Elephants and Foreigners

We saw ELEPHANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is an orphanage that is very famous called Pinwalla Elephant Orphanage.  It originally started out as an orphanage but has since expanded to a tourist hotspot and Lonely Planet doesn’t give them the highest compliment.  But we went anyways because it was a must see and I really wanted to see elephants. 

We arrived a little later than expected due to unforeseen events but we were there in time to walk the elephants down to the river.  To get there, they must cross a street, go down a block through tourist shops that have sprung up from the amount of foreigners there, and down to the river.  It was really cool to watch them, especially the babies.  Once at the river, they go in and start bathing themselves.  Because it was not that hot and it was going to rain soon, they did not splash as much.  The trainers and keepers were going around splashing them with buckets and rinsing them off. 

The cutest part was the kid elephants! They kept rolling over each other and Parksie and I were pretty sure they were going to drown one another.  One would be underwater being rolled on by a second one when a third would come running in and jump on the other two.  At one point, we thought they were trying to make a pyramid but it didn’t work out so well for them.  Needless to say, it was adorable to watch.

As you can guess there were a lot of foreigners (ourselves included) that came to watch them.  There were also school groups and local tourists that came to watch them as well.  At one point, we are standing on rocks by the river and there is a group of school children sitting on some rocks watching the elephants.  I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but in my made up scenario they were doing the same thing Parksie and I were doing- giving the elephants voices and laughing at their movements.  They were wrapped up in watching the elephants that much was for sure because there was this foreigner white woman that kept standing in front of them trying to take their picture. It was one of the more annoying things I have seen foreigners do.  They were obviously there on a field trip and she had nothing to do with them.  She just wanted a picture of a local school child…

Side note: I have taken pictures of school children from foreign countries.  HOWEVER, and this is a big however, they either have been students I have interacted with or students I have taught in some form. 

It was so frustrating to watch this and to see how obnoxious this woman was being. The children were nice enough about it but then she would take their picture, show them the picture, and say (while miming) that is you! What the hell?!?! Who does that?

After we made fun of her for a while, we walked back to our tuk-tuk driver and headed on to other temples.  It was a fun day, minus the annoying foreigner.

While I am on the subject- I am jumping ahead in my blog a little bit but it fits the title. While we are on a beach in the south, we are laying near a fancier hotel/resort.  There are a lot of foreigner couples lying on the chairs.  We were hoping to steal some wifi, but that didn’t work out but we ended up lying near them. One of the days we were there, we saw a guy cleaning around the chairs and the general area.  All of a sudden, one of the foreigners takes out his camera and takes a picture of the guy cleaning.  Maybe there is a back story to this, maybe it wasn’t the guy he was taking a picture of and it was a butterfly or something, or who knows. I sincerely hope he wasn’t taking a picture of a member of the hotel staff cleaning.

Can you imagine the slide show later? Here is the beach we were at… here is the hotel… here is our room, notice the mosquito netting… here is the food we ate… here is the tuk-tuk that took us places… oh and here is the guy that cleans the beach… I mean, seriously?!?

It was such a sneak attack picture of a guy not doing anything special. He wasn’t cleaning it a special way, he wasn’t doing anything that doesn’t happen at a resort in America, Australia, or wherever he was from. I don’t understand why he would have jumped up to take that picture, it doesn’t make sense to me.

I have taken pictures of locals working at their jobs, like at a market or fishing or driving their tuk-tuk but I have either asked for permission or it was more of the fruit stand or the car that I was taking a picture of.  I also feel that intentions are everything. If you are trying to take a picture that will capture a memory for you, then taking a picture of a fruit stand or of a guy fishing is more understandable. It is also something that is specific to the country you are in, it may show daily living, or it may show a commonality between your countries… either way, it is more respectful.  Again, this is my opinion and something (as you can tell) I feel strongly about. Don’t go to a country and take pictures of the locals if you aren’t interacting in some way with them.  Don’t be that guy.

To end this blog on a better note and to return to the elephant topic, it was a lot of fun to watch them.  On the way back to the tuk-tuk and through the tourist shops, we saw a shop that was called Elephant Dung.  Intrigued, I continued reading the sign. Basically it is a shop that takes elephant dung, cleanes and starilizes it, presses it, and makes paper.  Because elephants mostly eat grass and straw, it is just like making recycled paper.  So guess who bought elephant dung paper? Hehe.  And if you picked up some of the dung and brought it in, you would save a dollar.  So guess who saved a dollar on the paper? Not this girl, we are not there yet with our finances!