buying the perfect present only to see them play with the box, I spend thousands gathering the best elephant vets in the land (actually they came for free but I did buy them lunch), throw in a TV crew, proudly march them through my perfectly healthy brood while they take body fat indexes, give the odd vitamin injection and try hard to not to complain that I can find them nothing to justify their long journey across countries and continents.
Almost the minute the vets walk out the door, of course, Makam becomes constipated, Boun Na becomes afraid of the world, worries arise about a dangerous and infectious disease for Yui, Boun Na becomes constipated, Tong Kam gets diarrhea, Lynchee gets a swollen eye.
But this blog is not about my worries, honest, actually these things are quite easily dealt with and the veterinary remedies are well known to me and, if not, as in the case of our suspicions about Yui, they can easily be sorted out with a mobile phone and a computer.
The blog is about the ancient remedies handed down by the mahouts in the absence of the vets. In Nepal the resident old vet used to have a bucket of all-purpose herbal tar, the T.E.C.C. mahouts have a recipe that is boiled up and massaged on for every injury.
I thought I'd share with you the mysteries of the Surin treatment as they appear more ancient than many.
Constipation: The treatment is for the mahout, and it has to be the mahout, to chew on a purgative root - it doesn't have a Northern name but K. Lord keeps some in his house - until they are about to throw up and take a swig of rice whisky - bear in mind our mahouts don't drink so we actually had to go out and buy the whisky, I'm not worried about the cost but we must be the only elephant camp in the world... - and then to spit, spew, it onto the elephant, all over but with particular attention to the stomach.
...just to be on the safe side we also fed her plenty of Tamarind (for which she is named), massaged her hurt muscles with St Luke's oil and gave her an enema.
So next time you see a mahout spitting on his elephant, do not be alarmed, it is amongst the highest forms of elephant care and respect - he may very well be making himself ill in the process of saving his elephant - and I have seen the spitting, or more commonly the pouring, of whisky in some of the most important Thai rituals.
Boun Na's frights were put down to an unhappy spirit - and I'm not sure veterinary science could have come up with another explanation - it was revealed that we had forgotten to ask the spirits of her old home for permission to come and live here (these things happen if you leave a foreigner in charge) so, in a Karen village in the mountains of Chiang Mai, a ceremony was held.
We held a special blessing ceremony for her up at the King Meng Rai statue to be sure that he was happy with her presence, all the eles attended, a Brahmin chanted, incense was burnt, offerings were made and, a week or so later, we are all still wearing the bands to pacify the spirits.
Tong Kam's diarrhea was, by the way, the result of eating too much fresh green grass and cleared up the next day without intervention veterinary or traditional and Lynchee's eye only occurred today but it looks like an insect bite so we'll keep looking at it and take the vet's or the Brahmin's (or both) instructions should it get worse.
Now I'm off to tidy up the box of my new computer before Lynchee decides to play with it - though she is a bit of a technology fan it seems; yesterday she destroyed K. Lord's mobile phone with her teeth, luckily she didn't swallow and none of the vets see how this could have caused an eye swelling but still, better she plays with the box than toy.
Almost the minute the vets walk out the door, of course, Makam becomes constipated, Boun Na becomes afraid of the world, worries arise about a dangerous and infectious disease for Yui, Boun Na becomes constipated, Tong Kam gets diarrhea, Lynchee gets a swollen eye.
But this blog is not about my worries, honest, actually these things are quite easily dealt with and the veterinary remedies are well known to me and, if not, as in the case of our suspicions about Yui, they can easily be sorted out with a mobile phone and a computer.
The blog is about the ancient remedies handed down by the mahouts in the absence of the vets. In Nepal the resident old vet used to have a bucket of all-purpose herbal tar, the T.E.C.C. mahouts have a recipe that is boiled up and massaged on for every injury.
I thought I'd share with you the mysteries of the Surin treatment as they appear more ancient than many.
Constipation: The treatment is for the mahout, and it has to be the mahout, to chew on a purgative root - it doesn't have a Northern name but K. Lord keeps some in his house - until they are about to throw up and take a swig of rice whisky - bear in mind our mahouts don't drink so we actually had to go out and buy the whisky, I'm not worried about the cost but we must be the only elephant camp in the world... - and then to spit, spew, it onto the elephant, all over but with particular attention to the stomach.
...just to be on the safe side we also fed her plenty of Tamarind (for which she is named), massaged her hurt muscles with St Luke's oil and gave her an enema.
So next time you see a mahout spitting on his elephant, do not be alarmed, it is amongst the highest forms of elephant care and respect - he may very well be making himself ill in the process of saving his elephant - and I have seen the spitting, or more commonly the pouring, of whisky in some of the most important Thai rituals.
Boun Na's frights were put down to an unhappy spirit - and I'm not sure veterinary science could have come up with another explanation - it was revealed that we had forgotten to ask the spirits of her old home for permission to come and live here (these things happen if you leave a foreigner in charge) so, in a Karen village in the mountains of Chiang Mai, a ceremony was held.
We held a special blessing ceremony for her up at the King Meng Rai statue to be sure that he was happy with her presence, all the eles attended, a Brahmin chanted, incense was burnt, offerings were made and, a week or so later, we are all still wearing the bands to pacify the spirits.
Tong Kam's diarrhea was, by the way, the result of eating too much fresh green grass and cleared up the next day without intervention veterinary or traditional and Lynchee's eye only occurred today but it looks like an insect bite so we'll keep looking at it and take the vet's or the Brahmin's (or both) instructions should it get worse.
Now I'm off to tidy up the box of my new computer before Lynchee decides to play with it - though she is a bit of a technology fan it seems; yesterday she destroyed K. Lord's mobile phone with her teeth, luckily she didn't swallow and none of the vets see how this could have caused an eye swelling but still, better she plays with the box than toy.
Just to put your minds at ease, Lynchee's swelling eye recovered as quickly as it had developed - overnight - and it is now back to normal.
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