By Bosely Thomas (age 14) – 1 week volunteer

What I love about this place is the wildlife and how the people are so free and also the way that they live is so different to everywhere else in the world, for instance they sleep with a thin mattress on the floor and they have no furniture in their homes. There are also lots of creatures and animals that live around the forest.

On the first day we woke up very early and hiked over lots of mountains to see these huge elephants that have been rescued from tourist camps and now they are living in the forest. I have also learned all about what they eat and how the people cook their food and also sometimes when we are on hikes the mahouts (elephant caretakers) will make a fire and cook noodles and rice and eat in the forest. Sometimes during lunch the elephants will walk by and lots of different creatures are about.

What we also did was teach the little kids in the town English such as shirt, sun, boat, shoes , sunglasses and so on which was a great experience for me to learn what they are like. I have also seen lots of other animals such as water buffalo and lots of pigs and chickens and I also swam in the river with the water buffalo. Great experience overall.