Elephants

I have been thinking about elephants.

Yesterday, I spent the day at Akagera National Park in Rwanda. We drove through the hundreds of acres in the park, hoping to see all those big animals you go on safari to see. I was most hoping to see an elephant.

We have been learning a bit of traditional Kinyarwandan dance. The day before the safari, we learned a bit of a dance for women called umushagiriro. The movements were meant to mimic the grace and elegance of elephants.

It was a surprise to me since I am used to the American idea of elephants as clumsy, lumbering sort of beasts. I thought if I saw an elephant in a more natural setting, I might understand the dance a little better.

Outside of a zoo, I’ve only seen an elephant once, while traveling in Thailand. It was awful, to be honest. It was a young elephant who was chained to a steel frame in the middle of an empty field. The elephant rocked back and forth, shifting aimlessly. It reminded me of a traumatized child, rocking in a corner to soothe herself. As it turns out, the comparison was apt. The elephant was in the cruel process of being “broken” so it could be ridden by tourists.

We did see an elephant in Akagera Park. It was seated in the middle of tall, lush grasses quite a distance from the road. It looked so much like a stone that we only knew what we were seeing…