We're Perfectly Safe, No?

Continuing to absorb the tourist gaze.


Becoming rather fascinated at how elephants are sometimes perceived.


We fly around the country in small planes.




Shew there is a lot of still uninhabited indiginous forest down there.






Zambia population around 10 million.



We encounter lots of elephants around the various camps of course.


Through the tent gauze






From luxury interiors





From the bedroom.





From the bed.

In yr. face.

OK I wont go on. I sense a perverse fascination with interiors here.

Actually I will go on a bit more if you dont mind too much:


From the game viewing vehicle

From the boat


Well OK but we did.


Include the lovely 'encounter' some days back.





Where it really doesnt matter a toss if you are looking AT your camera or DOWN your camera instead of watching out for your butt.


Include encountering wild camp elephants on the path to your chalet. Where surprise is expressed at the amount of caution exercised. Duh?


Lots of (protected) familiarity around elephants.


Which may account for the general feeling of safety that the profs have for elephants when they start their walking safari. Single file that's it chaps. Safer that way - whisper only please. Thanks.

I dunno, maybe the newly refurbished, over-designed lodge had something to do with it.




When I wake, I, for one, think I fell asleep by mistake in the furniture section of a shopping mall instead of the bush.  Not knocking it - a little astral travel and location confusion never hurts. Quite nice really.

However.


Um, by the way excuse me, aren't these grave markers from Mali? I notice a lot of hotels use them as decoration.

Maybe not.

Never mind.

Anyway. 

Perhaps it was the shopping mall look-alike habitat that has lulled them into pavement mode.

Maybe that's the reason that the dodgy elephant on the walk today didnt register with the profs.

A false sense of security? A bit of relaxed porridge brain?

Admittedly the safety briefing before the walk wasn't up to scratch – a bit vague.

But when the young bull twenty or so meters away upwind gets our scent and lifts his trunk up (just just like the good ol' big tame Danny the other day) … instead of the normal adreneline and 'what's the plan?' ... maybe the thought is;

“already got that photo. Oh what the hell I'll just take another. Right. Got that. What's next. No more need to look”).

Maybe.

Because when the young bull suddenly remembers that he has a Very Important Appointment somewhere directly behind us and begins walking at speed in our direction, in a Very Straight Line with the possibility of T-boning our single file ...

They dont even NOTICE.



What does it mean? Life through a lens? Only?


Not sure but I am puzzled.

I think I would be cautious on foot at that distance with a bear. Dont they bite too?

I am not even going to start thinking about elephants and grief in many lives. Its serious stuff, they are dangerous and wild. Doesnt anyone believe this?


Well, obviously not here.


We know they share the same attachment systems as us - experience grief and loss and even post-traumatic stress which can cause violent behaviour. This is especially so for the offspring and siblings of family groups that have been slaughtered or culled with disregard for family and alliances. 

That would be here. In elephant living memory. Why shouldn't even a bull become pissed off with us? They do that often enough to claim many villagers lives each year - especially from bicycles. Irrational, violent killings.

Wow - elephants and people – we got big emotional history together thats for sure.

All pics are mine even the really bad ones.