Saluting an Elephant

One

On a sunny New Year’s Day, I set out for my daily constitutional into the forests surrounding Mount Kenya. As usual, I ended up walking father than intended. You see, my legs have their own agenda. Once they start going, they need to do their thing. It’s like there’s a lag between when my brain tells them to turn around and when they accept the message.

Inevitably when I wander off like this, I get a bit lost. But I’ve spent so many hours getting lost and found that I wasn’t really worried. I had a general sense that I was headed in the right direction. The birdsong keeping me company. As I made my way back through the wilderness, a sharp pain shot through my foot. I pulled off my shoe to find an acacia thorn lodged in my sole. I tried to pry it out but it splintered in two, a piece buried somewhere in the rubber.

I found and followed a meandering path that led to the smallest of clearings. Catching my breath, it took a moment to spot where the tread continued. When I finally spied a mud track snaking through the brush, I lumbered forward, snapping the twigs and branches that closed in on my ankles and elbows. And that’s when I heard a hasty rustle hidden among the trees.

My immediate thought was that there was someone else nearby, though I rarely see anyone on my walks. Occasionally there are women carrying loads of firewood on their backs, a singular strap across the crown of their heads bearing the brunt of the weight, their arms arched backwards to hold on to ropes. There are shepherds that bring their cows and sheep to graze. But the cows and sheep wear bells around their necks and you can easily hear them jangling from a distance. They don’t venture into dense bush, preferring wider tracks.

I carefully stepped closer. Again, the crashing of branches shattered the silence, sending a charged current through the air. It was clear by the sheer force and velocity that no human could cut through thick jungle like that. I took flight.  

I had no idea where I was going but something told me to get the hell out of there. This time my legs got the message promptly. After a wild scramble, I tried to calm down. There was no sense in really getting lost. A part of me questioned what even just happened. Maybe it was wishful thinking that I had come across an ellie. I doubled back and soon found myself again at that mirage of a path plunging into the wood. Now my senses were on high alert.

I crept along the trail and, and as if sensing my presence, another boom of branches rang out. I crouched low, peering into that mosaic of dark green and earthen brown. What I think I saw looking back at me were two long, sullen eyes, those inimitable flaps, and a fine gray trunk. I didn’t wait any longer to make sure I got it right. I bolted. Again.

When I reached another clearing, I frantically called Keith, a resident forest expert. He told me to head to open space. I stumbled through the bush, the acacia thorn reasserting itself every few steps. Eventually I made it out to the spacious cattle path. I trudged home exhausted and bewildered, in desperate need of water, trying to make sense of what I was feeling. The current still clinging to me.

The next morning, I got a text from a friend who had just come across relatively fresh elephant dung in the same patch of forest. I felt vindicated. Especially since I knew I had my doubters. The night before Roxanne told me, “I don’t think it was an elephant you saw. They’re so quiet. They could be right next to you and you wouldn’t even know.”

Even that morning Keith had messaged to let me know that the folks who forage for firewood said there was no elephant yesterday. He suggested maybe it was a buffalo or waterbuck. But here was fresh dung confirming my encounter. My joy overflowing.        

I wrote the episode down in my journal and set off, hopping over the Karichota stream, ducking beneath the elephant wire. Within a few minutes I came across a stinking mountain of evidence. This one was fresh-fresh, buzzing with flies. I couldn’t help but marvel at its size. Now I’m no expert – just a worshiper of fat layers of moss – and figured the mound in front of me was from the day before, further proof of my run-in.

I walked on for a few more minutes when I heard that unmistakable rustle. I slowed down, taking each step deliberately, only to look up, awestruck. This time there was no question.

I stood there entranced for almost a minute. My feet planted amongst all the others in the forest. While my eyes remained transfixed, my ears were alert to a shuffling in the jungle beside me. I was acutely aware that I was not alone. Almost on cue, the hidden one began trumpeting. Another language I couldn’t follow. I had no idea how far or close it was. And I didn’t stick around to find out.

Two

Not gonna lie: I was shook. Like, there were a few moments where I felt unprecedented panic. I don’t know if it’s something primal that takes over. But before I had time to process the situation, I was running with no idea or care for where I was going. My scattered steps burdened with the thought that a tusker may be on my heels.

Maybe its instinctual, some component of your body or brain that recognizes that you’re in the presence of a wild animal. Your heartbeat sound like sasquatch feet. What’s terrifying is that with such little visibility, even when running away, you’re aware of the possibility that you may stumble upon one around the next turn.

Ever since we arrived at the foothills of Mount Kenya, the forest has been a refuge. Over the past month I’ve mapped the trails and trees that inhabit this space, imprinting the topography on my brain and improving my shaky sense of direction. I’ve learned the names of a few birds and how to identify many of the trees that define the landscape: lavish podo dripping with lichen, lotus-leafed water-berry, twisting olive, unfurling cape chestnut, stoic cedar, and remarkable strangler fig – or mugomo – which “holds a kaleidoscope of meanings within Kikuyu cosmology” serving as “a conduit between people and god, binding humanity and nature, manifesting coexistence and connectivity, and representing power, life, and fertility.”

Between the trees and the babbling Burguret river, the forest is teeming. It’s always a pleasure to be hailed by the Colobus monkeys. Their white fluffy tails looking like puffs of cotton candy hanging from the canopy. They jump – all four limbs outstretched – with arboreal expertise. At night the hyrax shriek. By the sounds of it recording their latest screamo album in the alfresco studio. (Fun fact: hyraxes, despite looking like gophers, are thought to be one of the closest living relatives to elephants.)

But there’s something about elephants that invokes a wondrous curiosity. I can’t say I’m adept or know much more than the basics: Their outstanding memory. A marathon gestational period. The tender way they mourn their dead. I’m into it, though. So much so that a couple months ago I insisted we got to Amboseli – the national park known for its elephant population. While friends and strangers alike suggested Maasai Mara or Tsavo for a wider array of wildlife, I was there for the ellies. Under the gaze of Kilimanjaro, we beamed as they strode through the savannah.

When we shifted to the outskirts of Nanyuki, I joked that I would love to see elephants out here in the forest. I was surprised by how serious the responses were:

“Trust me, you don’t want to see an elephant in the bush.”

“Elephants are faster than human beings – you don’t want to contend with them.”

“There are people who have encountered them that are seriously traumatized.”

I keep coming back to the almost primitive fear I felt. Initially, there was a part of me that was mad I didn’t stick around longer to see what was really good. But then again, I was on their home turf. It was an away game for me, so to speak.  

It’s taken me a few days, but I get it. While I faithfully continue my daily pilgrimage, I’m unable to get so easily lost in my thoughts. Now any scurry through the understory or flutter of wings snaps my neck around. There are times when I am surrounded on all sides by shades of dark green and I feel the electricity return.

And I have to admit, maybe all those warnings served their purpose.

Three

Human-wildlife conflicts are intensifying as stressors on natural habitats increase from agricultural and industrial activities. The climate crisis has exacerbated these conflicts as competition over land, food, and water grows. Hundreds of people are killed each year by elephants, alone. In response to the destruction of crops and property, and threats to food security and livelihoods, wildlife is killed in retaliation.

As human-wildlife conflict mitigation strategies are considered, especially in and around conservation areas, local communities should be part of the process of developing context-specific solutions. The FAO states that involving local communities in the management of, and benefits derived from, conservation areas, is crucial to addressing human-wildlife conflicts.

Yet too often local communities are marginalized bystanders in the big business of conservation. While tourism from conservation efforts generate huge revenue, local – often Indigenous – communities face dispossession, violence, and eviction. Recent research finds that the creation of protected areas and national parks continues to drive widespread human rights violations. This model of fortress conservation, based on the belief that biodiversity must be kept in isolation, absent from humans, should be replaced with community-led efforts rooted in an understanding of the critical role communities can – and in many instances already do – play in forest and wildlife protection.

Four

I dip below the elephant wire and sink to my knees. Now that I’m back on familiar ground, I shake my head in wonder before sending my offerings up in a cloud.

I lean back against an ancient trunk and listen. Each day the forest reveals a little bit more. I’ve learned to accept the advice embossed in cyphers of moss and lichen. They are continually dispelling self-doubt and planting seeds of imagination, reminding me that there is enchantment in this world.

After all, the natural world is the original inspiration for all arts and crafts, sound and color. Western-centric, Enlightenment thought has succeeded in deceiving us to believe that the key to that ill-defined goal of progress is humans’ domination over nature. As if human beings are somehow divorced from the world we inhabit. As if our fate is separate from the ancestors that inhabit the forests, rivers, and streams. The frightening results of such thinking are now being felt with intensifying tremors all around us.

Follow the signs only you see. Trust that they’ll take you where you need. Pay respects to the interconnected webs of life.

Receive elephant blessings.