MOMENTS IN TIME
In the bush and there I was bingeing a daily soap opera. With its irresistible storylines and convoluted plots, its OTT performances of miniature melodramas, play-play brawls and raging romances fuelled by teen hormones; it had me hooked.
One herd had arrived first, an all-boys club. Then, when a breeding herd appeared, intricate gender politics unfolded. There were tussles between two young lads… you know how they are? Another chap, meanwhile, was trying to arrange a date with a girl. Observing casually, the matriarch seemed to be deciding whether to intervene or let matters run their course. Ultimately she turned her back and let them get on with it.
Accompanying these vignettes were the sonorous vibrations of deep-bass elephant dialogue, the dust rising as huge feet padded across the sand, and some strange ritual involving the twisting and intertwining of trunks. And then the moment of near-panic as a pint-sized calf, still wobbly and so dear on its tiny legs, lost its footing, slipped and fell into shallow mud at the waterʼs edge.
The minor accident caused a rush of attention from every pachyderm present.
Then there were the youngsters playing, cavorting, discovering the world. And the male dominance rituals, thwarted mating attempts, and moments of stillness when elephant pairs stood facing one another, foreheads touching, as if intimately exchanging ideas, the tenderness inescapably human. All of it amounted to a riveting show that had put my afternoon nap on hold.
I was on the big, long, wide-open terrace facing the waterhole at Jamala Madikwe. Itʼs among the smartest
