Visit the zoo

“I was already disheartened by the time we reached the elephant area. Three small-tusked elephants stood chained in a concrete building waiting for their baths. The zookeeper who attended them was an older man who had clearly lost patience with his line of work. He yelled instructions and only barely gave the creature a healthy scrubbing. The other attendant was busy tossing peanuts onto the floor for the elephants to root out. She said nothing. The nearby giraffes were largely unmoving — they mostly stood with their heads pressed against the wall during my entire visit.”

“My first thought was how unhappy the employees looked. They were either young workers whose initial bout of over-enthusiasm had worn off from the daily work, or old hands who checked their watches every five minutes. Neither group wanted to be there. [...] My fiancee and I decided to follow suit and slowly walked the dirt trail that led through the enclosures. The animals were dull and lethargic, but I thought that perhaps they had just been fed. Many were sleeping in corners and hiding in man-made shelters. We ended up only able to see about half of the animals the zoo kept.”