Jumbo Love

Find out what it’s like to be loved by an ELEPHANT!

/////////////// By Marianne Willemse ///////////////

~ Marianne Willemse ~

Hello, hello, we’d like to make a trunk call! We have an urgent message for everyone.

LOVE is the most important thing in the WHOLE WORLD!

Love is happiness, no matter WHO you are, WHAT you are or WHERE you are!

When love comes along . . .

and grabs you . . .

. . . you could get knocked right off your feet!

Or . . . even loose your head completely.

Love means working things out no matter how different you may be.

True love has no barriers.

Love is BIGGER than anyone!

Love means caring for each other until the end.

The very end.

Jumbo Love

By Marianne Willemse

Find out what it is like to be loved by an elephant.

B

aby Mai was orphaned when barely a year old.

She had been found hiding in some long grass not far from the body of her dead mother. Her mother had been shot, probably by angry villagers who accused elephants of raiding their crops. In fact, it is the farmers who have taken away the land from the elephants.

Loss of habitat is the biggest problem for Asian elephants.

So now the baby was without a mother and shaking with fear. Baby elephants need their mothers’milk for the first four years of their

life in order to grow healthy and strong. Elephants are very family conscious, very sociable and, as I have found out, very emotional and capable of expressing deep love for one another and for other species, even mourning their dead friends and relatives.

Elephants are also very intelligent and wise. The little baby knew her life would never be the same again without her mother. She just cried and cried and forestry officials knew she could never be left alone. So they sent her to the Chiang Mai Zoo.

That was where I met her.

The same day I arrived at the zoo to work as an animal welfare volunteer, the baby elephant arrived too, so I took it upon myself to be responsible for her personal welfare. Little did I know what that meant and that it would consume me for the next five years.

Baby elephants sure do need a lot of attention and nobody loved giving it to her more than I did.

First there was the problem of leaving her alone at night. It simply could not be done.Mai was afraid of the dark and would scream

until someone came back.

At first everyone took turns sleeping with her, but we soon discovered that as long as there were some human sounds, like the radio, and a light on, then she would eventually go to sleep.

Promptly we had her pen fitted with dim lights and music from dusk till dawn.

Also a monkey staying in the pen next to her seemed to soothe her and made her realise she was not alone.

Mai always liked monkeys after having him as a neighbour and squealed with delight whenever we walked past the monkey cages in the zoo.

towards me I had to have the milk bottle ready to stick in her mouth, another one on hand and ten litres of milk porridge ready for refill. If she couldn’t get it as fast as she wanted it, she would make a big mess, dipping her trunk in it and stepping in the bucket.

Then she’d wrap her trunk around me and I’d be covered in sticky porridge, which she would try to suck off me. It was like being vacuum cleaned only sloppier and it always ended in a tickling session. Mai was very ticklish under her arms and would laugh and squeal loudly when I played with her.

bend the ornamental birds a little bit to get out. After that they looked like they were taking off rather than landing. The next day I decided to hose her down instead, or the birds would probably have to migrate altogether!

But at the crack of dawn, barely had the sun shone its first beam, when the baby would be jumping up and down making the most unbelievable sounds, ready to break the door down if someone did not come to open it.

After that, we’d always have to make a quick trip to have a dive in the park fountain so that we didn’t accidentally stick to anyone else. It’s no joke when an elephant gets stuck on you!

This actually happened one day when Mai got too big to fit in the fountain and I was in there with her. We had to

It was never any problem to get Mai to go anywhere because she followed me wherever I went. She had to see me at all times or she would panic. If keepers took her out she would take off like a rocket and it would take them hours to get her back, usually not until she was hungry, then she knew

As soon as Mai bolted out

She’d wrap her trunk around me and I’d be covered in sticky porridge, which she would try to suck off me.

I had to explain that I was not being chased, I was being followed! exactly which shortcut to take to get back to her pen quickly. The keepers soon gave up on taking her out unless they had all day, so I had to bring her with me everywhere I went, around the zoo tending to my other duties.

Mai was always very interested in what I was doing and who I was doing it with.

Only tigers and snakes scared her and she always waited at a distance, making rumbling sounds, until I was ready to leave them.

At those times I always felt she was afraid for me and relieved when I returned safely, urging me to run from there as fast as possible. Sometimes she would run ahead of me and I

would jump off the road and hide behind a bush. As soon as she discovered I was not behind her, she’d turn around and run back, calling out frantically. Then I would suddenly appear from out of nowhere and she would squeal with joy at seeing me again.

This later turned into a hide-and-seek game where I would hide behind trees and Mai would come looking for me. She was always so delighted when she found me, no matter how many times a day we played the game. She displayed her pleasure by jumping up and down and making the most awesome noises, even whistling sounds.

She soon learnt that kiosks were the places that ice cream came from, and I soon learnt that I had to pass those temptations as quickly as possible or the baby would not leave

until she had raided the place. So if you were a visitor to the zoo in those days, enjoying a rest at these refreshment stops, it would not have been unusual to see a foreign lady racing past in a great hurry, being chased by an elephant.

Word soon got around and some mornings the kiosk was full of people waiting and wondering, why this elephant was chasing this woman every morning at 9 am. I had to explain that I was not being chased, I was being followed!

I usually had to give her one treat some time during the day. After all, creamy vanilla ice cream wasn’t the worst thing a motherless child could enjoy on a hot day.

The first six months that she followed me around, she ignored other people, except for foreign women who showed interest in coming

This baby has Jumbo Size appetite.

Baby Mai cleans out the school room.

closer. They all got a sniffing over with her trunk and in some cases she showed pleasure at seeing them.

With others, the elephant retreated back behind me and ignored them.

Mai was never really interested in any other people, until she discovered they ate ice cream. At that time she was on strict milk diet and had not yet realised all the other goodies that people were carrying around, could be eaten too. She became very interested in people with ice cream and when she spotted someone with her favourite delight, she’d run straight towards them and make the most incredible sounds. If they hadn’t turned around and run by then, she’d come to a dead halt at their feet, look humbly down and start fiddling with their shoes. This would usually make people giggle and it encouraged her to run her trunk slowly up their bodies sniffing them.

When she came to the hand holding the ice cream, she would act surprised, but promptly stick her trunk in her mouth, making smacking sounds, showing them where to put it… and usually people did.

She was quite the natural performer. I never taught her to do acrobatics!

Of course, if it wasn’t vanilla, she wasn’t allowed other flavours and the tenth ice cream performance of the day; I had to put a dampener on it. But if she was lucky, Mai would let everyone around know how much she enjoyed the treat by sucking loudly, making smacking sounds, all the while flapping her ears with rumbling contentment.

The pleasure of giving it to her was great. Sometimes, on a special holiday when there were many visitors to the zoo, people would line up to give her ice cream.

We ended up having to go and hide in a remote area of the zoo on such days. Little did she know the tonnes of ice cream she had missed out on.

A year later she started eating bananas. She loved them so much that whenever she saw a bunch she naturally thought that they were meant to be hers.

She would do anything to get them, once even trying to stand on her head. She would go completely silly, rolling around all over the place. Of course, people would laugh and give her the bananas. She was quite the natural performer. I never taught her to do acrobatics!

There were two old elephants at the zoo and although

I had on occasion swung by to see them with the baby, they were not the least bit interested in her. In fact, I later discovered they were quite jealous of the attention and sometimes the big bull tried to scare the baby away from me by pretending to charge. I knew he wasn’t serious and would never hurt the baby and that it was only a warning not to get any closer, but the baby was terrified of the big bully. So, I limited our visits to once a month, waiting to see if there was any change in attitude and just to keep reminding the baby that she was, after all, an elephant, even though only a little one.

There was someone else though that Mai took a particular liking to, and the feeling was mutual. Everyday we would walk around the extensive grounds of the zoo and it became a routine that we would stop along the way to say hello to some

of the other residents. One young lady who looked forward to these visits immensely was an Indian rhinoceros named Girlie. She would beam a huge smile and come running out as soon as she heard us.

Girlie had lost her mate a year before and was very lonely. Her keeper said she refused to eat after her partner died of kidney failure and eventually they had to coax her into eating by hand feeding her all day long. Rhinos need to eat a lot.

After I found out her history, I decided to visit her everyday, until we could

get another rhino mate flown in from another zoo.

This eventually happened two years later, but up until then, Girlie and Mai became inseparable.

Girlie was an especially friendly rhino, probably because she had bonded so closely to her keeper during her time of mourning. She had grown to trust humans and it was obvious that she was fond of the keeper, always coming when he called her name. But she loved Mai with a passion and always came galloping to meet her. With each visit she grew happier and happier. Her keeper said her appetite had improved greatly and she would walk around smiling again.

During her days of depression he said he always had to remind her to be happy and when he saw her standing around looking sad, he would call to her....

“Smile Girlie, smile…!”

Sometimes he’d get a faint smile so he never gave up.

It got to be a joke with the other keepers and they would always call out to the rhino as they passed her enclosure “Smile Girlie. Smile for daddy!”

Well, since she met baby Mai, Girlie never stopped smiling. The baby was equally enthusiastic about the rhino. It got so that Mai didn’t want to go anywhere else and would reluctantly follow me around. When it was time to visit Girlie, the baby would lead the way and as soon as she could see the rhino standing on the hill looking out for us, Mai would trumpet and charge the rest of the way. The rhino would do likewise.

Bellowing like a cow Girlie would come gallopin towards us in a big cloud of dust. When she got to her barrier, a big stone wall, she would stretch over it as

far as she could; sometimes even attempting to climb over by jumping up and the excited baby would wrap her trunk around the rhino’s horn, trying to pull her over.

Then the two of them carried on, making the most amazing smacking and sucking sounds. Yes, it was certainly love…jumbo size!

How could anyone possibly have denied it?

It got harder and harder to get the baby away from the rhino when it was time to leave. I started bringing her earlier and leaving later. In the end I would drop her off in the morning and pick her up when it was feeding time. People would ask me where my baby was because they were so used to seeing us together and I would reply “I left her at the rhino day-care centre!”

If I had been gone from Mai all day, she was always very excited to see me, running to meet me and making all

Yes, it was certainly love… jumbo size! her usual pleasure sounds.

After a couple of days of watching the baby get all worked up over my arrival, the rhino started to do the same thing. The two of them would be jumping up and down with all the sound effects and then come charging towards me. The rhino knew how to engage her brakes and I was very grateful that she always came to a screeching halt within a metre of me. But then there was no holding back on the affection. She wanted her fair share of the belly rubs, even lifting her hind leg so I could get to it easier. Slowly her knees would sink and she’d go down like someone had let all of the air out of her, eventually falling over

completely onto her side and dozing off to sleep. In this position I was able to walk all over her and give her a massage with my bare feet.

Sometimes while I was giving Girlie all the attention, Mai would always undo my shoelaces; kiss my legs with her trunk while smacking her lips loudly. She’d empty my pockets, throwing the contents everywhere. Of course then I had to stop scratching Girlie to get my things back.

She was always careful not to hurt me. Elephants truly are gentle giants.

After the rhino got into the action and was ending up with a lot of belly rub time, the baby started to do the funniest thing with me as soon as I arrived. With both

of them racing towards me, Mai would strive to be first. As soon as the baby could reach me with her out-stretched trunk, she would stop abruptly, grab me around the waist, then quickly pull me in through her front legs and sit on me like I was an egg! She always made just enough room for me under her so I could fit comfortably, unless I struggled, then it got tight. As soon as I relaxed, then she did too. I could just fit my head out under hers and the rest of me was totally hidden under her big body.

The rhino, being a bit blind as rhinos are, would stop behind her, look around puzzled and then wander off, probably wondering “How could she have disappeared into thin air like that? I could have sworn she was just here!”

The elephant would rumble contentedly and flap her big

ears to keep us cool. Usually she would get up after half an hour, but once, after I’d been away from her for three days, she sat on me for an hour, rumbling away the whole time.

Another time we both fell asleep in this position and the keeper woke us up two hours later. Her rumbling had turned into a kind of hypnotic chant and I found myself rumbling along with her into a trance-like state, thinking it must be elephant meditation. She never once squashed me or laid her full weight on me, even when asleep. She was always careful not to hurt me.

Elephants truly are gentle giants.

Although onlookers might have thought it looked like pretty rough treatment, to be stuffed under an elephant like that, I knew it was a giant expression of jumbo love. I felt honoured that she would want to sit on me, just like a mother

hen sitting on her chick, nurturing the time we had together. She was feeding me so much love; I wondered who was taking care of whom? No matter how big she got, she never stopped doing this to me.

Talk about getting bigger, Mai was outgrowing her pen behind the zoo hospital and it was time for her to be moved before she got stuck in the door. She used to follow me into buildings when she was smaller and could turn around in a room. But lately she could only enter buildings with double doors and an exit straight ahead and there weren’t a lot of those places around.

When I was at the clinic she would wait outside the window and once in a while stick her trunk in to check if I was still there, usually every five minutes. Then I would have to pat it and tell her I would be out in just a minute. If I took a little longer than her patience

When I was at the clinic she would wait outside the window and once in a while stick her trunk in to check if I was still there. lasted, she would come barging through the door, not caring how stuck she got and it would take us a while to back her out of there.

She figured since she was there anyway, she wanted to check out what was going on in the room.

Because she was stuck in the door, nobody could get in or out. This was not so good if we were doing surgery because she wanted to help pick up the instruments. We’d have to scare her out of there by squirting

her with a syringe of water.

Maybe this worked because she associated it with a snake, who knows, but snakes were her big fear.

Once a five metre python was on the surgery table, she backed out of there as quietly as a mouse. I saw that expression on her face; “Woops, let me get out of here!”

If she barged in when I was giving a lesson to some students, I would just carry on with the elephant stuck in the door, knowing after a while she would be ready to be backed out. First she wanted to see what was going on. But of course, the students did not ignore her, so the rest of the lesson always turned into comedy.

Zoo officials wanted to move her to stay with the big elephants. I knew she would not like that very much. She needed another metre on her back. She was

still so small, only two years old and needed company all the time. The big elephants showed no signs of warming to the baby, probably because she was full of fun and games, and they were old and wanting some peace.

Mai would be very lonely over there and would need to be taken to visit Girlie everyday in just the same way.

think of was; “They have a lot in common. They are both big and grey, they’re both vegetarian, they’re both very lonely AND they love each other!”. This seemed to be exactly the right answer because permission was granted and Mai moved in with Girlie the very next day.

I thought that Mai would have been overjoyed that she suddenly was being fed her evening meal at Girlie’s place and didn’t have to leave. Well, it wasn’t quite like that.

Although I knew it was not standard procedure, I asked the officials to allow me to take the baby elephant to go and stay with Girlie until the time when a male rhino arrived.

They asked to know the reason for this odd request and the only answer I could

First, Girlie wanted in on the action with the milk porridge. If she didn’t get every second bottle, she’d flip Mai’s bottle over with her horn, spilling it everywhere.

So, every second bottle had to go to Girlie. But then there wasn’t enough and Mai got very grumpy while waiting for the new batch, banging her trunk on Girlie’s stomach. Girlie

yawned and smiled, savouring every moment of this newfound happiness.

Mai then saw the opportunity to stick her trunk down Girlie’s gaping throat and started to suck, probably thinking she could get some porridge out. Before Girlie almost choked, I quickly charged at them with two litre bottles, the keeper following with two buckets, sixteen litres in all. Two hands just were not enough and it’s the only time in my life that I ever contemplated being an octopus.

Needless to say after that feeding session, we all needed a bath. This did not please Mai at all. She was feeling sleepy, and the cool water woke her up. Then she wanted to sit on me.

As wet as she was, I let her.

By this time, I needed three baths anyway.

Before dark she ran around outside, grumbling and

rumbling. She’d return to me and tap me slightly with her trunk, making a long drawn out “Ooooooo” sound. This was a sound she made when she was unsure of something. I sat on a log, watched the sunset and softly started singing some lullabies. The big baby lumbered up, trunk in her mouth, elephant equivalent of sucking your thumb and stood beside me, flapping her ears quietly.

As it got darker, she remained very still and started leaning on me. I started humming and kept watching the sun go down. She watched the red ball on the horizon so intensely it was reflected in her eyes. I realized she had never seen anything like this before. When she saw the red sun ‘fall into the ground’, it frightened her very much. “Ooooooo”, she said and weighed more heavily on me. I laughed gently and stroked her chin.

She nudged me to follow

her into her house.

I realised that this was the first time since she lost her mother that she had been outside at night to see the sky. She was always safely in her pen at the hospital before dusk. Here she could walk in and out as she pleased. It was scary being away from home when it was dark.

I made her a bed of straw.

Girlie usually slept on top of the mound in the compound, but tonight was different. She wanted to see what was going on, so she came into the house.

I had to pile up some straw for her too, which she readily sank her knees into.

It had gotten very dark, hardly any moon at all.

There were no night-lights or piped music, only the sounds of the jungle around us. Mai was backed up in a corner where she couldn’t see the stars. She spotted a

firefly and screamed, probably thinking a star had fallen out of the sky. When she saw another and then another, she flapped her ears violently, rumbled loudly and backed up against Girlie, wrapping her trunk around the rhino’s horn. For a while she stood there terrified and I knew I’d be there all night and probably a few nights more before she adjusted to the change.

I realised that this was the first time since she lost her mother that she had been outside at night to see the sky.

The keeper brought me some candles. These we lit and placed in the concrete drain outside the bars where Girlie was lying. She was mesmerised by their

Photo by Camilla Skadberg

Kids Love Hug Therapy with Mai the Elephant.

Emerging from elephant meditation.

glow. Laying her chin flat to the floor, she stared at the flickering flames, glassyeyed. I curled up with a blanket in the straw next to Mai. She was leaning against Girlie holding on to her ear, trying hard to keep her eyes open. With every little sound from outside, the baby’s eyes would pop wide open.

eyelid, worrying that dirt would blow into her eyes.

She never twitched, but continued to sleep contentedly until daybreak, which is more than I can say for myself. Sleeping with Girlie was like sleeping with a huffing, puffing steam engine, but at least it cut out all other sounds so that Mai finally fell asleep too.

Girlie lay motionless, transfixed to another realm by the flames of the candles.

Suddenly, she started snoring loudly, her lips spluttering and fluttering. The sudden noise startled both Mai and I and we both jumped up at once, only then realising the box of thunder was Girlie. I think she had hypnotised herself, because her eyes were wide open yet she was fast asleep. Her eyes were so tiny compared to her big head, but I could see the images of the candles glimmering in them.

I reached over and slowly pushed down each

They woke up at 6 am, hungry as an elephant and a rhino, and ready for a bright new exciting day. All I was ready for was my own bed.

I curled up with a blanket in the straw next to Mai. She was leaning against Girlie holding on to her ear.

After Mai started sleeping at Girlie’s place, the rhino didn’t want me to take the

baby out of the enclosure anymore. She would bang her horn backwards and forwards on the steel bars, making a noise that echoed through the hills at the zoo. Soon the monkeys, gibbons and birds in the surrounding area joined in the noisy chorus, which sounded like jungle messages for kidnapping.

So, I brought her back and started visiting them both in the enclosure instead.

Of course, Girlie liked this idea better, always wanting her fair share of whatever was being dished out.

Whether it was love or watermelon, she was into it.

She even let me climb onto her back and ride her.

People wouldn’t believe their eyes when they saw someone riding a three and a half tonne rhino. I couldn’t believe it myself, but I knew Girlie was a very special rhino.

A visiting zoologist working on a project with Indian rhinos in Nepal, had handled more than forty of them over the past eight years. He said he had never seen anything like Girlie. He took eight rolls of film of her and Mai, which he said he would show to the King of Nepal, his employer and the person who had donated Girlie to the zoo.

The scientist said rhinos were mean, unpredictable and difficult to handle.

Nobody would believe how sweet Girlie was without seeing the pictures. He wanted to know what the secret potion was. I told him it was just jumbo-sized love.

brought her. If the monkey got too obnoxious, making too much noise, Girlie would lift one eye lid and look at me as if to ask; “Do we really need to put up with this? Are you sure you don’t want me to step on it and put it out of its misery once and for all?”

Girlie has the kindest eyes you’ll ever see on anybody, animal or human. With a body that size it would be so easy to throw your weight around. But her choice was to be sweet and so she solved her loneliness and made many friends.

Mai stayed with her dear friend for nearly two years until she moved to stay Sometimes I brought a with the big league and monkey to visit Mai, because had to learn how to be an she liked monkeys. Girlie elephant. But that’s another ignored all their rudeness, story… even when they screamed at her and crawled on her back, pulling her ears. Girlie would continue to munch the watermelon I had

THE END until next time.

Marianne Willemse loveanimalhouse@yahoo.com

Danish business woman ‘retired’ in Thailand since 1989.

Co-Founder The Bear Hugs Club.

Founder was Teddy the Ambassador for Himalayan Black Bears.

Animal Sanctuary owner housing around 90 animals, domestic, farm & some monkeys.

Lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Love Animal Sanctuary Chiang Mai, Thailand “Home for abused animals�

It presently houses over ninety animals, all formerly unwanted or abused, domestic pets, farm animals and some wildlife. Twenty six cows, bulls and buffalos who escaped the slaughter house, also reside there. All the bulls have been sterilized. This is their home for life. Love Animal Sanctuary is situated on two separate properties in a small village, with a total of 17 rai.

The shelter is sponsored entirely by private funding, memberships, donations and book sales. The aim of the facility is to provide education regarding the importance of animal welfare in our society and to provide the facts about neglect, violence and brutality towards animals in the food and pet industry. Crimes against people start with animal abuse. It is important to educate people to report such actions.

By collecting members who care about animal welfare, we can raise signatures for petitions to implement new laws which offer more humane treatment. It is up to each and every one of us to find a more compassionate way to live before we destroy ourselves, the planet and every living thing on it. We all need to become more conscious of our actions and deeds in life. One way of getting re-connected with nature is to meet the friendly animals at the sanctuary where every individual counts. Let the animals speak for themselves.

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