Ever since I was a little kid I have had this obsession with elephants. I don’t remember if there was ever a cause that set this off, but I don’t remember not loving elephants.
So when I was 11 years old and I was watching a travel tv show where the host was visiting an elephant sanctuary in Sri Lanka I was intrigued. In the show they explained about the work of the sanctuary and the fact that you could “adopt an elephant”. Clearly, I needed that in my life. Only problem was I was 11 years old and didn’t have money or the means to go to Sri Lanka really. But I knew I needed to do this.
When I was 13 years old an got my first paycheck I decided it was time to adopt my elephant. By then we had internet at home and I was regularly checking the elephant sanctuary’s website. They had a special adoption kit for kids at 25 euros where they would send a picture of your adopted elephant and info to your home. When I transferred them the money I was shocked by the fact that I had to pay another 25 euros bank transfer costs to Sri Lanka, a fee of 100%. For me this was about half a month salary at the time so you can imagine what that felt like. That’s when I decided it was going to make much more sense if I would just travel to Sri Lanka in the future to hand them the money myself for future adoptions(logic).
At 17 years old after I graduated high school I thought it would be a great idea to go to travel and work as a volunteer at the sanctuary (which was now an option as I found out through the website I would still visit regularly). My parents however weren’t so thrilled about it and the idea was once again postponed.
Fast forward to August of last year, 2017. My boyfriend and I were talking about what we wanted out of life and how we weren’t doing everything that we wanted to do. I wasn’t really happy with my current job and we both felt we didn’t see enough of the world. We decided it was time to take action and just GO. This was it. My first and only suggestion of course was: Sri Lanka. We are going to take care of Elephants at the sanctuary I saw on tv 13 years ago.
February of this year we finally went and let me tell you, it was worth the wait.
