Elephants and the Baboon Debacle

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Get a coffee.  Or a glass of wine.  This one could be a long one reader, and I hope that it will give you a smile, or perhaps a laugh.  It's not my sole purpose in this blogging, but this day ended with another "Pre-Africa Deb may not have been able to....." that may cause your lips to move in a smiley position!

But first, "You are welcome."  This typical, heartfelt greeting came from our park ranger guide, Jacob, this morning as we arrived for our "walking safari" of Mole National Park.  "Thank you," we all reply and hope that today will be luckier in terms of seeing some wildlife, particularly the elusive elephants we didn't see on the jeep safari yesterday afternoon.  Jacob tells us that we will spend the next two hours walking and that we will see bush buck, antelope, baboons and, if we are LUCKY, elephants.  Great.  Lucky.  We weren't really lucky last night.  What changed?  OK, wait, we are positive.  Let's go Jacob, go find those elephants!  Well, 15 minutes later guess what?

A big bull savannah elephant, just happily munching on leaves, knocking down trees and otherwise ignoring the five of us who were walking all around and snapping pictures.  Now, I'm not sure of the proper distance one should keep from an elephant in the wild, but I am fairly sure that Jacob was potentially putting us a little closer than that to get the ultimate photo op.  He was an awesome guide, a good eye for photography and understood what we were looking for.  At one point someone mentioned that the broken tusk was kind of unattractive, Jacob walked us around the elephant until we were able to shoot his "good side" (seriously, yes, his good side, the one with the full tusk).

That's the water bill issue!

We followed this big guy for about 15 minutes, Jacob clearly knew about his habits.  We watched as he walked through the residences for staff of Mole, and then watched in amazement as he stopped for a little refreshment before carrying on.  Most of the villages that we have seen that have access to water on site have giant containers of water.  Mole staff quarters are no different.  Except....

Finally Jacob told the group of us, "let's go find some more elephants."  You didn't have to tellustwice, so we followed him like a herd of warthogs through the savannah, crossing over grassy areas, tree stump bridges and then we came upon a dry river bed.  It was almost melodramatic when Jacob stopped and just stood looking at the ground.  We all waited with bated breath....what could he be looking at???  "We will go this way," he said (pointing the direction we should take).  "That way there is a fresh kill, either a hyena or a lion."  He pointed out the drag marks in the dirt, and the fresh blood.  We all nodded, let's go the opposite way of a potentially protective large mammal eating his dinner.  Yup, we agree Jacob, let's go thataway.

Jacob finds us another elephant

  Once we were free from the danger of getting eaten, or mistaken as potential rivals for food, Jacob set out to find us another elephant.  He didn't disappoint!  I will have to try to upload the video of this one when I get back to regular internet speed, but Jacob outdid himself finding this guy hanging out at a watering hole.  So much fun, we must have spent the better part of an hour watching the elephant either  shallow dive or belly flop in the water (depends on how accurate you want the verbiage, suffice it to say this elephant's entrance into the water is too funny!)

It was a wonderful morning walk through Mole, we saw so much and were very grateful to have Jacob as a guide.  The photos and video that I got are going to be the kind of memories that I will treasure forever.  All of us that are here in Ghana agree that we needed this weekend, it was really a respite from the constant reminders of what life is like here in Ghana for so many people.  I feel blessed to have been able to move away from the sights, sounds and smells of every day Ghanaian life for a couple of precious days, and thankful for the new friends that I have been able to share it with.

Liam, me, Jacob, Nancy and Tracey at the end of our safari


BONUS BLOG EDITION:  THE BABOON DEBACLE

And you thought you were done reading.  You are going to regret the day that you decided to humour me and read this occasionally!  This is going to read like a play so that you can really get into it.  The italicized words are THOUGHTS, so the character (me or Nancy) is thinking but not speaking.  The (bracketed) words are meant to help you envision what is actually going on.  The up and down normal words are the description of setting.  Hope you enjoy, and it is worth it at "The End".

Standing on the front sidewalk by our rooms, and Nancy is sitting on the porch dutifully doing the Kete Krachi report while I take a break.  Out of the corner of my eye I catch a movement.  Now, in Edmonton that could mean a car, a dog, perhaps a neighbour driving a car and walking a dog.  BUT in Africa it could also mean that there is a baboon running towards me.

Deb:  Hey.  That's a baboon.  Damn.  Camera is inside and Sandy would be like "why didn't you have the camera?"  Wonder if it's bad to cross in front of him, he's coming pretty fast.  Must be scared.
Nancy:  OMG, it's a baboon.  I wonder if they bite?
(Baboon stops in front of Nancy, reaches out to grab her knapsack containing her passport and other important items)
Deb:  HEY!!!!
(Baboon let's go of said bag and grabs Nancy's "Burt's Bees Moisture Wipes" packet sitting on the porch)
Nancy:  HEY!!!
(Baboon looks at Nancy and throws the wipes to the ground.  Kind of like a little kid.  Then he picks up a black plastic bag containing Nancy's recent craft store purchases and makes a break for it.  Debbie breaks into a run after him.)
Debbie:  HEY!!!  STOP!!!  Come back here, get back here!
Nancy:  Why is Debbie chasing a baboon and yelling?
Debbie:  Why is Nancy still sitting on the porch when this baboon has 80 GHc worth of stuff she just bought?  DROP IT!! COME BACK HERE!
Nancy:  Why would Debbie chase a baboon to get back a bag of garbage?
(Baboon stops to admire his ill-gotten gains as I close in on him still yelling and probably looking like a fool waiving my arms around)
Debbie:  GIVE THAT BACK NOW!!!
Nancy:  This is the funniest thing I have seen all week, I still cannot figure out why she wants that garbage bag so bad.
Debbie:  Why is Nancy still sitting there?  And why does she look like she is laughing?
(Baboon decides at this point after rifling through the bag that there is no food in it.  Either that or the screaming, flailing white person is a little too much for him and he drops the bag and runs off.)
Debbie:  Pre-Africa Deb wouldn't have chased a baboon.  Or at least wouldn't have won.  Triumph!  And why is Nancy still sitting there?
Nancy:  Oh shit, that's my stuff from the craft store!

THE END

Texts with Sandy after this:

Deb:  "A baboon stole Nancy's bag today."

Sandy:  Oh!  Did she lose anything?

Deb:  Nope I chased it down.  That bugger was fast.

Sandy:  Wow, who is this woman?  I like her!