Day 12

This picture shows two of the keepers working together. One of the keepers is holding the elephant and the other is scrubbing her back.

This picture shows a trainer working with an elephant. In order for the training to be successful, both have to do their parts.

Collaborating:

In a typical work day, I work with an average of 8 people. We all work together to get the yards cleaned so that we can put more food out for the elephants. Everyone works really well with one another which really helps things run smoothly. By collaborating, we are able to work efficiently to clean the yards faster and lay out all of the food. Today was probably the day where I most felt that I was part of the group. There wasn't one time where I stood there, not knowing what to do. I found things that I could help out with and the other keepers told me what I could do. I was more sure of what I could do when usually I wasn't as confident. This helped me collaborate with the rest of the keepers.

I guess any guests that come to see the elephants are indirectly affected by the work we do because they are able to enjoy watching the elephants without the place looking like a giant mess.

My Day:

This is one of the older baby elephants, but I'm not really sure who it is. Possibly Impunga or Kami.

Today was a great day. I met another worker from the Education Department named Cat. She was really nice and we talked a lot about school throughout the day. She told me that she liked college a lot more than high school so now I'm not as nervous about it as I used to be. She also told me about other internship opportunities during the summer in the Research Department which sound really cool so I think I might look into those. During this whole internship, I've found that there's a lot of useful things you can learn by talking to people who have experienced things, such as college, already. I really enjoy learning about how people have come to be where they are. A lot of times, they didn't know what they wanted to study in college, and even when they studied a certain thing, that's not always the career path they chose. I've learned that usually everything turns out fine even if you don't have a specific path that you want to set out on. It's okay to not know what you want to do because eventually you'll figure it out and be able to pursue it, as long as you don't wait too long :)

I also noticed that there were a lot more guests visiting today. There was one group of school kids and they asked the the funniest questions but I can't remember them because they were so random. One thing that was really fun was watching one keeper, Brittany, play with baby Ingadze. He was so adorable. I wish I was able to play with him because it looks like so much fun. Of course, they were separated by the fence, but she would chase him back and forth and he would shake his head and turn around so she could scratch his lower back. I can't decide if this was more fun than watching the elephants play in the mud or not. I think they're pretty much tied.