An Elephant in the Room
- Details
- Written November 2020
I was a scout in the 19th Port E;izabeth (Salvation Army) troop, wearing various badges and the green and yellow shoulder knot of the Fox Patrol with pride. But I wasn't too keen on the Eastern Cape's regional badge - a dull grey elephant. I'd have preferred the bright orange aloe of the Border region in nearby East London. Presumably ours was because the Addo Elephant Park was just a few miles from us. But it was only in retirement, when we had time to explore places we'd rushed past in the busyness of life that I got to see its herds.
But that was not the first time we’d seen these huge but kindly animals. There'd been opportunities elsewhere, as in Zambia in the 70s, and especially in the Luangwa Game Park, where we hired a couple of riverside huts for a week. One evening Margaret shooed an elephant standing between the huts one evening. He trumpeted, flapped his ears and moved off, defeated. The children were safe. The story lives on. It’s become a family legend. True, of course.
Rex Wong Too was a New Zealander of Chinese descent serving at the Chikankata Hospital as laboratory technician in the 70s. A gifted artist, we persuaded him to do a mural for the children's ward. He chose the animals queuing for the ark. I used to joke about what was wrong with each of them. The giraffes had high blood pressure (they needed it to get the blood all the way up their long necks), the lechwes (a local antelope) had tuberculosis (like badgers in this country) and the elephants weak from potassium deficiency (that's why they were always gouging the bark of the baobab/cream of tartar tree). Even if they were unwell they all survived the flood and the five or so months of lockdown in Noah's ark. Somebody must have looked after them.
We'd met up with elephants in India, some logging in the forests of the south, others ceremonially dressed, as was one parading through the streets of Madras advertising the inaugural BA flight to the city. I wonder whether he'll be out when they resume flights after lockdown days are over. But there was also the early morning ride for the family on a couple in the Mudumalai Reserve in the Nilgiri Hills near André’s school. He and Catherine still joke about the aroma wafting out of the dung freshly delivered by our elephant ahead of them.
We paid a few short visits to game parks during our visits to South Africa in retirement: Kruger, Imfolosi, Mkuze, Tembe. Margaret was always keen to see the wild-life. Was she on the lookout for her elephant? But never again did she need to shoo one away. When she arrived in room nine of the nursing home, Willett House, there was one waiting for her, left from the previous occupant.
Please forgive these very personal memories. They say an elephant never forgets. Well I do, but times like these do give us opportunities to remember and savour the past. I hope you're doing the same.
And what of the future? Do we worry about that? It was Kenyan theologian, John S Mbiti who, in his book African Religions and Philosophy, pointed out that many traditional African languages had no future tense. Everything moves into the past, they'd say. And that's true. But I'm sure you agree - living for the present, for today, is what's most important.
And now that I come to think of it, that scouts' badge wasn't that bad after all.
Enjoy the week ahead. It will soon be in the past. Keep cheerful, everyone. Best wishes to all.
April 2020