Elephant Song

Recently, my husband and I were at a library book sale and walking through the aisles of used books, a title jumped out at me.  Elephant Song.  The title alone enticed me to add the book to my already bulging $5 sack of books. The cover photo and jacket synopsis did the rest.  The book was added to my stack of "must reads". 

Elephant Song by Wilbur Smith is an historical suspense novel taking place in Zimbabwe and London.  The book opens with a deeply disturbing and graphic description of the culling or slaughter of a herd of fifty elephant in the Chiwewe National Park of Zimbabwe. 

Since I visited Zimbabwe's Hwange National park in the late 1990's and saw several herds of elephant of this size, the opening events of  Elephant Song was even more appalling to me. Smith's writing is gripping and visual.  The reader becomes part of that unholy event. 

The opening chapter of Elephant Song brought back so many vivid memories of my visit to Hwange National Park and Zimbabwe in general.  What a life changing experience it was!

The Animals of a Pan

Hwange National Park, near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe was where I learned that the word, "pan", had several different meanings.  In that part of Africa, it is understood that a "pan" is a watering hole for animals.  During that drought-stricken summer I was in Zimbabwe, locating a pan that was not a dried circle of mud was a challenge. 

Leaving the our lodge early one morning, with our driver negotiating the nearly non-existent roads or choosing instead to go cross country bumping over dry and dusty terrain, we were on the quest to find a watering hole that actually had water.  Finding that treasure would mean we would see animals--animals of all kind and description--animals I had seen only in zoos prior to this African adventure. 

Hwange National Park had a system to help out in the years of drought when the watering holes became drier and drier and animals had to walk further and further for water.  In this huge national park, there were several wells which supplied water via pumps to a select number of pans.  It is for these pans that our driver headed.  However, too often we found that the machinery was not well maintained resulting in yet another dry pan. 

On our trek between pans, though, we did see animals and a lot of them--from giraffe eating away on the tops of acacia trees and graceful gazelle to scampering baboons and wandering zebra.  Oh, and did I mention huge herds of elephant? 

But it was at the pan that the wildlife congregated.

A giraffe bent in half with legs splayed and neck reaching to the water far below

A massive crocodile pulling itself through the soggy mud bank

A mischievous baboon cavorting about

A herd of zebra creating a dizzying black and white pattern

Two ostrich primping their feathers

The nostrils of a hippo appearing in the middle of the pool

Birds and more birds


And, splashing and trumpeting -- those most majestic of all beasts -- elephants! 

A Kanga and a Roo too?

Since this blog title also includes the word, "kangaroo", I guess it is time I added a "moment that made me smile" that involved that interesting creature.  Since I grew up with a stuffed animal kangaroo and her joey, that we named Kanga and Roo, I have always been fascinated with this animal and had hoped one day to see a mother with her joey in "real life" shall we say.

Yes, I was in Australia when I had my "kangaroo encounter".  The kangaroo that added to my "smile list" was observed in a wildlife park in Sydney.  She was an average-sized docile looking creature in the midst of dozens of other fellow kangaroos hopping about a large grassy enclosure.  What caught my attention, though, was her pouch.

Kangaroo with her joey

Something in it was moving!  Ah yes, she had a joey with her.  As I stood there fascinated by the movements of her pouch--like a watching a punching bag being punched from the inside out--suddenly not the head appeared of this tiny kangaroo but its two back legs!

Blissfully unaware of the stir she and her joey had created for the onlookers-- with the tiny legs of her joey sticking straight up like forks out of her pouch--Kanga, with Roo happily ensconsed in its warm and cozy home, bounded off in picturesque springs.