The Gentle Giant

I am very glad to be writing this story for all of you myself rather than my lead instructor, Dr. Wilson, telling the story of my tragic death in Puros, Namibia. I think a first-hand account is better than a pieced together story anyway. So perhaps I made it out alive for the sake of this story.
At around 6am on Monday 6/28, our camp was awoken by the sound of an elephant eating the leaves from the Mustard trees that surrounded our campsite. The elephant slowly made his way through the campsite while everyone stayed in their tents quietly. A group of girls were sleeping under a tree about 3m from where the elephant entered the camp. As soon as the elephant was out of site behind one of our trucks I entered the camp and sat quietly with the girls to watch it eating. It was a really exciting way to start the day. The elephant soon left and everyone slowly emerged from their tents while I gathered my daypack together for my usual morning hike.

While I was off on my hike, most people stayed arond the camp to eat breakfast and take showers. After a little while the people in the camp heard a loud trumpet in the distance. This spooked one of our professors, who quickly hurried back to camp while the others wondered what had caused the commotion. Shortly later, the answer came in the form of me staggering into camp with blood dripping from between my eyes and a distant look on my face.

This day I decided to expore the other parts of the campsite to see how many more elephants there were. I found a large bull feeding on a Mustard tree at the opposite end of our campsite. I slowly approached him and he stopped eating to check me out. I stayed a good distance away from him and sat down under the shade of a tree to write in my journal and watch him eat. He didnt' seem to mind because he went right back to eating. It was so cool to watch this enormous animal tear the branches of the tree with his trunk and shovel them into his mouth. I was so big, yet so slow and careful with how he ate. I heard a rustling in the distance to my left but I decided to ignore it while I wrote in my journal. After about 20 minutes I finished writing and decided to check out the noise to my left. The elephant in front of me was still happily eating and didn't notice me leave. I walked outside of the camp into a sandy area with sparse vegetation. I walked between a few shrubs and decided that whatever made the sounds that I heard had left so I turned around and began to walk to where I was sitting earlier with the elephant. As I came around a shrub, the elephant that I was watching was now moving towards me and he was only 30 meters away. I stayed close to the bush and didn't move, hoping he would just continue on his way and take no notice of me. He stepped to his left and then turned to face me, letting out an earth-vibrating trumpet and charged toward me a few meters. This freaked me out so I backed up with my hands to my side showing that I see he's upset and I'm moving out of the way. He wasn't satisfied with this so he let out another trumpet, waved his ears, and took off on a full charge directly at me. I immediately turned around and sprinted as fast as I could across the sand. My shoes sunk in with every step so I didn't take long strides, but rather quickly shuttled across the sand. Although, I blacked out for most of this, I remember thinking my only chance was to find cover in one of the dense patches of vegetation. The problem was that the closest one was about 50 meters away and to my side so the elephant would be able to close in on me easier. I had no other options so I ran in that direction. I dropped my camera while I was running and thought for a second to pick it up but I could feel the elephant's footsteps on the ground and in my chest so I let it go. The vibration in my chest grew harder and harder as I came to the edge of the bush and dove in head first. For those of you unaccustomed to the vegetation in the desert, I'll give you a description of just one of the trees in this "safety zone" that I found. The Acacia erioloba tree is like the Mesquite in the southwest, only it's thorns are about 2 inches long and they cover the entire tree from trunk to the tip of each branch. The bush I dove into was very similar - it had thorns in place of leaves. As soon as my head touched the bush, my had was ripped off my head and I didn't quite land on the ground. I scrambled and dug my hands into the sand and began scurrying through the branches and thorns. The image that I had in my head was of my being drug out of the bush by the elephant's trunk. After just a few seconds of struggling I made it far enough into the cover to a place where I felt safe enough to stop without the chance of the elephant charging through partway after me. This was the moment I regained my awareness of what was going on. My heart was pounding, my whole body trembling, and I was breathing so loud that I was afraid the monster would hear me and try to come in after me. A moment later, I watched the profile view of the elephant as he calmly walked in front of the bushes away. I waited for a few minutes and then slowly made my way out of the cover. I peered out of the bushes and listened but saw and heard nothing. I looked down at the ground and saw 4 enormous prints that slid into the edge of the bush. I was able to find my camera in the sand and it took several hours to get it working again. I was still shaken from the attack but wanted to get back to the safety of our camp so I hurried back, all the while looking over my shoulder for elephants preparing to ambush me.
It turns out that elephants are just plain assholes. If you get in their path, they use their size as an excuse for the right of way. Tourists are trampled every year by this mistake. Elephants will either charge or fake-charge but it is often difficult to decipher the two. I was fortunate to receive both from my elephant. It is possilbe to stand your ground and wave your arms, yelling and the elphant may back away but he may also continue charging. I don't think I had much of an option so maybe my next story will be of me standing beneath the trembling legs of a terrified elephant. Regardless, with any near-death experience you are rewarded with a new sense of life and I feel fortunate for this. Although this is not my first near-death experience, it is the closest I have ever felt to it. I felt the rays of the sun a little brighter that day and more appreciation for the company of my fellow travelers.