Nature – Page 31 – ABOUT ELEPHANTS

Morula

Posted on January 7, 2012February 20, 2012 by Cheryl Merrill

An excerpt from my book:

Morula stands square on. Her cobbled forehead broadens from her nose upward in a triangular shape. Her eyes are nearly hidden, tucked behind the curve of her forehead. She raises her head to focus on me. She’s motionless, concentrating. I can’t even hear her breathing.

I have this odd feeling that she wants me to like her as much as I want her to like me.

I take the lens cap from my camera and glimpse a tiny reflection of myself in its mirror. Is this what she sees – another one of those small humans, with its odd aura of scents? Does she see details: my hat, my camera, my idiotic grin?

The top of a tree is visible over her right shoulder, as if she has a giant corsage tucked behind her ear. Short bristles like an old man’s buzz cut outline the top of her head.

Because of the way she’s standing, ears flattened against her shoulders, Morula seems slim, her skull almost hollowed. The tip of her trunk flops over itself in a loose coil and points straight down like a curved arrow. It begins to twitch in an irregular rhythm. I take a goofy photograph of Morula – like she’s bored and playing with the only thing at hand – her trunk.

Behind us, around us, for 360 degrees, the Botswana landscape surrounds us. And neither one of us pays it a bit of attention.

Africa, Elephants, Thembi, Uncategorized

Thembi

Posted on January 6, 2012February 20, 2012 by Cheryl Merrill

An excerpt from my book:

With a low throaty rumble MmmmRRRRRrrrrrr, his own elephant greeting, Doug slips under Thembi’s jaw and stands by her side. He reaches up and strokes the skin just in front of her ear.

“Steady, Thembi,” he says, “you’re a pretty girl, aren’t you Thembi?” He pronounces her

name “Tem-bee.”

She nods Yes. Later I will learn Thembi always nods Yes at the word “pretty.” But she is a beautiful elephant, all her proportions flawless. And Thembi knows she is pretty. She holds herself perfectly still in half-profile, the way beautiful women do all over the world when under regard by an admiring eye.

But her pose does not last long. She turns her attention to a pile of mopane branches. She picks up a single branch, strips its bark and stuffs the curled peelings into her mouth. Thembi is after the sweet, green inner bark of the smaller branches. Dessert first, the main course later.

Africa, Elephants, Jabu, Travel

Jabu

Posted on January 5, 2012February 20, 2012 by Cheryl Merrill

An excerpt from my book:

There is nothing like him on earth. His head alone is more immense than an entire gorilla. Jabu is one hundred times larger than I am. His trunk is larger than I am. A single leg is larger than I am. He fills my entire range of vision.

He reaches out with his trunk and rests it on the ground in front of my boots. The tip of it lifts, opens, inhales my scent.

Do you recognize her, Jabu?” Sandi asks him. Gently he swings his trunk to tap lightly against Sandi’s shoulder bag.

What’s in there?” I ask.

Sandi shows me a little mound of pellets cupped in her hand. “Pressed alfalfa, wheat bran, salt, ground corn and sunflower hulls.” Elephant candy, immediately vacuumed into Jabu’s trunk and transferred to his mouth.

Jabu turns his head toward me. And You?

I hold out empty hands. His trunk hovers over them for less than a second and then drops down to rest near my feet. As I run my fingers along his warm tusk he snorts out a huge exhale, CHUFFFFFffffffff.

Africa, Doug, Elephants, Jabu, Sandi, Thembi, Writing

The Elephants Who Accepted Me as Part of Their Herd

Posted on January 3, 2012April 28, 2012 by Cheryl Merrill

An excerpt from my book:

Jabu, Morula and Thembi live in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. I don’t need radio collars or binoculars or even 4-wheel drive vehicles to study them. They are companions, who allow me to walk alongside them, close as an eyelash. Adopted as orphans from culling operations by Doug and Sandi Groves, they spend their days as most wild elephants do: strolling and eating. But they are also willing ambassadors between the elephant world and the human world.

Walk with me. Stroll with three unfettered and unfenced elephants in a world where the thin-skinned sky is a bare reminder that the earth is covered with air, where clouds stampede as if chased by lions – a world without asphalt, without cell phones, without that strange human notion of time.

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