Trunk Show
By Jon Gann
I emerged as the high bidder at a charity auction for the Global Community Service Foundation. The prize: 10 days at an elephant conservation camp in the northern hills of Thailand. A month later, my friend and then-roommate, Moira, packed some ratty clothes into a few duffel bags, and we made our way to the airport.
For centuries, the Thai elephant has been revered for its strength and power, and once was trained for battle. Others elephants were employed in the logging industry. That is, until nearly 20 years, when the government halted the stripping of the country’s forests. Out of work, some elephants ended up in crowded cities for the amusement of tourists. Others were set free—only to end up injured as they crossed the mine-laden border to Burma (also known as the Union of Myanmar). In an effort to provide homes for these amazing creatures, many private and public sanctuaries were created to preserve the traditions that the elephant embodies.
After arriving in hot and gritty Bangkok, Mo and I took an overnight train to the more serene city of Chiang Mai and, finally, a van trip to a hilly area and a large, ornate gate proclaiming our arrival at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center.
The center actually serves three purposes: It is the royal stables for the king’s famed white (pale-skinned) elephants, a private elephant hospital and a public conservation facility. We were escorted to our bungalow, introduced to our cook, handed denim work suits—the only clothes we would need during our stay—and offered seats for the 1 p.m. show.
Buses of tourists arrived, and when the music cued up, the parade began. Two dozen elephants performed tricks, played soccer, carried heavy logs and danced. At the end of the show, some of the elephants lined up at easels and began to paint, switching colors and deliberately applying their strokes with the brushes they held in their trunks. We were flabbergasted. Would we be helping with all of that? I can paint, and Mo can play soccer—but we’ve never worked with kids this large.
Our guide introduced us to our mahouts—professional elephant trainers. They knew five words of English, I knew three of Thai, and Mo knew no Thai, so we were all good to go. After a quick lesson in how to hold a training staff, we met our new animal friends. From the moment I saw her, I knew that Lukong and I would be best buds. Her hopeful and inquisitive eyes pierced my heart, and a connection was made. With a swift command, she stretched out her front leg, and I hopped on and climbed onto her back. As she lifted me 10 feet above the ground, my view of the world began to change. Yes, it’s a little disconcerting to have your body shift side to side while riding on the necks of these giants, but even as my inner thighs squeezed to hold on, Lukong was a lady and never jostled me. The same couldn’t be said about Prathida, Mo’s charge. He was a little rambunctious for her taste, breaking into an uncomfortable gallop or rising and lowering his body with more force than grace.
Before dawn, we would walk a mile or so into the woods to find our “kids,” who had been tethered to a tree overnight. We climbed on and headed to the river for elephant and human baths. We rubbed their backs to remove the dirt and bugs; they assisted by rinsing themselves with some not-so-controlled spraying. After they were cleaned up and we got the water out of their ears, we rode into the camp for breakfast: sugar cane, coconuts, papaya and bananas all around; one for me, a few dozen for Lukong. Like all working elephants, our charges were accustomed to care from humans. They would eat from our hands, and sometimes used their trunks to steal an extra piece of sugar cane from my pocket.
We helped prepare for the daily shows, dressing the elephants in special costumes, practicing kicking goals with a soccer ball with them (they kick hard) and demonstrating new dance moves, much to the bewildered amusement of the mahouts and their children. After the last show, the elephants would congregate under a grove of trees to paint. Lined up before easels and buckets of paint, the elephants carefully dipped their brushes, raised their trunks and meticulously stroked the brush to the special paper made at the camp from recycled elephant dung. The paper, bleached and treated, has no smell and is quite beautiful. Each elephant has its own distinct style of painting and, after a while, we could identify the paintings by artist. Lukong was more of an abstractionist, creating works that resembled the cascading colors of a Morris Louis. Prathida painted in the style of George Seurat, with exaggerated staccato strokes.
Before the sun set, we marched the tired elephants back to the woods for their overnight rest. We then headed back to the bungalow to learn from our mahout’s family how to cook the Thai way, and finished the evening reading books until it was dark.
This went on for 10 blissful days: hiking, swimming, soccer, show, painting, joy rides, cooking lessons and a deep sleep at the edge of a tropical jungle. We also helped at the animal hospital, dressing the wounded legs of elephants that had met their match at the land-mined borders. A baby elephant was born during our stay, so we sneaked into a restricted area to get a close look. The adorable 200-pounder was as fascinated with us as we were with him. We also played with another young elephant—only 6 months old, but suffering from a broken leg. We found out later that he had to be put down as his injury would not heal.
And every day, I fell more in love with 9-year-old Lukong. She greeted me every morning with a head shake to acknowledge my presence. When I petted the stiff hairs on her head, she reciprocated with her trunk, often knocking me off balance. The more time I spent with Lukong and the rest of the gang, the more at home I felt, as though I had always been a part of their lives. Elephant eyes are about twice the size of ours, so you feel a true sense of their selves when they gaze back. I sensed her compassion, and she my wonderment.
At the end of our stay—and, yes, we seriously considered staying for another few weeks—we said tearful goodbyes. Even the elephants seemed a bit weepy.
After we left the elephant sanctuary, we went to a five-star resort in Chiang Mai. We didn’t realize how much our clothing reeked of elephants until we were asked politely by the resort staff to change our attire. As bags of our laundry were carted away, I found myself a little mournful. I wanted to keep a single piece of stench-soaked cloth as a reminder of my week with some of the most amazing creatures—and people—I have ever met in my travels.
Jon Gann is a graphic designer, filmmaker, festival creator and founder of nonprofit organizations who lived in Bethesda for 12 years before recently moving to Washington D.C.
City Slickers
By Bob Glowinski
I am not a country boy. I was raised, for the most part, in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City. So when my wife, children and I went one summer to visit my wife’s family’s 13,000-acre cattle ranch in South Dakota, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
The drive from the airport is approximately 30 minutes to Barnard, S.D., population 88. Englehart Ranch is as large as it sounds. Starting in Barnard, it consists of mostly contiguous parcels of land that extend up through Frederick, S.D., almost to the North Dakota state line. A drive on the ranch proper can take upward of an hour, if for no other reason than all of the farm roads are unpaved and sometimes rutted. Every day is a workday, from sun up on, and winters can be brutally cold, with January temperatures averaging 10 degrees.
It is remarkable how few people work the ranch. There’s Dale Englehart, Grandpa Dale to us, two of his sons, Steven and Troy, and one hired hand. While temporary workers are added for the annual harvest, and plenty of relatives all live nearby, daily operations are handled by just the four men, supported in all facets by Grandma Sharon, who will often drive dinner to them in the fields (that would be lunch to the rest of us).
The farm portion of the ranch grows many of the common crops for which South Dakota is known—wheat, soybeans, corn. But the real focus of the ranch is cattle—predominantly a high-end breed from Switzerland known as Braunvieh, and a lesser breed called Fleckvieh.
There are not many cattle—about 200 head when we visited. These animals are raised for breeding, not slaughter. But we still got to sample the fare. On our first night, we were treated to steaks and burgers that were the result of a lightning strike. High-end cattle, even those meeting their fate in a thunderstorm, taste quite good. And of course, with every meal is salad, which in the Dakotas means lime Jell-O with something in it. Sometimes, I recognized the fruit, melted ice cream, nuts, vegetables or raisins. Other times, I just swallowed, figuring the included treat came from somewhere on the farm. The evening ends with an invitation from Dale to join him in the morning to give antibiotics to a cow with a minor hoof infection. Certain that this would be an educational opportunity for my oldest daughter, Kathryn, I eagerly agree to be ready to go at 7 a.m.
itting three across in the pickup, we drive the dirt roads for about 30 minutes, then bound through fields for another 15 minutes or so in the pickup. I am told we never left the ranch. We are looking for a single cow, thought to be in a certain field. Sure enough, over a small rise there are approximately 25 head of brown cattle grazing. We stop 50 feet from the herd when Dale tells me we are looking for a cow with number B123 on its ear tag among what appear to Kathryn and I to be identical animals. But Dale quickly points her out, telling us he can easily identify all 200 head by sight.
My laughter at his claim comes to an abrupt halt when Dale reaches behind us and grabs the shotgun out of the rack. Did I misunderstand the purpose of the morning’s task? I am horrified and panic-stricken as Dale props the shotgun out the truck window, trying to figure out how to prevent my impressionable child from witnessing the assassination of a cow by a family member.
But Dale quickly loads a long, liquid-filled dart into the gun, assuring me it contains nothing other than an antibiotic. No sooner does the gun buck than we see a white splash on the side of B123. Apparently, this is not the desired result. The white indicates that the antibiotic was not delivered where it needs to go—inside the cow. The cow, recognizing that it has been hit by something, starts to run.
Dale quickly retrieves the dart from the ground, hops back in the truck, and begins pursuing the cow. Who knew cows could run? We bounce around the truck cab for 10 minutes until the cow tires, and Dale readies a second antibiotic dart. This shot is successful—there is no visible white splash—but we again chase the cow, which now has an antibiotic-dispensing dart hanging off of its side. Dale explains that the dart costs $20 and will eventually fall out of the cow. When it does, he wants to be there to retrieve it.
Later in the week, Dale invites us to witness a special event. Eggs from the Braunvieh cows were harvested by a Michigan biogenetics firm and fertilized in their lab. The fertilized eggs have been flown back to the farm and we are going to witness their implantation. Large cryogenic tanks are unloaded from the plane and driven to the designated field where a herd of white and black cows wait. When I ask what happened to the brown cows, I am told that these Holsteins make much better mothers when the calves are born. Accordingly, they have been hormonally readied to receive the now-fertilized eggs. I learn that in vitro fertilization has about twice the success rate as leaving the animals to reproduce on their own.
Thinking back, I am not quite sure what we were expecting to see. Perhaps I was envisioning private medical offices with sterile instruments? How wrong I was. Little is left for the imagination as the cows are marched into a portable stall, and the in vitro-fertilized eggs, at the end of thin cryogenic tubes, are placed in the cows by hand. At the moment when the genetics technician’s arm disappears up to his shoulder, I am not sure whether the expression of shock looks greater on us or the cow. I learn from Dale that when the calves are born, the surrogate mother cows often appear surprised by the brown and white coloring of their newborns.
One evening Dale showed me some magazines indicating that some Braunvieh bulls sell at auction for more than $30,000 each. I jokingly ask Dale whether these high-cost cattle are ever rustled, like in the old days. His reply was that every few years, they learn of such a theft. “What would happen,” I ask, mimicking my best cowboy-speak, “if you caught the no-good varmint?”
“We’d shoot him of course,” he says. My Eastern sensibilities wait for laughter that doesn’t come. I decide to drop the line of questioning, wondering to this day whether my leg was being pulled.
Bob Glowinski lives in Potomac.
