When I arrived at andBeyond Xaranna, Botswana there was much debate in the staff village over where I would sleep. A tent in the staff village had been set up but without a charging point for my camera equipment, that option was not feasible. Luckily, I ended up in a little house to myself. Although I think the tent would have been an adventure, I was silently grateful to at least have ended up with a proper shower. A month later, I would discover just how grateful I would be.
One day in July, after an evening drive consisting of many vehicle issues, including, but not limited to, leaking knuckle joints and a faulty starter motor, Barden and I were forced to take the morning off and let the in-house mechanic work his magic. Although we were frustrated and disappointed, in hindsight, we realised we needed the rest. After two and a half months of being in the field for an average of ten hours a day, one morning off wasn’t going to hurt.
My internal clock, as usual, had woken me at an early hour and so I lay in a daze, enjoying the birdsong that seeped into my consciousness. The jackalberry trees around my house were laden with fruit so species such as Meves’s Starlings, Meyer’s Parrots and African Green Pigeons gathered there to reap the rewards before the baboons took all the fruit for themselves. Many animals enjoy these sugary treats, including humans, and some mammal species of the larger variety. Through the cacophony that had erupted beyond the thin walls, there was also a sound I could not put my finger on in my drowsy state.
“Crash!” I was startled by an enormous weight being flung against my house. The windows rattled in the frames and the ceiling began to creek. Had there not been a wall, my head would have been the target. The guide in me took over and I raced outside to the deck to investigate.
The tent next door was tattered canvas, scattered amongst the fallen fruits, with poles contorted at odd angles. On top of the destruction stood the giant that had created the chaos, an elephant bull. After recovering from the shock, it dawned on me why he had done it. He too wanted the jackalberries and, not able to reach the branches too high even for a beast of his stature, his next option was the fruit on the ground dislodged by the feasting birds. Once he had scoured the ground surrounding the tent and discovering that nobody was home, he flipped the whole thing over in search of berries beneath it. With the Delta still in the clutches of the dry season, these fruits hold an array of nutrients pertinent to his survival so I could hardly blame him.
I tried my best to shoo him off by shouting and waving, but he was clearly used to staff chasing him away from their housing. He remained unphased to the point where he began approaching my deck. I stayed rooted to the spot, as my training had taught me, but my heart leaped into my mouth once I realised how close he was willing to get. With the Okavango Delta being a protected area, there are no permanent structures that could irrevocably damage the environment, and so all the staff housing is built from light weight materials. The elephant approached as though he was aware of this and began his attack on my roof.
“Hey! Stop that!” I shouted, feeling utterly foolish. “Please don’t destroy my house,” I pleaded, but of course he did not listen. He reached his muscular trunk above my head, ironing out his wrinkly skin as he stretched on his tip toes over the corrugated iron. I could hear the tip of his trunk dragging along and the metal bending as he laid all his weight onto the sheet of iron. In one swift motion he wrenched his trunk towards his body and as it slid off the roof (feeling to me as though it barely missed the top of my head), a shower of berries came tumbling over my shoulders, getting stuck in my hair. I could not resist a giggle. There I was, standing face to face with the gentle giant of the African bush. In my mind, I was aware of what he could do, but I knew better than to be fearful. He just wanted breakfast.
I slowly and quietly backed away from his treasures and into the doorway of my now slightly lopsided house and watched as he gingerly searched the deck with his keen sense of smell, picking up individual fruits and popping them onto his tongue. Once he could find no more, he strolled away from the scene of his crime, but not without a final lift and shake of the wrecked tent to double check that he had not left any tasty morsels behind.
You never know what you will encounter day to day when living in these wild places, but with experience comes knowledge, and I am so privileged to call these places my home.
years