He arrived bearing gifts – wonderful gifts. There was chocolate, wine and sweet chilli sauce. But first there was Amarula (South Africa’s equivalent of Baileys), made with the sweet fruit of the marula tree so loved by elephants. There were not one but two bottles of this delectable liquid wonder! Clearly he’d read my book and thoughtfully remembered my hankerings. I liked him already.
In the still warmth of a Hwange winter’s day, we ventured out together on an Ivory Lodge game-drive vehicle. As is required, he’d requested my company at the time of making his lodge booking…. ‘Shhhhhhit!’ I glanced around at this South African gentleman seated behind me, trying to judge the tone of this muted outburst. We were parked within a cathedral of towering trees – known as Acacia Grove – on the Hwange Estate, and I’d just called to mother Eileen, and offspring Eumundi, Eketahuna and Echo. Was that perhaps ‘Shhhhhhit! These elephants are actually responding to their names!’ But then again, maybe it was more like ‘Shhhhhhit! These elephants are now coming straight for us!’…
Whatever it was, he wriggled his rump around a little bit but soon relaxed, clicking away with his camera. He was visibly taken aback. So long as I remained vigilant, with these friendly ‘E’ family pachyderms so near, there was nothing to fear. There are two things that I’m always sure to stay alert to whenever the elephants are so close – their eyes, and their subtle body language. I’ve never seen a more beautiful eye than that of a relaxed, free-roaming elephant. When the sunlight hits it just so, it takes on the colour of the ocean. Beautiful, as only Mother Nature is capable of. Sitting so near and gazing up through implausibly long eyelashes, you feel as if you could swim – and drown – within the depths of that eye. It does, however, take on a completely different look when the elephant is ill-at-ease. As for body language, I keep a close eye on the tilt of the head, the curvature of the ears, the positioning of the tail. And the legs … when the back ones are crossed, as they so often are here (see third photo), you know you’re beside one particularly relaxed jumbo! Just one metre away from us, Eileen crossed her back legs and dozed.
I’ve known Eileen’s tuskless daughter, Echo, since she was just a youngster. With a distinctive hole in the top outer edge of her left ear, she’s currently the only tuskless elephant in the extended ‘E’ family (numbering more than 30) – which is an odd thing. I don’t know who her father is – since in macho male style, all male elephants mate and then disappear! – although I assume there’s a tuskless gene somewhere within his natal family. (He, though, would not be tuskless himself, since I’ve never encountered a tuskless male here.) Echo is currently pregnant for the first time. This is evidenced by her growing breasts which, unlike those of humans, only develop during the course of an elephant’s first pregnancy. I imagine that she’ll give birth next year, in what will be her 12th year – perhaps to a tuskless calf. Echo is the elder sister of Eketahuna, and also of Eumundi who is now nearly three-and-a-half years old. Given Eumundi’s age, mother Eileen will likely give birth again around the same time as her daughter; a calving interval of roughly four years being the norm here. Already I wonder what these two new additions might be called.
Eileen’s immediate family all have names that remind me of a happy past: I have a girlfriend named Eileen. She lives in New Zealand – where I too once lived – where Eketahuna is the name of a small rural town. Together we visited the Eumundi markets in Australia, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. And so Eileen, Eketahuna and Eumundi became ‘E’ family elephants! Echo was a little different. Her name came from an elephant in Amboseli National Park in Kenya, immortalised by the BBC documentary titled Echo of the Elephants. Special elephants, with special names.
‘What’s your best memory?’ I asked the South African at the end of his stay. He’d met and mingled with quite a few different Presidential families – with some unforgettable encounters – yet he didn’t need time to think. ‘That very first encounter,’ he said, ‘with Eileen and her offspring.’
It was the first time he had gazed into the eye of one of Hwange’s Presidential elephants.
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