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.

Masala Journalism

I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

Polluters or protectors? Farmers in Himachal Pradesh fight for their rights over forests
August 16, 2015 || Scroll.in

Farmers are rallying for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, which gives them the right to govern forest resources, as a High Court order brands them 'polluters'.

On July 25, around 2,000 farmers gathered in Himachal Pradesh’s remote tribal district of Kinnaur to highlight the threat looming over their land, forests and livelihoods. Against the background of green hills, they thundered chants as local leaders gave rousing speeches. When the assembly dispersed, the farmers were still unsure if they had been heard, whether their demand for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act of 2006 would be met, particularly after a recent High Court order. || Full article

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Odisha diaries: the struggle for community control over land, forests and natural resources
April 25, 2015 || Down to Earth

No matter how much compensation is promised, companies will need ‘a social licence’ to conduct business on the land of the people

For the past 20 years, local communities across the eastern Indian state of Odisha have engaged in numerous movements to protect their customary lands and forests against industrial and government interests. Several have captured global attention, documenting resistance from some of India’s most marginalised communities in the face of dispossession and displacement. Now, Odisha’s communities are mobilising once more to assert their rights over the resources that define their culture and survival, using modern technology and India’s Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA). || Full article

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An Opportunity to Get Conservation Right
February 25, 2015 || Thomas Reuters Foundation

At People’s Rights Conference, Nepali communities affirm their rights to resources in a recently declared conservation zone

The hall burst into applause as the final declaration was read out. The audience, composed of community forestry user groups from Nepal’s Chure region, Indigenous Peoples, women’s rights groups, Dalit advocates, and youth vowed to continue the movement that had brought them together over the course of the past seven months.

Echoing in the hall was the demand to start including Chure’s people in determining the policies that govern the fate of the forests, land, and water they have depended upon for generations in the Himalayan country. || Full article

Return of the Himalaya

All I want to do is walk. Any chance I get, I take off. It doesn’t necessarily help that six seven hours a day are spent bumping around in a bus or in the back of a jeep. We ride parallel to rushing rivers that are voraciously being dammed. Beside, the headquarters of hydro and cement companies sprawl. It isn’t long before the asphalt disappears and gives way to more humble tracks upon which to tread. We slowly climb up and eventually back down lush green hills. And while the winding dirt roads mean travelling at the snail’s pace, it still feels like I’m going too fast.

My eyes try as best they can to feast on my surroundings, but more often than not they are fixed upwards, glued to snowcapped peaks. I can’t help it. There is something about those sharp, jagged edges that arrest, keeping me in awe, aware of my size. When they move out of view, I take in the breadth of the landscape. Another world defined by a direct relationship with the land comes into focus. As soon as we stop for tea or reach our destination in Kinnaur, in Kullu, in Mandi, my legs take over. Every free moment I can steal away, I want to take in these hills and streams and staircase villages.

So every evening after heated discussions on community forest rights, I leave my new activist friends behind and begin to wander. It’s only on my own two feet that I feel like I can move slowly enough to feel everything that this place stirs inside. My mind is engaged in constant conversation with itself; I am only a bystander at this point, quietly listening to the back and forth banter inside my head.

Climbing up worn pathways, I quickly get lost trying to find my way to an arbitrarily picked destination way above where I stand – a temple, an orchard, a waterfall. Amused villagers ask where I am going and I excitedly reply that I’m simply going for a walk. It’s not long before I am again sitting down with strangers, drinking tumbler after tumbler of sweet pahadi chai.

I know these moments mean more because of those summers I spent as a kid exploring a similar setting in Kangra. Sent to my Nanaji and Nanima’s house, the monsoon welcomed me.  I know it’s because of the memories that come back from that year in Kumaon that makes it all the more meaningful. And now, with a few more years on me and a (relatively) more stable head on these shoulders, I keep my ears open, attuned to the secrets being whispered.

I no longer try to compartmentalize or label the feelings that arise. Rural life with all its beauty, generosity, and hardships stands directly in front of me. Not asking for anything, yet still demanding all of my attention.  The smell of wood-fed fires brings waves of nostalgia and inspiration that wash over me, making it all so dangerously easy to romanticize. Standing atop of a world that at once seems familiar, and yet one I know I cannot claim to fully understand.  It is here I recognize there is too much upon the hills and below the surface that I am unable to put into words.

But just as is with every return to the Himalaya, internally there is work being done. Inside, I can only hope my heart is being soaked, and wrung, and washed anew. That somewhere, though I cannot see it – only vaguely feel it – there is a realignment taking place.

What They Tell Me

It’s like I’ve been running a marathon. I know this ground beneath my feet. I know it well. I’ve run and walked and crawled through these forests and villages and hectic city streets. I know where I stand. At least, I think I do.

I can see I’m approaching the end. In front of me is a really steep hill – going down. And I’m running; because either I don’t know how to stop or I don’t want to slow down. My feet are carrying me forward, acting independently – or rather ahead of – my mind.

The finish line looks close. Closer than it actually is. I’m so focused on that finish line that I’m starting to stumble. I can no longer pay attention to the mud and the dust below. I can’t see the setting sun draw orange and purple streaks on the clouds. I can’t see the proud silhouettes of palm trees waving in the wind.  I want to look around, but temptation is winning. My eyes stay glued ahead of me. 

I’m losing my footing. Down the hill I go. I’m scared I’m going to fall. Crash and burn.

***

I’m blessed. I have this amazing team of supporters and soothsayers behind me. They watch and they listen. They counsel and they guide. Their words and arms and prayers prop me up from across continents and oceans. They love me for who I am, and forgive me all the same. Before I ever stepped on Liberian shores, I knew that we all have to walk our own paths. I tried to remember that we never walk alone.

They tell me I can’t run away from here and now.  I’m not that fast. But more importantly they tell me, I shouldn’t want to move so quickly. This time will never come again. The twists and turns that have shaped the road over this past year will inform my future. And the truth is I’ve learned so much: about land, struggle, and injustice. Such things are not meant to be taken for granted. 

They remind me of what I have. They say just look around. They point to Egypt, Syria, and India.  Perspective enriches eyesight like carrots. 

So, while I plan to return from Liberia slightly bruised, somewhat stronger, and hopefully a little wiser, this opportunity will never come again. Despite the ups and down of the day, the people, places, wide-open skies and ocean breeze remain to see that the learning takes place. Each moment is precious and nearly perfect in its own right.  At least that’s what they tell me. 

Notes from the Cut

The fading light brings relief to another hot day. Four triangles of thatch consistently meet at the tops of homes and outdoor kitchens. A pot sits precariously balanced on two mud-bricks sending up smoke over fire. The glowing wooden sticks burn bright orange before turning to the ash we all eventually become. Children howl as their mothers bathe them under the evening sky with water collected from a nearby creek.  Straight from God to Man the trees are tapped for wine.

Walking through the bush has become a daily observance. Surrounded by forests, echoing many shades of green – bamboo reed, palm tree, cassava leaf – I am reminded of summers at my grandparent’s house in India. It was at the foothills of the Himalayas where I first fully explored dense green hallways and corridors. On these journeys memories come rushing back and I quickly get lost in my own jungle of thoughts.

This is my eighth – and at two weeks, longest – trip to rural Rivercess County. Leaving my insecurities behind in the city, I find myself surprisingly more at ease now for the first time in Liberia. With no electricity, phone signal, or means of communication, being cut off forces a mindset of complete presence. Willingly or not, I am discovering discipline in daily practice – controlling the mind and enjoying the little things.

The days revolve around our mission to organize rural communities to protect, document, and govern their land and natural resources. Calling meetings between clan chiefs, community people and traditional elders we seek to establish local ownership over the process. With large-scale land acquisitions(land grabs) on the rise, rural communities’ abilities to retain control over their customary land is being comprised. Building connections with our collaborators on the ground, I am starting to find my feet by stressing the importance of strong organizing practices, dedicated workplans, and a commitment to the land – and the People.

But operating in the cut means being flexible to the schedule of farmers. Between community meetings there is plenty of time to read, write, and explore. There are also the lively debates that rage between our teammates. Sitting under a magnanimous mango tree or thatch-roofed kitchen the loud, spirited – and sometimes, heated – discussions are endless. We cover nearly everything: competing conceptions of love, the impact of colonialism on Africa (and India), and War.

It helps that I have picked up enough Liberian English to sharpen my arguments. Our banter reflects the diversity of our life experiences. The phrases and colloquialisms roll off the tip of my tongue as I joke with friends and strangers alike with an ease built up over the past six months.

Deep in the cut, the adventure don’t seem to stop either. Like the other day when our jeep’s wheels fell through a bridge, getting stuck for hours. Or the night when a giant scorpion scurried in our midst sending grown men screaming to go home. And the mice that occasionally fall on top of me from the thatch-roofs while I sleep.

Despite my awkward screams in the night, I have grown accustomed to the environment, using the generous spaces of time for self-reflection and self-improvement projects. There is nothing like fresh pineapple or coconut on a blistering day. And while I do not eat everything around, I can devour fried plantains cooked with pepper and ginger, and swallow fufu until my stomach is satisfied.

Making a conscious effort to bond and build relationships with community members has added color and context to the journey. Sometimes I can’t help but smile and shake my head at the scenes and stories playing out in front of me. But as each day passes it lets me know that I am growing with it.

Half-way into my time in Liberia I have found a new sense of comfort. While acknowledging the fragility of this feeling, there is a familiarity between me and the people and the trees. Deep down I understand that each moment I spend in the bush I am building strength.  Strength that will not only see me through the rest of this journey, but will inform everything to come after. The releasing tension in a handshake culminating in a snap of fingers – the ubiquitous Liberian greeting – helps put the pieces together inside of me. Finding their way I can sense they are cementing lessons learned – and in the process forming the foundation of something like  greatness.