Elephants in the garden

We had elephants in the garden last night. A concept, never mind a reality, I'm still trying to get my head around. They announced their presence about 9pm, with a deep, throaty, rumbling sound (Think Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park) outside the bedroom window and then proceeded to slosh around in a small pond at the bottom of the garden. We couldn’t actually see them through the window and going outside to take a closer look was definitely out of the question. But they were definitely there, as evidenced by the flattened grass and elephant poo which we found this morning.

Elephants and hippos are a big problem for local subsistence farmers and villagers here and not a night goes by when you can’t hear, humans shouting and banging metal in the distance, in their vain attempts to scare these monsters away from their vegetable patches and crop fields. (I can’t imagine farmers at home trying to deal with this sort of problem!)

Making lots of noise, seems like a largely ineffective way of countering large animals with notoriously thick skins, not to mention risky. Another method, which has proved quite successful, is the use of hot chillies, which some farmers deploy round their fields. They not only keep elephants at bay but grow well here in the generally poor soil producing a valuable cash crop. A definite win win situation of which their relatively few examples when it comes to human wildlife conflict.

Have to go Home Affairs tomorrow in Katima to extend my visa for ten days. Given a choice, I would rather pull out my toenails with a pair of pliers which I reckon it would be marginally less painful.