NIAGARA FALLS — Are you familiar with what exactly “elephant bathing” entails? Well, neither was I. My six friends and I had just walked over to the water area from our elephant mounted jungle safari in Chitwan National Park in Nepal. We arrive at the water’s edge to see an elephant lying on its side in the water with a young man standing on it, scrubbing its grey, wrinkled hide. I stood close to the water’s edge, watching in amazement, still in disbelief that I, Jennifer Roulley, was in Nepal, a small landlocked country located in the Himalayas between China and India. I was literally on the other side of the world from the place I call home in Niagara Falls, NY!



After the young man finished washing the elephant he was asking another tourist to come up for a photo (or so I thought) but she was protesting. I naively asked “can anyone come up?” I was told of course, so I proceeded to the water’s edge, and I handed my camera to the Nepali man who was standing nearby, expecting him to take a picture of me with the elephant in the water in the close background.  When I stood still, the man on the elephant’s back told me to take off my shoes and motioned for me to come closer to the elephant.  I did not hesitate, but proceeded in removing my shoes and taking a step into the water when he told me to leave my purse down before I come any further. I obeyed and walked into the water, when he invited me to get on the elephant’s back! I could not believe it, but of course I gratefully complied with his request.



The young man was yelling commands at the elephant and the elephant rose to its feet. I was waving to my friends and asking if someone was capturing this on camera.  The young man started yelling a different command and the elephant used its trunk to pick up water and then sprayed us (a European woman got on after I did) with it! I was in shock! I don’t remember if the water was cold, but it was certainly unexpected! He kept yelling the command and the elephant continued spraying us.  After a few minutes of this trunk drenching my front half was soaked, and the man changed the command. I don’t understand Nepali, but I was hoping he was telling the elephant to stop.  Ten seconds later the elephant bent to its knees and dumped us off his back right into the water!



Only later did I learn that in fact, when “elephant bathing” is advertised, getting on the elephant and falling into the water is exactly what is expected. I am sort of glad that I was the first to go, and I had no idea what was coming. It was a great adventure, I only wish I would have known to remove the cell phone from my pocket. That weekend in Chitwan was full of adventures, we went on a dugout canoe ride looking for crocodiles; we went on two jungle safaris, one on foot and one while riding an elephant, seeing live, wild rhinoceroses both times, and fresh tiger prints too. Thankfully we were never in danger of a real tiger attack, although we were told to run in a zig zag pattern and climb a tree if a rhino starts charging us!  We got to watch an authentic Terai tribal dance and have a hot shower (some of us had not experienced this since we were in our home countries).



That was only one weekend of my nearly seven week trip to the other side of the globe. I spent five weeks volunteering in an orphanage, eight days touring Tibet, and the rest of the days I spent meeting and talking with the wonderful Nepali people I met while venturing around Kathmandu.



I am 28, I work at Opportunities Unlimited and I live in the house my dad grew up in with my grandma in Niagara Falls, how did I end up in Nepal?



In 2004, as a part of a group from Campus Ministry, I travelled to Panama on a service trip with Niagara University. I had such a great time giving back to and serving the poor, I knew that travelling and volunteering is something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I had been looking online for years for a way to volunteer abroad, but I always found the prices that one is expected to pay in order to volunteer completely unreasonable. Last summer I found International Volunteer Headquarters (IVHQ) on the internet, and I just knew that it was the organization I had been looking for. I joined the IVHQ Facebook page, read about past volunteers’ experiences, and decided to apply myself. Having been an exchange student in Venezuela and Spain as a high school student, and having already been on a service trip to Panama, I thought I would probably choose a country in South America, maybe one in the Andes Mountains, maybe Peru.  But having “witness the Himalayas” and “experience Tibet” on my bucket list, the second I saw Nepal as a possible country to volunteer in, I knew where I had to go.



In January of 2011 I took a course and received my certification to Teach English as a Foreign Language (at that time I was planning on moving to Germany, and needed to find a way to finance my European adventures), so I could have easily offered to volunteer to teach English. But I love children! I was blessed with the best family in the world, and I think that every child deserves to feel loved like I do and to have the opportunities to both succeed and to give back that I had. On the application I marked that I wanted to volunteer in an orphanage, and that was one of the best moves of my life!



After four days of orientation and some basic language training in Nepal’s capital city, Kathmandu, I took the eight and a half hour bus ride to get 125 miles to my destination city of Pokhara.  The fifteen volunteers who went through orientation together were sent to different parts of Nepal and different orphanages/schools/hospitals in the locations. I was partnered with Nicole, a nineteen year old from New Zealand. We couldn’t have been much more different from each other, but we survived the guest house together.  Tourism is a major part of the Nepalese economy, and there were nice places for tourists to stay and eat; but I wasn’t a tourist, I was a volunteer. I wanted to live among the Nepali people, and that meant we stayed in a guest house above a local shop.



The facilities were pretty primitive, but I would do it all over again. The children I was with were so open, happy and full of joy. All of the Nepali people were.  To be in Nepal is to experience Never Ending Peace And Love (NEPAL), it is truly a gift. The Nepali people have so little when compared to Americans, yet they are so happy, genuinely happy. They don’t let simple things get them down, like electricity black outs for 7 hours a day, every day or showers so cold that it takes your breath away and no indoor heating.  No, they accept those inconveniences and they enjoy their families and friends. They are kind to everyone.  Charles Darwin would have been puzzled to visit Nepal, because there it is not survival of the fittest, it is “whatever is best for the community” and Sigmund Freud would have been stumped as well as there is no ego in Nepal. No one is concerned with him or herself as much as he or she is concerned about others and their happiness. The entire time I was there, I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, a place too beautiful, too wonderful to be real on this planet; but it is real, it does exist, and I will return there.



This morning I mailed a package to “my kids” in Nepal. Two of them (there are only five of them total) have birthdays in February and this year I want them to remember their birthdays. I have promised them that I will return to see them; I love them so much that I feel I must, although I do have a strong desire to visit Africa as well.  It is also something on my ‘bucket list’ and I have made connections with a school in Kenya. I am hoping to make it to Africa this year to volunteer and spread love.  As the lyrics to my favorite song say “Here goes nothing, here goes everything. Gotta reach for something, or you’ll fall for anything. Take a breath, take a step, what comes next God only knows, but here goes.”



To contribute to Jennifer Roulley's volunteer work visit:

http://www.gofundme.com/c8agc