.jpg1.JPG)
Elephants and Mahouts
(Part III)
Having reached the age of 39, Jokia the elephant had not lived a happy life. She had been overworked in logging camps, beaten, forced to toil in chains on the forest hills where illegal loggers had no pity, despite the fact Jokia was obviously pregnant. Pulling heavy logs at the time, when Jokia finally gave birth, the mother turned to watch in anguish as her newborn rolled down a hill and died before Jokia was allowed to try to help. She was blinded in one eye by her mahout, when she then refused to work, and blinded in the other eye by her owner, who thought a totally blind elephant would be more submissive. He was wrong.
Then along came Lek Chailert. Life changed for Jokia, the sad, brutalized and exploited Asian elephant.
Lek knew better than to reason with the owner. A man who would treat an elephant the way Jokia had been treated, would not appreciate Lek’s ideas about the dignity, intelligence and sensitivity of elephants. She offered to buy the blind elephant. The owner demanded an unreasonable sum of money for the disfigured animal.
Lek wouldn’t give up. She returned to the owner with higher offers. He stubbornly refused to relinquish Jokia. Lek prayed for an angel to come and save Jokia, and a few months later her prayers were answered. Amanda de Normanville of California, co-founder and co-director with husband Gary Soden of All for Elephants, came to the rescue with needed funds.
"Jokia had been badly abused and was very uncomfortable with people when we first got her," remembers Amanda. The journey from the illegal logging site to the Elephant Nature Park would normally have taken about four hours in the truck, but this time it took twice as long.
Lek’s team had to stop the truck every fifteen minutes to try to calm poor Jokia down. She was so distressed by the uncomfortable journey, compounded by her blindness, that she nearly destroyed the truck, kicking fiercely and butting her head against the sides. The humans had to walk with Jokia for the last three kilometers to the park.
At the Elephant Nature Park, there are no hooks. Elephants are not worked, and they do not perform circus tricks. Tourists do not ride them. They just get to behave as elephants. They choose their own family groups: mothers, adopted-mothers, aunties, big sisters, and friends.
Mae Perm, the first elephant Lek rescued, swiftly became Jokia’s best friend. Jodi Thomas explained to me that Mae Perm seemed to serve as Jokia’s eyes. “I like to think,” Jodi smiled, “that Mae Perm is telling Jokia everything that’s going on right now.” We watched the two of them grazing together, communicating quietly. “You know, stuff like, ‘There’s some really nice grass in front of you, and all the dogs are way over by the observation deck, and I think that guy from Discovery Channel is filming us right now.”
Most elephants walk with their trunks hanging before them, half coiled and just barely touching the ground. However, Jokia walks one of two ways: either her trunk is constantly out in front of her, poking the ground like a blind man’s cane, or it’s resting on Mae Perm’s back or grasping her tail, You frequently see them wandering the park’s grounds, rumbling to one another, Mae Perm leading Jokia around like children holding hands.
I had several occasions to feed Jokia. She requires special care. Her trunk weaves back and forth as she smells for food and the people she knows make the food appear. I grab a piece of food from the basket – maybe a quarter pumpkin or a whole unpeeled bananas – and guide it to the tip of Jokia’s trunk.
.jpg2.JPG)
When I bathed her in the river, I remember looking up at her as I scrubbed, staring at a face pockmarked with injuries sustained over a lifetime of abuse…and marveling at how happy she seemed.
Shirley Francona
Santa Fe, New Mexico
05-29-2010