Elephant Orphanage

Bath time

(Maya) Vroom vroom!! A land cruiser pulls up in style and out pops my Mom and Dad coming from the plumpy’nut factory in Nairobi, Kenya. My sisters and I yell “we’re late we’re late!” Five minutes later we are all in two vans and driving quickly to the elephant orphanage. Fortunately we made it just in time for the elephants to have a snack.

The orphanage has 27 elephants under the age of three, two ostriches, and one blind rhino. This wildlife trust takes in wild animals that have been abandoned, injured, separated from their herd, or their mothers died of old age. The youngest elephant they have is 11 months. These elephants get fed every 3 hours even during the night. The baby elephants are accompanied by a caretaker all through the night.

The caretakers feed the elephants

We all gathered in an open area with one big mud bath in the center. Papa and Anar joined us for the last part of our trip. We waited for 5 minutes until an elephant just smaller than me came running towards the wheelbarrows filled with bottles of milk. About every 2 minutes 5 more elephants came down the hill as the bottles of milk drained. Once an elephant reaches the age of 3 the wildlife trust decides if the elephant is ready to be released.

Within minutes there was no more milk. The elephants know when there is no more milk so they all make a beeline straight to the mud. Elephants, rhinos, and cape buffalo love the mud. When we first saw the Ellie’s they were brown, because of the filthy dirt. They were splashing around in the mud bath like maniacs. MUD MADNESS! They made weird noises and fought and played together as the little ones tried to not get crushed. Some got out to relocate to the other side of the mud and as they passed they farted 10 times in a row. Once they couldn’t get any more mud on them that’s when we got to snuggle them.

11 month old, Ndotto

I rubbed them on the head and behind the ears and they loved it. We were muddy all over. Their skin is coarse, wrinkly and muddy. Then in 3 hours time they will come back for some more milk. That was the signal to go back to our hotel. To house the elephants it cost 900 dollars so to raise money you can adopt an elephant and get notifications on how your elephant is doing. We adopted the tiniest one, Ndotto he is 11 months old and his birthday is on August 5^th, 2014. When he was brought into the orphanage he was two days old. I’m glad we adopted him so we will have the memories forever.