That's right! I survived an elephant charging at our jeep, but maybe I should start at the beginning. Yesterday a couple of us went to a very rural school outside of a town called Habarana. Habarana is in an elephant conflict zone so the purpose of us driving three hours out there is to teach the children about elephants in hopes that they will grow up with more knowledge about how to coexist with the wild elephants in that area. Unfortunately their English is limited so we are starting off with basic stuff like elephant body parts. Being in an elephant zone means that the village is in the migration or feeding grounds of the wild elephants and many times the crops get eaten, houses damaged and even a few people have been killed. As a result, many elephants get shot by the villagers because they are so dangerous. One thing that my organization is trying is to post bee boxes around the village to keep the elephants away because apparently, despite their size, they are terrified of bees.
After the teaching session we went on a jeep safari through Mineriya National Park which contains a couple hundred wild elephants. We got pretty close to a herd of 50 or so and too close to a group of three, because one of the elephants started charging our jeep! Luckily our driver was skilled enough to get away before it hit our jeep, but a very close call. The elephants look very different in the wild than the ones I work with. The safari lasted about three hours and then we took a very windy road back to MEF. Today we are headed south to Yala National Park to do a safari tomorrow morning in hopes of seeing more elephants and leopards. After that we will head down to a beach further south and attempt to tan a bit. Sadly, I cannot post any pictures so expect a big upload upon my return. Today is also the one week mark since I arrived. Three more to go!
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