Thursday, September 7, 2017

Up-close Encounter with Bears



It is not that I don’t like bears or afraid of them, what I had in mind was pretty embarrassing reason in fact. I love bears and find these giant (not all of them) creatures cute. In spite of their intimidating paws and human-threatening claws, I’m in awe every time I gaze at these beautiful species. OK, I admit, it is very expensive to have such excursion especially taking with you like a bunch of less fortunate kids. Neither myself nor my past organization could afford it. And so, for the past trips in previous years, we only had passive encounter with this kind of animal in particular and just took photos a bit of this and that. We were happy, of course!

When my new boss (in my new organization) asked me to help take care of the kids during our recent “zooturaday” educational trip, I wasn’t that excited because I had been there for countless times. Besides, I had been to several large zoos in some parts of Asia as well, and this one is the smallest. No big deal. I knew how it goes, I thought, but I was wrong. The experience we had was a turn-up for the book instead. This time, the kids and I got to know about Cambodian bears (the sunbears and moonbears) a little too well. Thanks to the advocacy of “Free The Bears Organization” for taking its stand to save bears in this country and other countries in the world. Aside from that amazing privilege to look at the bears closely–only a few inches away, we also had a wonderful time preparing foods and feeding the bears. It was undeniably exciting! Forget about our overwhelming obsession with bears (I mean ourselves) with endless clicks of selfies and groupies to mind. All in all, it was another meaningful trip from the grace of kind sponsors.  






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