Out of Africa: Part 10 (Continued – B) – Full Day of Debriefing, Reflection and Relaxation

On my recent trip to Africa, I disciplined myself to keep a daily journal of what transpired and how I felt about it. These entries are from that journal.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Experience #3 – More Animal Reflections

Disclaimer: No Animals Were Harmed in the Writing of these Posts

Giraffe – They are as large as they appear. They are in abundance here. They appear graceful on TV, but not so much here. They tend to lumber along. They will be eaten by lions. The lion will attack them while they are drinking water. The valve in their throat will close breathing when they bend over to drink, and the lion will attack them and suffocate them. In actuality, that is how the lion kills almost all of its prey, by suffocation. It grabs it prey by the throat and holds on until they die.

Elephant – Huge as you would expect. However, they not as cute and docile as you would think from zoos. Amazing Videos on TV will lead you to believe that the rampaging elephant is an exception, when in reality, it is their nature. An elephant can and often does attack humans.

The Kipsigi farmers whom we were among part of the time, as well as the Masai consider them to be pests. They are extremely destructive. There are entire fields of trees, less than a mile from where we were staying, that were leveled by elephants coming through. They come through a farmers crop and what they do not eat, they will trample. This field may have been his family’s food for the next year. They have even eaten an entire field of corn, off the stalk, and the farmer does not know his crop is destroyed until he goes to inspect the field.

They are very fast when they attack. One chased a jeep with our group members in it because it came too close for its comfort. Our guide said, he is just warning them. He can go much faster than that if he desires. On our smaller group’s game drive before everyone else arrived, we were near a herd of elephants. After watching them, we rounded a bend only to see a male about 300 yards behind them down a hill feeding. Ole Masi told us that was the dominant male. He pointed out that it was mating season (pointing out the physical evidence – again, enough said) and said this animal was very dangerous, especially if he thought we were between him and a female in his herd.

Elephant having a great memory is true. It is not an old wives tale. They also are very communal as are most animals in the wild. An elephant will live 60-70 years. When they are old and their teeth fall out and cannot travel with the herd, they leave them by water. Later, maybe a year or more when they travel by, they will check on them. If they have died, they will all trumpet and cry. Then they will get branches and cover the body. That is also what they do if an elephant dies another sort of death.

Two of the staff in our group were charged by an elephant while on a motorcycle because they inadvertently got between the mother and its baby, a no-no with all wildlife. They escaped only because they were on a motorcycle and were able to ride into the thick brush up wind.

Wildebeest – As numerous as you can imagine anything being. So much so that one of the other pastors here said God could have told Abraham “your offspring will be like the wildebeest on the Masai Mara.” This is the time of year when most of them have migrated south across the famous Mara River to the Tanzania side of this savannah grassland. When they return migrating, we are told the land is simply black. They estimate 4.5 million of them are here. Not an endangered species by anyone’s stretch.

The locals told us, “They are very stupid animals. They will not even know you are beside them many times, and if they do, they do not know what to do.” They even look a bit on the dumb side when you look directly at their long face.

Our guide spoke word for word what I have said in America watching them on TV. The only purpose they can see for the wildebeest is to provide food for the lions and cheetahs. That is clearly an overstatement of the ridiculous for they surely help the ecological balance here, but you get the picture.