Citizen Journalism Home |  List All CJ Posts

Animal Farm, Thai Style

About a year ago, when I was an intern doing youth outreach at NRDC, I developed an interest in elephants. As a mini-project I was researching eco-tourism: who goes on these trips, how do they find out about them, how might NRDC also develop a relationship with these philanthropic folks?

But along the way I learned 2 new things:

1. I am the person I was researching, demographically speaking, that is.

2. You can go to China to take care of pandas (the endangered adorable ones), if you agree to always wear a hospital gown when you hold them.

In a heartbeat I was hooked, I was set, I was ready to go.

But to my dismay (and in retrospect, to my fortune, considering that not-so-little Chengdu earthquake that struck right around when I thought I might like to go) further research revealed that volunteering with pandas has a price tag in the many thousands of dollars -- far out of my budget.

I set off on a search for other cheaper panda programs and shortly afterwards was signed up for a week long stint at a wildlife rescue center on temple grounds... in the middle of nowhere... in Thailand.

There weren't any pandas there, but if you look really closely, you'll see some civets in the trees.

And they have elephants.

So I went, and now I’m back, with photos and stories to share. I’ll be posting them over the next couple of weeks so that you, too, can learn something about what volunteering not only your time –- but your VACATION time –- for the sake of the environment is all about.