One Week, Four Elephants

My experience at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary was fantastic.

But by the end of the week I didn’t feel good about myself. I felt like I hadn’t done enough, nor like I had been utilized adequately by the sanctuary.

I went into the week expecting (and honestly looking forward to) scooping a shit ton of poop. We definitely did scoop a lot of poop (I’m real good with a pitchfork and wheelbarrow now), however I felt like the sanctuary could have better utilized our eager hands to contribute to the long term goals of the sanctuary.

Yes… The elephant poop needed to be scooped. And yes, I would have been disappointed if I didn’t get to scoop that poop. But I was expecting to be doing more work than what we were assigned.

One of the other issues in Cambodia that I was completely unaware of was the country’s problem with deforestation. According to CWS, Cambodia used to be 70% forests and now only has 3% left. The sanctuary sits right on top of the land that has been affected by the deforestation (one-million acres to be exact).

Going into my week volunteering at CWS, I was expecting to be spending a lot of time planting trees in the jungle. I imagined something similar to the tree-planting out West, back in Canada. However, instead of contributing to rehabilitating the deforested land, we spent time helping with the sanctuary’s garden… Something that was already being done by some of the local girls who work there.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved spending a week with elephants, scooping poop, cutting sugar cane and going for jungle walks. However I wanted to do more. I wanted to contribute more to the park and have the work that I was doing there have a longer-lasting, beneficial effect on the sanctuary. CWS has an amazing vision and goals but I think the steps to attain these goals needs to be better executed.

At the end of the day though, even if I didn’t feel like I had been utilized to my full potential, the knowledge I gained at the sanctuary about elephants and Cambodia was eye-opening.

Plus I fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine to take care of my favourite animals.