I think Elephant was the one for me. The one out of the “Big Five” that I really wanted to see. I was not disappointed. And when I saw them out on that vast African reserve of Masai Mara I felt many things: awe, wonder, excitement, and a sense of such appreciation because I could view them in the habitat they belonged in. I was in their homeland, their territory, and it just felt so right. It was endless, their terrain. Every direction you looked the land met the sky, as if it was an infinite horizon that just went on and on. The same type of feeling when one is out in the middle of an ocean. Neverending!

Elephant is huge, and majestic, and I am sure an eating machine. Every elephant I saw out on the reserve was always eating, either grasses or leaves from the trees. Sometimes I would see an elephant with zebras nearby, or antelopes, impalas, or giraffes. They all appeared to be thriving. The closest we would see them from our jeep was approximately the length of a football field. I was so grateful to have a zoom option on my camera!

My darling Man, Alan, and I, did visit the Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. There were fourteen orphans, from two months to four years. The youngest was named Kipekee, a female elephant calf born May 14, 2025. She had been rescued by the scouts of the Mara Elephant Project. Her mother had been found close to her with several arrow wounds and the mobile Vet Unit had performed surgery trying to save her, but she died the following day. Kipekee was exhausted and malnourished, but with two months behind her at the orphanage she was alive and well. She was thriving, actively playing with the other orphans at the shelter, and I watched as she sucked water out of a barrel with her trunk and splashed it all over her body. She made me laugh out loud! A male who worked at the orphanage was our M/C for the afternoon visit. He told us a few years ago the orphanage held seventy-eight elephant orphans. The numbers have dropped dramatically thanks to anti-poaching laws and the watchful eyes of people with a mission to protect the elephants. He also told us sometimes the baby calves get stuck in mud and a male elephant, a bull, will stay behind at times because the herd must move on. Project members will fly with a helicopter and distract the bull, then bring the baby elephant back to the orphanage.

The rescue center is all about returning the orphans back into the wild where they were born. I was so happy to learn about this practice. When a calf reaches the age of four or five they are taken by a trailer and released out into the reserve. If they come back they are taken back to the orphanage. This is done several times, until the young elephant no longer returns to the staff members who work at the orphan center. The wild elephant herd will take in the orphan and teach him or her how to survive in their natural habitat. Isn’t that wonderful! The human race has known for a long time that elephants are very intelligent. Obviously we can learn from them in many ways.

We had a one hour window to watch and observe the orphans, to listen to our M/C and learn. I watched them play in the dirt with one another. They would lie down at times, luxuriating in that red, powdery dirt, and then sit on their back haunches to get back up. Some of the baby calves came sidling up to the fence which enclosed them. I could reach out and touch their thick, leathery coat. It was all wrinkled and quite hairy. I was surprised by the hair. Each hair was about one to two inches long, black, and scattered all over their body. Their eyelashes are just like in the animated movies: thick and long, what most girls dream of, and no mascara needed thank you very much!

I still think about my time in Africa. It really was an unforgettable trip. A lucky girl I am. I was sitting on the kitchen deck of Our Treehouse yesterday evening and four wild turkeys were walking in the back field. I couldn’t help but admire them. And they, too, were about the length of a football field away. Did I get up and retrieve my camera with the fantastic zoom? I did not. I was daydreaming about elephants. :O)