In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from
college. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant
standing with one leg raised in the air.
The elephant seemed distressed so Mbembe approached it very carefully.
He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot, and found a
large thorn deeply embedded in it.
As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out with
his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look on its
face, stared at him. For several tense moments Mbembe stood frozen,
thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant
trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.
Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day. Twenty
years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son. As they
approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked
over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull
elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot off the ground, then
put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly,
all the while staring at the man.
Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this
was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the
railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the
elephant and stared back in wonder. Suddenly the elephant trumpeted
again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man's legs and swung him
wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.
Probably wasn't the same elephant.
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