By Craig Spencer
I am most pleased to say that we have been blessed by multitudes of elephants here in Balule as of late. Pop down to the shop to buy ciggies- there are elephants. Taking a morning pee in the garden; as you yawn and wipe out your eyes- there are elephants. Take a nice afternoon stroll down a riverbed- there are elephants. There are truly elephants everywhere.
Baby elephants playing by Tish Grant
We came home late last night to find a gargantuan poo in the car park. As we strolled down the entrance path we found a metallic paraffin lantern squashed so flat it was translucent. I went to brush my teeth and as I reached for the tap I realised it was no longer there. An elephant with a vendetta against basins had ripped it out and flung it into the bush. It was a good excuse not to brush my teeth.
The following morning Dumisani animatedly told us how an elephant came into camp. I told him my keen detective skills had already deduced that. I could still hear the elephants off to the north so myself and the beautiful Jet (a volunteer from Hollywood) grabbed the camera and set off to capture some data for our elephant ID. It didn’t take us long to find them; there were three bulls, the middle one was the biggest and oldest. He lifted his massive head and our eyes met. In that instance I knew we’d found our vandal. He absently snapped off a branch of a nearby knob thorn; and I could swear he was laughing at me.
Later in the day I was fixing a vehicle in the car park, dreamily thinking about the girl who works in the hardware store in town, when my thoughts were rudely invaded by a frantic Dumisani who was shouting my name at a frequency that made my left ear bleed a little. He dragged me towards the toilet block where I was met by the same elephant who was playing a fun game of ‘lets smash the toilet block down with my head.’’
I watched in awe and dreamily looked down to see Eva. She had puffed herself up and ran straight towards the elephant; who momentarily stopped his game to marvel at the puffed up rat making a beeline for him. Amidst a cacophony of chirruping she lunged at the elephant and bit him on the trunk. He trumpeted in disbelief and ran away.
Eva ran back to us and I swear I’ve never seen a prouder mongoose. But the elephant, obviously suffering from an elephant sized blow to his ego, came back.
And there went Eva again. The elephant stopped, unsure, ears out, and charged at the mongoose with a shrill trumpet. She conceded and ran away. But this game continued for the next 30 minutes and resulted in Eva victoriously running into the bush after him.
He was never seen again and Eva got an extra piece of cheese that night.
We were also lucky to have Nynne from the Alborgh Zoo return for a brief visit. It is always a pleasure to have her in camp. Lastly Pennies for Ellies have been doing wonderful things for us. Our lovely Viv has raised money for our project recently and we look forward to having her back in August. She is doing fantastic work.
Thank you for your dedication Viv. See you next month!
You can join Craig om the project by contacting Afreco Tours on 0845 812 8222 | info@afrecotours.com | www.afrecotours.com/balule.asp
