Choose your region

Enkesha is a gentle, quiet girl, who is fond of being at the back of the orphan herd and sometimes browses slightly away from the others. When she wakes up in the morning she is happy to get on with her own things and not interact too much with the others. She is happy to go her own way, and sometimes sneak off to her favourite feeding spot. Today she lagged behind the rest of the group, feeding on the bushes next to the parking area, and when she lost the scent of the others she bellowed loudly to find out where they were. She ran back to the stockade compound and Tagwa, who heard her yelling, came running from where she was with the other orphans to collect up Enkesha. It seems she does not like to be on her own all the time! Tagwa continues to prove that she is a very competent matriarch of the Nursery herd, as we watched her lead Enkesha out to join the rest of the orphans who were busy browsing.

Emoli seems to be quite a boisterous character as he is constantly trying to jump on his peers’ backs and nudge them around. Enkesha, Tamiyoi, and Maisha, began their day by rolling around in the dust and enjoying each other’s company. Maisha seemed to have enough and slowly got up and went on her way. As Maisha moved away, Musiara decided to join Enkesha and Tamiyoi who were seemed happy to have him around. Musiara was playfully sliding off their backs whilst all three of them rolled around in the dust. Emoli appeared to be closely watching Musiara and the two girls, and he later decided to join in. He started to boisterously push Musiara away from the girls, trying to climb on his back. Musiara, who didn’t seem to like this, ran away and took refuge near the Keepers. Emoli having seen the Keepers immediately ran back to the two girls, where he seemed to be told off by Tamiyoi. As Emoli moved away, Musiara rejoined Enkesha and Tamiyoi and the three continued with their dust bath. 

All the orphans like their milk but Musiara is one baby that never really makes a fuss over it, but today he was different. It was all calm and quiet at the beginning of the noon milk feed today. The first group of orphans all had their bottles and went on with their usual activities. Enkesha and Maktao enjoyed a dust bath while Sattao and Larro followed the Keepers who had picked some greens for them. The majority of babies were just browsing on the greens in the area. Normally if Musiara approaches the wheelbarrow holding the milk, it is just because he wants to stand in the shade. He can touch and play with the bottles but he has never brought the Keepers any trouble because of demanding extra milk. Today was different and he kept trying to fight the Keepers for more milk next to the wheelbarrow. Whenever he was sent away he yelled out very loud in protest. Maisha seemed to have been watching his bad behaviour and she decided to drive him away from the area to stop him causing trouble for the Keepers, and she kept pushing him away.

Emoli was also being selfish during the same milk feed as he didn’t want any of the others to share the water trough with him. He had already driven away Musiara, Sattao and Maktao from one of the troughs when he found them there drinking water. Later he chased away Kiasa too as she approached to have a drink; so he was clearly in a bad mood!

In the early morning hours as the orphans came out of their rooms, Ambo, Maktao, Mukkoka and Enkesha decided to go their own different way. The Keepers wanted all of the orphans to move in the same direction, but Maktao declined and went his own way with the others. The other three stopped to listen to the Keepers and joined the rest of the herd, as Maktao wandered off. A short while later however, as expected, Maktao wondered where the others were and started to look for them. By that time the herd had already moved far into the forest. Maktao was clever though and instead of running around when he did not know which direction they had taken, he started bellowing and running back towards the compound. On his way he met a Keeper, when he also remembered that he had disobeyed them earlier, which made him turn and run in the other direction! Kuishi heard him shouting in the distance and ran to find him and bring him back to the rest of the herd.

Sagala was a naughty girl today as she just walked up to Dololo who was quietly browsing and just pushed him to the ground. He rolled over and yelled for help. Tagwa and Jotto came running over to help him and Sagala sneaked away to avoid getting in trouble. Tagwa used her front legs to get him up while Jotto tried to support his head. They couldn’t manage however as Dololo has fallen on one of his hind legs, so the Keepers came over to help lift him up, while one of the other Keepers sent Sagala away for her bad behaviour. 

At the moment when Maarifa goes out to the forest, she does not come across other creatures like her. She does not mingle with the elephants either and because she is the size of a warthog, we sometimes wonder if she thinks she is one of them! Sometimes, like today, she can spend so long playing with the friendly warthogs in the area. When they go down on their knees to eat grass, although she does not have teeth yet and cannot graze, she stands there moving her mouth without actually putting any grass in.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, we received another new young elephant from Tsavo. This little girl has a terrible leg injury and cannot walk. This morning all of the older girls were crowded around her gate to welcome her to the Nursery. Tagwa, Tamiyoi, Malima, Maisha and Sagala were all there, even though Sagala is not very good with the new arrivals. Jotto and Musiara were also not left out of the welcoming committee.

Today Enkesha, Kiasa, Musiara, Maisha and Emoli had a lot of fun at the mud bath where they played for ages and also with a ball in the water as well. After all their fun and silly antics, they all lay down to fully submerge their bodies and they hardly moved at all until it was time to go back to the forest. While they were in the water, Mukkoka kept guard over them, making sure none of the warthogs could approach the mud pool by chasing them away.

It was another hot day, with the orphans quickly drinking their milk at their midday feed so that they could immerse themselves in the muddy water to cool off. It was such fun watching Dololo, Musiara, Mukkoka and Maisha all happily wallowing in the mud, but it was Enkesha that caused great intrigue as she walked over to the hose pipe that was running and put it into her mouth and began to drink straight out the pipe. This impressed all the Trust’s visitors who couldn’t believe what they were seeing, and they all thought how clever the little elephants really are.