Bathing an Elephant in Sri Lanka-Dreams Do Come True

           











     I had an extremely vivid dream several months before planning a trip to Asia. In it, I was bathing an elephant in a river in Sri Lanka. The dream was detailed down to the trousers--a pair of Capri khakis with a North Face logo on the pocket. After the dream I went on an elephant washing trouser hunt and found the exact trousers in my dream at my local REI store. Six months later we were on a train to an elephant orphanage in Pinewella Sri Lanka. 

     At the orphanage, one can stroke baby elephants while they are bottle-fed by volunteers. If you look pathetically desperate to hold the bottle yourself, as I did, they let you. Large families and tour groups from Colombo and Kandy arrived throughout the morning to have their picture taken with elephants before piling back into waiting minivans that would take them to the next stop on the tourist trail.

     I wanted more than just a photo. I wanted to live my dream.

     I asked one of the elephant handlers, a mahout, “Where do the elephants bathe?” and he gestured with head and hand in the direction of the exit. Then he proceeded to burst my bubble. “Only mahouts can bathe elephants.”

    I was mystified. "This isn’t like the dream at all," I said to my husband Scott while turning away from the mahout.
     I felt completely deflated. Why would I have such a lifelike dream if it wasn't going to come true? I shrugged off my selfish desire and helped feed one more baby elephant before starting toward the exit. 
     Suddenly, I sensed I wasn’t alone. I turned around to see 85 elephants walking in my direction, but at a much quicker pace than mine. I hightailed it out the exit and watched the elephants come toward me. The elephant in the lead, but apart from the others, was enormous and very old. Two mahouts led him, one on each side, murmuring quiet direction.

     Aw, how sweet, I thought. Those two men are so kind and gentle with that old elephant.

      











     Just before the elephants reached the exit gate, a guard blew a bugle announcing to everyone in bugle range that in a minute a herd of elephants would cross the road to get to the river. Except for one elephant. Instead of heading to the river, the old elephant with the two mahouts turned away from the herd and began walking down the middle of the road.

     As the threesome turned, one of the mahouts looked at me and cocked his head, “Come with us,” he gestured. So I did. I looked for Scott but couldn't see him. I finally spotted him trapped on the other side of a conga line of elephants heading to the river. He took advantage of a gap in the line and cut through the elephants so he could catch up to me.
      Scott was confused. “Tris, What are you doing? Where are you going?” he asked when he reached me.
     “I'm not exactly sure. But I hope I am going with this mahout to bathe this elephant!” Then I asked the mahout, Rajit, through pantomime, “Why doesn't this elephant go with the others?” He indicated that the old elephant was blind and that the place all the other elephants go to get to the river is too steep for the blind elephant to navigate.

     We continued walking down the road until we came to small white bridge and a path that led to the river. I followed the elephant and the mahouts down the path. The elephant stepped carefully into old footprints that formed a ramp made by hundreds of trips down his personal path to the water. 

     At the river the elephant immediately began sucking water up into his trunk and spraying it on his back and over us too. Then the mahout told the elephant to get in the river, which he did.

     “May I get in?” I mimed with giddy with anticipation.
     Rajit motioned that I should wait. Then he told the elephant to lie down in the river, which it did. Then I got in the river.
     The mahout showed me how to scrub the elephant with half a coconut husk. At first I wasn’t scrubbing hard enough but then I remembered how I did it in the dream and I quickly got the hang of it. I scrubbed his whole body. I had to kneel on top of him to reach his back. I washed his tusks, which were incredibly smooth.  I gently stroked his eye lids with my hands. When the mahout asked the elephant to stand up and turn over, he did; and I washed rinsed and repeated on the other side. As I scrubbed, the elephant, relaxed and content, fell asleep in the river.

     I could barely believe what was happening. It was my 50th birthday and I was exactly where I wanted to be doing exactly what I wanted to do. Dreams do come true.

     The next morning I waited in the road outside the orphanage to watch the procession of eighty-five elephants head down to the river. As Rajit turned the blind elephant away from the herd he looked at me and gestured, “Come with us.”

Too Many Rules!

 

Malawi is an itinerary buster. We ate up an entire month camping at various spots along her “calendar lake” so named because Lake Malawi is 365 miles long and 52 miles wide. Every mile is scenic. Across the lake lies Mozambique. The Livingstone Mountains rise sharply up from the shore and remind us of the Napili Coast in Hawaii.

The sand in Malawi is soft and white and the water is clear. The roads are the best we’ve seen – few potholes, scant vehicles, and no spring-busting speed bumps. Even the road up the escarpment to Livingstonia, dubbed by our guide book as “the most exciting road in Africa” for its 20 precariously carved switchbacks, was better maintained than most roads in Uganda or Kenya.

The police are friendly and the children all wave. A woman holds the highest office, President. Billboards proudly proclaim vast areas “Open Defecation Free” and others demand the end to child trafficking. It seems like a country that is doing the right things.

We started thinking there was no good reason to leave Malawi so we extended our visas.

Then the rains that had driven us out of Tanzania caught up to us. Eventually Zambia, South Luangwa in particular, lured us away from Malawi’s pristine beaches and good, cheap gin. But not before our chance meeting with some very cool overlanders, Kirsty and Gareth. I adore them.

Kirsty and Gareth are a year into an expedition from Australia to London in a 1989 Toyota Landcruiser. Not as old as our Landy but charming nonetheless and in much better shape. Kirsty and I discovered we shared the same birthday, happening the very next day. We hugged. We cried. We were home sick. If you are planning an Africa overland trip, their blog is the best of the bunch. Here's Kirsty's post about Malawi and when we met. http://aussieoverlanders.com.au/zambia-malawi/

I had almost forgotten how much I love Zambia. Her charms start at the small border when we ask where we go to pay the road tax and are told, “See the man under the mango tree.” After crossing the border we arrive 15 minutes later in the town of Chipata where there is a Shoprite and a Spar market. So it's Gordon’s Gin and beef stroganoff for dinner. A few hours later we arrive at South Luangwa without a single broken car part, bruise, or speck of dust. The once infamously organ rearranging Chipata-Mfuwe road has been completely paved. The rainy season has just ended. Everything is green and lush. Fluffy clouds make for dramatic photos. It’s not too hot. I am at the Gates of Heaven.

And then we are at Flatdogs, a place we keep coming back to again and again since we first camped on a platform high up in a tree in 2005. Flatdogs has since gone upscale and there is no more camping so we splash out on an en-suite riverside safari tent for 4 nights. Elephants cruise through camp and sometimes stop for a long drink from the pool. Hippos pull up like Colorado River rafts at the shoreline and bellow and wait for dusk – their cue to rise up out of the river and feast on the new shoots of grass that have appeared overnight.

We listen to their rhythmic chomp chomp chomp throughout the night. In the morning I sit on the bank of the Luangwa River, one of my favorite spots on earth, and watch as sunrise turns the colors of the opposite bank from glowing orange to the color of weak hot chocolate. I am in Heaven.

I want my family here. I want them to experience a game drive where they might see the Big Five, or lions sleeping the afternoon away on their backs and elephants browsing unhurriedly because after the rains there is plenty to eat and drink.

I want them to see a leopard in the classic pose, draped over a tree limb with full belly and be lucky enough to see one of the few remaining rhino in the wild. I want them to experience the cold hard stare of a Cape Buffalo.

Then I want them to go on a walk in the bush so they can come to know the Little Five – the ant lion, leopard tortoise, elephant shrew, rhinoceros beetle, and buffalo weaver bird. I want them to learn about all the bushes and trees and bark that provide traditional healing.

If they are really lucky, they’ll see a painted dog or spot a chameleon clinging to a leaf.

Hippos will come to us when we sit around the campfire at night. Chomp chomp chomp, closer and closer until the night watchman shines his torch in their eyes encouraging them to dine further down the bank.

There is still time for my family to come and enjoy Africa with me because the family renting our home have extended their lease. I’m very grateful for that. Now we have time to do more of the things we love. There’s time to visit the orphanage in Zimbabwe that is supported by the efforts of a woman in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now I have time to visit the 93 children who live there and I can send her photos of the new home that will be built with the $34000 she raised during her recent Run For Zimbabwe Orphans. I feel so privileged to be able to do that.

Scott will continue in his endeavor to fly here in Africa. It hasn’t been as easy as we thought for him to find a plane to fly. It’s not how it used to be. We were told that during and just after colonial times, "Every European male seemed to know how to fly and there was access to planes and airfields all over Africa." Such is not the case these days. Now with the extra time, we will be able to return to Dar es Salaam to help a friend finish building her plane in exchange for the chance to fly. I have never seen Scott as happy as he is when he is flying.

These are some of our big picture dreams. The day-to-day in Africa is not so easy. Some days I witness so much struggle that I end up covering my eyes and crying. Young girls carry too-heavy loads of wood or water on their heads. Men push impossibly huge piles of charcoal on bicycles. They aren’t riding the bikes. They are pushing them with all their might while sweat pours off their bodies. Dogs get hit by speeding vehicles and are left to rot on the road. Oxen and donkeys are beaten. “Too much suffering!” I cry regularly.

“You say that almost every day,” says Scott shaking his head. He adds, "In fact, there is a list of 5 or 6 phrases that you say every day."

“You repeat yourself everyday too ya know!” I tell him. Thus we have a weird phrase bingo going.

 According to Scott my list of daily phrases include: 
-"What's that smell?"

-"Don’t park under that tree. Snakes might slither onto the car."

-"Don’t park here. There might be snakes hiding in the tall grass." 

-"If I’m not back in twenty minutes come looking for me. I might be snake-bit."

-"Are there snakes here?" (asked of camp staff.)

-"Look out for that snake (child, goat, chicken, pothole, speed bump, ditch….) in the road!"

Meanwhile I can rely on Scott saying almost every day:

-"Is there a power point available?" (asked of camp staff – Gotta keep that gin cold!)

-"The solar panels are really keeping the fridge nice and cold!"

-"Is the red key on?" (When switched on the red key charges the extra car battery that keeps the fridge cold. This spare battery lives under my seat.)

-"When we get to camp I’m going to charge up the rechargeable batteries for the headlamps (camera, computers, spotlight…)"

And last but not least,

-"Too many rules!" Bemoaned head in hands after I’ve uttered any one of my six bingo phrases.

In a year Scott and I have learned a lot about each other. I’ve learned that he is beyond exceptional at keeping batteries charged and gin cold and that he is untidy.

He has learned that I have too many rules about snakes and parking.

Scott and Tris

South Luangwa, Zambia

                                                  Too many rules, but I love you anyway.

                                                    On the banks of the Luangwa River

                                      Imprint of sleeping elephant seen on a guided bush walk

                                            Sleepy lionesses too tired to move off the road

                                                           Zen lioness. Ohhhhhmmmmm