The Elephants of Botswana: UVM Students Interact With the World

Published February 19, 2008

By Colin Lucas

In the dying light of an African eve, two elephants silhouetted themselves against the backdrop of a dried-up watering hole bordered by mophane forest. The sun disappeared behind the high branches of a single flat-topped acacia tree, the last of its orange glow fighting through the leaves before transforming to purple then blue then darkness.

At this final stage of dusk when everything – the sky, the trees, the earth – seem to calmly breathe but don’t dare to speak, we sat before the creatures where only minutes before they had cast their final shadows.

The larger bull swayed his trunk back and forth across soil that was pockmarked with the footprints of his brethren thenslung it over his shoulders and blew out a volcano of dust, filling the wrinkles of his back and clouding out the nascent starlight. The noise from the trunk was like that of a whale rising to the surface of the waves and expelling water from its blowhole.

More curious about our presence, a younger bull circled around his dusty companion with his trunk raised high sniffing and sensing as if to confirm that there were indeed seven humans sitting on the ground, unprotected, not fifteen feet from where he stood. We were not a threat, he decided in time, yet he continued his curious advance and retreat as if rehearsing dance steps in a one-man show. I thought to myself that I was the one who should be feeling threatened, that I was a fool for choosing to expose myself to the stomping legs of these four-ton beasts. Then I realized they were not beasts at all, that those feet, for all the weight they supported, made no more than a whisper in the dust with each step; and I was calm again. I somehow knew they would not charge; and they didn’t, not on this night.

The light receded further, making the thick creases on their trunks indistinguishable. The only remaining contrast on the elephants’ bodies was the ivory whiteness of their tusks against the blackness of their bodies, outlined before us in charcoal on the horizon. For a quarter of an hour no one spoke a word, this due not entirely to the fear of disturbing the elephants and being trampled, although fear did play a part in the silence for some. To speak would have been to send a ruinous spear through the heart of the serenity that defined this scene we were witnessing, partaking in.

By ceasing to disturb the sounds of the wild, human silence can unlock the chorus of nature. In this instant, free of human interruption, the only sounds were the blowing of dust, the flapping of ears, the deep, rumbling groans emanating from the giants before us.

To the elephants, our presence was detected but inconsequential. And while I did not give any audible signs as to my presence save for the thumping of my heart, I have never been so intensely engulfed in a single moment in my lifetime. Just as silently as their feet touched the earth and the day turned to night, the elephants trotted off across the dusty expanse, vanishing into darkness just beyond that solitary acacia tree.

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