Our Umani girls are known for their romantic intrigues, especially Sonje and Lima Lima, who have a constant stream of suitors. This month, however, was dominated by the boys’ love lives.
The orphans woke up ready for the new day, as usual they ran out the gate except Murera who walked out slowly not rushing like the little babies. Murera did not want to be part of the bustling, pushing and squeezing to be the first one out. Kiombo, Kiasa and the other young boys were pushing each other and forcing their way out, and while the Keepers tried to stop them, they wouldn’t listen.
Mwashoti and Murea grouped together. The two friends with their bad legs look after each other, they like to stay a little separate from the rest of the herd. Sonje and Quanza rumbled to Murera and Mwashoti, warning them that they were about to be left behind, but they didn’t mind.
Wild bulls were following Lima Lima, but they stopped when they realized that the herd was heading towards the human Keepers. Lima Lima joined the herd alone and the bulls remained behind. When Lima Lima saw the bulls waiting for her some distance away, she rejoined them.
The baboons were making a lot of noise, screaming, and yelling loudly. The Keepers went to investigate, when they got closer, they realized that the baboons had been hunting a baby antelope and were carrying it in their mouths. The orphans followed their Keepers because they also wanted to see what was happening. Mwashoti, Faraja, and Zongoloni formed a group of giants and helped the Keepers chase the baboons away. The baboons got overwhelmed by the orphan herd and dropped the antelope before running away. The Keepers went to rescue the antelope but unfortunately it was already dead.
Zongoloni and her wild friends left for the Chyulu area, but Kiasa stayed behind with Kiombo and Alamaya. Ziwa had also come back to pass on his greetings to the herd. He came back accompanied by Faraja and Jasiri. Ziwa is becoming a mature boy who now enjoys life with other big giants and wild friends whom he has made good friendships with. He loves his dependent herd and is not ready to leave them completely, but he is really taking control of his own life.
The orphan herd felt it was a good time to go for a drink. Sonje led the herd to the broken water pipeline to drink the water that was spilling out.
The orphans were not very energetic this morning, they didn’t run out the stockades as normal, but instead they slowly walked out and went to feed on the Lucerne pellets. Alamya and Lima Lima stopped to have some pellets after the babies had finished.
The orphan herd started heading to the Umani Springs, where they found that a wild herd with babies had got there before them. Zongoloni and Lima Lima were very happy to see the babies and it seemed like they already knew this herd, they rumbled their friendly greetings. Lima Lima went and joined the wild herd. Murera and Sonje were left in charge of the younger orphans. One of the wild females chased Maktao and Enkesha, thinking her baby would go with the orphans, so they rushed into the bushes to hide.
Sonje decided to change the plan, rather than browsing around the Umani Hills she decided to choose a route where they would get more food. The Kenzili area had loads of food but it was slightly further away. This was Sonje’s favorite place to browse. Sonje and Quanza are still the trusted leaders so none of the orphans argued, they all followed the older girls to the Kenzili area. Even the nightclubbers followed slowly behind, with Alamaya, Mwashoti and Murera bringing up the rear.
This afternoon, Ngasha started to play with Sonje. Ngasha was showing off, he wanted to show Sonje that he is now a gown up boy with lots of experience and he was ready to join the wild boys. They played for hours as neither elephant wanted to be the one to stop the game first, eventually Sonje surrendered and re-joined the orphan herd and the Keepers. The Keepers decided to chase Ngasha away from the orphan herd as didn’t want him causing any trouble. The Keepers realised that Sonje had broken off a small piece of her tusk during the game.
This morning a wild female elephant joined the orphan herd with her tiny baby. The Keepers kept their distance from her, but the orphans welcomed her into the herd and the browsed happily together. All the female orphans were very interested in the baby and kept following it around. Lima Lima tried to sneak away with the tiny young baby, but the mother saw and rightfully made a big fuss. The mother chased Lima Lima away, who ran to the Keepers for protection. The wild mother eventually took her baby away from the orphan herd. Sonje tried to follow her and the tiny baby, but after two hours she came back alone.
It was very early in the morning when Ziwa and his family visited the orphans at the stockades. Ziwa come with a family of eight other wild elephants, he was the only boy in the herd. They joined the orphans and spent two hours browsing with them before leaving. When they tried to leave our orphans try to stop Ziwa from following his wild family, they wanted him to stay with them. Eventually Ziwa got away from the orphans and run to catch up with his wild herd, leaving the orphans behind. All the orphans become so sad, they all really missed Ziwa when he left them. Some of the orphans raised their trunks as if waving him goodbye.
Sonje has adopted Kiombo and they usually spend the night in the same stockade. However recently, Sonje has started wanting to spend nights out with wild friends and the nightclubbers, but she doesn’t want to leave Kiombo alone at night. She keeps trying to convince Kiombo to join the wild herd and spent the night out together, but Kiombo doesn't want to follow her. Sonje was out with the nightclubbers, and Kiombo become very anxious and sad, thinking that he going to have to sleep alone. He calmed down when Sonje came back to the stockades later in the evening to join him.
Lima Lima has started following Faraja around all day, so the other nightclubber boys are getting jealous of Faraja. In the morning, Jasiri came by the stockades and found Faraja playing with Lima Lima. Jasiri was not happy and started chasing Faraja away, but Lima Lima left Jasiri behind and started following Faraja.
Then in the afternoon Ngasha come and found Faraja and Lima Lima wallowing in the mud bath. He got jealous and they started fighting, Faraja didn't run away he decided to defend himself. They fought for almost 20 minutes and finally he defeated Ngasha. Faraja chased Ngasha away from the other orphans. Lima Lima decided to move the orphan herd away from that area to try and diffuse the situation and make sure the boys didn’t start fighting again. She led the orphans towards the Umani Springs. Eventually both Faraja and Ngasha left the orphan herd alone and disappeared into the bush.
The nightclubber report back early every morning; they are normally hanging around outside the stockade gates when the Keepers get up to feed the orphans. The nightclubbers have gotten very good at timing when the stockade gates are opened and the Keepers put lucerne pellets out. Today they reported back to the stockades late, arriving after the orphan herd had already left the stockades for the day.
Lima Lima and Zongoloni were very upset that they didn’t get and lucerne pellets. They started to trumpet and push on the gate. The Keepers decided to let them in and feed them some pellets, this calmed them down and they were much happier. After eating the pellets, they all headed out towards the Umani Springs looking for the orphan herd. Once they got to the springs they saw that the orphan herd was nowhere to be seen. There was only a lone buffalo drinking water, who they chased off.
The nightclubbers finally joined up with Lima Lima and the orphan herd at the mud bath.
Today when Ngasha went down to the mud bath, he found a big herd of buffaloes enjoying the mineral salt. He tried to scare them but they were not scared of him, he ran at them trumpeting but it didn’t work. Eventually he called for reinforcements. Faraja come down to help him chase away the buffaloes. The buffaloes were not ready to leave and didn’t like be chased away so they decided to chase the orphans away from the mud bath. Feeling a little embarrassed Faraja and Ngasha went to get more of the older elephants to come and help them, as they thought they would have more luck if there was a bigger team of elephants. They came back down with all the nightclubbers, they started surrounding the buffaloes, the buffaloes got scared and ran away. The nightclubber boys spent the rest of the day enjoying the salt and the mud bath.
Ziwa and his wild family come back again to visit the orphans. They joined the orphan herd browsing along the Umani Springs early in the morning. They spend most of the morning relaxing and eating and being with the orphan herd.
When the wild herd started to separate from the orphans and leave Jasiri wanted to follow them. Jasiri joined the wild family and stayed with them for some time, he wanted to be the only boy in the herd and he started fighting and chasing Ziwa. But the wild family was Ziwa’s family and the two biggest females came to Ziwa’s defence, they fought Jasiri and chased him away. The wild herd left with Ziwa and Jasiri was left behind.
Ngasha came back with a girlfriend from a herd of wild elephants. The female, a teenager, seemed very happy to be with Ngasha. Ngasha wanted to introduce her to our orphans, and they stayed with the orphan herd for a couple of days. Today was the first day that Ngasha and his girlfriend had been with the orphan herd when both Faraja and Jasiri were also there. Faraja was very jealous and tried to steal Ngasha’s friend, hugging her and staying close to her. Ngasha was not happy about this. A fight started between the nightclubber boys as they all wanted the girl to be theirs. The fight lasted 20 minutes, until Faraja defeated Ngasha and chased him away. Faraja got the girl.
But then, Jasiri decided he liked the girl. Another fight started; this lasted longer, as Faraja did not want to surrender, but Jasiri emerged victorious in the end. Jasiri decided to take the girl away from all the competition, so they went off into the bush together.
Lima Lima is a very clever girl, she likes to be the security for the orphans and the Keepers. She usually does patrols around where the orphans are browsing, looking out for any danger so that she can warn the Keepers. When Lima Lima finds wild animals, like buffaloes or a wild elephant herd, she comes back to alert everyone. The Keepers know to look at Lima Lima and her behaviour to see when there is danger. They usually notice Lima Lima coming back to them more frequently, signalling that there is something coming.
Lima Lima is also the GPS for the orphan herd. When the orphans and the Keepers go far into the thick bush, or wild elephants chase the orphans off their path Lima Lima is the one to get everyone together again and to lead them back to the stockades safely.
Lima Lima has also worked out that the baboons like eating acacia pads. She waits under the trees where the baboons are eating and gets the peels that they drop from the trees.
Zongoloni is one of the female orphans who spends the night out with the nightclubber boys. Kiasa is her best friend and they spend the day together, then in the evening hours they part. Kiasa spends the night in the stockades while Zongoloni spends the night in the bush. But this afternoon, Zongoloni sneaked away with Kiasa. The Keepers noticed that Kiasa wasn’t back at the stockades when Quanza started trumpeting and pacing around the stockades. Quanza was very sad because she normally sleeps in the same stockade with Kiasa, and they are also very close friends. The Keepers were confused before they realised that Kiasa must have gone with Zongoloni. When Lima Lima re-joined the orphan herd, she immediately realised that Kiasa was not there. The Keepers knew Lima Lima would help them find Kiasa. They followed Lima Lima through the bush for roughly 3 kilometres before they found Zongoloni and Kiasa. The Keepers then walked back to the stockades with Lima Lima and Kiasa, leaving Zongoloni to spend the night out with the nightclubbers as usual.
Alamaya is a one of the nightclubber boys. He lost his tail when he was attacked by hyenas, but he has grown into a very strong and healthy young bull. Alamaya as even started getting attention from wild females and he now has a wild girlfriend! The Keepers often see them walking together. However, this morning, a fight started between Alamaya and Mwashoti. The wild female started getting bored with Alamaya and was interested in the orphan herd, especially Mwashoti. This upset Alamaya, who started fighting with Mwashoti. Mwashoti is younger and weaker than Alamaya, so Alamaya easily one. However, the wild female decided to side with Mwashoti, so Alamaya enlisted Faraja help him win her back. By the time he returned, however, the his girlfriend had already left with Mwashoti. Alamaya was very sad.
This morning, Ziwa came back to greet the orphans. He came to the stockades early in the morning and had a good catch up with his friends. His new wild family waited for him a little separate from the orphan herd, as they are still not comfortable being close to the Keepers. They don’t understand why Ziwa is so comfortable interacting with his human family.
Even after being with wild for so long, Ziwa still remembers the lucerne pellets the Keepers feed to the orphans in the morning, and he started demanding some for himself. The Keepers gave him pellets, which he ate the very quickly, not wanting to be left behind by his wild family. He shouldn’t have worried, as the wild family loves him very much. They patiently waited for him to finish the pellets and hug all the orphans. After he left, all our orphans started trumpeting, saying their goodbyes and telling him to come visit again soon. They miss him, but he is well looked after by his wild family.
Jasiri, Faraja, Zongoloni and Lima Lima had not reported back for a couple of days, but today they returned with four wild friends. The wild elephants were two boys and two girls, the Keepers estimate that they were roughly the same age as the orphans that they were with. They have formed a nice little teenage group and clearly enjoy being together, walking, talking, and browsing. This teenage group spent hours browsing with the orphans today. Later in the day, they left the orphan herd and moved towards the Umani Springs. The orphans felt lonely and missed their new friends, especially Quanza. Quanza kept following them and then come back to the orphan herd because she felt bad about leaving Kiasa. Quanza wanted the teenage group to stay with the orphan herd, but when she had to decide between the two groups, she came back to stay with Kiasa. She didn’t want Kiasa to have to sleep alone.
This morning, as the orphans were eating their lucerne pellets outside the stockades, some baboons came to disturb them and try and steal some pellets. Murera was acting as the security guard and tried to chase the baboons away, but because of her bad leg she was struggling. The baboons noticed, so they were not afraid of her. So, Quanza and Enkesha came to help her chase the baboons away, then all the orphans joined in. Chaos ensued for ten minutes as elephants and baboons were all running all over the place, it was like a game for them. Then one of the baboons fell in the water trough. The Keepers ran over, as they didn’t want it to drown. By now all the orphans had surrounded the trough, trying to see what was happening. After the Keepers saved the baboon, the games stopped and the orphans went back to calmly browsing, while the baboons disappeared into the treetops.
While the orphans were out browsing in the early morning, they heard the buffaloes making a lot of noise in the Umani Springs area. Quanza and Enkesha quickly run over to where the noise was coming from to see what was happening. When they got there, they saw a leopard attacking a buffalo calf. Quanza and Enkesha tried to chase away the leopard, but it didn’t work, so they ran back to the orphan herd and the Keepers to get them to come and help. The orphans made lots of noise, trumpeting and surrounding the leopard to try and scare it. This worked, and the leopard ran off into the bush, leaving the baby buffalo behind. Upon closer inspection, the Keepers saw that the baby buffalo was mostly okay, aside from a small injury near its tail but it survived. Soon, his mother came and retrieved him. The Keepers were so happy that their orphans saved this little life.
Last night, the baboons spent the night in one of the Acacia trees next to the stockade. During the night, they saw a leopard and started making lots of terrible noise. When the orphans heard this, they also started trumpeting and pushing on the gates of the stockades, as they wanted to help defend the baboons.
When the Keepers let the orphans out the next morning, they found that three baboons had jumped over the fence and were hiding next to Murera’s stockade. The Keepers let Murera out and she rushed over to find out what had happened during the night. As soon as she got there, she Murera started trumpeting and calling the other orphans over to see. It turned out that one of the baboons had been killed. The leopard had taken the carcass up to the treetops. The orphans wanted to chase the leopard away, but it had snuck away and was now nowhere to be seen. The orphans calmed down and decided to walk to the springs.
At the mud bath, while the orphans are having their milk bottles, a wild bull elephant came to meet the orphans. Murera saw him and got scared. She refused to come to the mud bath for her milk, so the Keepers decided take her bottle and feed her away from the wild bull, where she would be more comfortable. The other orphans decided to follow Murera, while the bull disappeared into the bush.
Maktao and Enkesha are best friends, and they are always walking together and playing. The Keepers thought they would enjoy sharing a stockade, but surprisingly, this didn’t work, as they started fighting each other when it was time for their milk bottles. Instead, the Keepers decided to separate them but put them in stockade next to each other, so they could be neighbours.
However, Maktao is very jealous boy. He started feeling jealous of Kiombo because Sonje has adopted him as he chosen baby. This morning Maktao started a fight with Kiombo, but Kiombo is stronger and easily pushed Maktao down. Enkesha came to rescue, but Kiombo ran to Sonje for protection. Maktao and Enkesha surrendered because they both respect Sonje and didn’t want to make her angry.
Kiasa has a party trick; she is the only girl that can hold her own milk bottle and feed herself. Kiasa loves her milk feed and always makes sure she is at the front of the line during feeding hours. Today, Kiasa stole a bottle from Kiombo. Kiombo was not happy and started making lots of noise. Sonje ran over to help Kiombo, and in the process, she pushed Kiasa, who then started crying for Quanza to come and protect her. Quanza ran over to defend her.
The two big girls, Quanza and Sonje, started to fight each other, each defending their little friend. Murera then came over to break up the fight. Sonje and Quanza both stopped immediately, as they respect Murera and feel that she is their matriarch. Murera resolved their disagreement, as they promptly said sorry to each other and hugged it out. Peace was restored and they browsed happily for the rest of the afternoon.
Mwashoti, Alamaya, and Ngasha report back to the stockades early every morning. Mwashoti spends the day browsing with Enkesha, who is one of his best friends. Today, Mwashoti snuck off with Enkesha, causing her to miss her midday bottle of milk. Keepers looked around for her but could not find her. Maktao felt very lonely, as Enkesha is also his best friend and they usually spend their day browsing together as well. Maktao followed the Keepers, as he knew they were looking for Enkesha and he wanted to help find her, too.
Later in the afternoon, the Keepers heard trumpeting a little distance away. The orphans ran quickly to where the sound was coming from. Some Keepers followed the orphans, while some remained behind to look after Sonje and Murera. It was Mwashoti and Enkesha, coming back towards the stockade. Everyone turned back and walked home together. Maktao was very happy to have his friend back.
Ngasha arrived with one of his wild elephant girlfriends. He has brought her back to the stockades for a couple of mornings in a row; he seems to like her and wants her to be accepted into the orphan herd. She must like him, as she keeps following him back to the stockades every morning. However, she is still very unsure of the orphan herd, and she is very scared of the Keepers. Ngasha and his girlfriend spent the day hanging around the springs, staying a little sperate from the orphan herd. The Keepers heard noise coming from the springs, where they found Ngasha and a wild bull fighting over the girl. Our orphans felt bad for Ngasha and went to defend him. The wild elephant got overwhelmed by all the orphans and ran away into the bush, allowing Ngasha to reunite with his girlfriend. Although the orphans had won, they were still afraid of the wild bull, so everyone moved off in the opposite direction to the wild bull so that they could browse in peace.
Early this morning Sonje snuck off with a wild bull. He came to get her just after the Keepers had opened the stockage gates. Sonje stayed with him all day; she even missed her midday milk bottle. Kiombo started feeling lonely, as Sonje had been gone all morning. Murera noticed that Kiombo was sad, so she decided to take care of him for the day. She browsed with him and made sure that he didn’t feel lonely.
Later that afternoon, Sonje came back alone. She joined the orphan herd and browsed with them for a bit before it was time to return to the stockades for the night. All the orphans returned to the stockades and Kiombo was so happy to have Sonje back with him, so he didn’t have to sleep by himself.
A wild bull visited our orphans today. He was hanging around, looking to find a girlfriend. Sonje and Quanza were not really interested in the bull, and he doesn't seem interested in them either.
Murera saw the wild elephant and made herself scarce. The Keepers think she fears being pushed around by a bull, because of her bad leg. The wild bull tried to get close to Murera, but she moved away quickly and returned to the stockade. The Keepers treated her to lucerne while she waited for the other orphans to come back. The other orphans arrived at 5pm without the wild bull, which made Murera happy and comfortable.
Ziwa arrived today with his adopted wild family. There was the matriarch, two junior babies, another older female, and a little boy. They arrived at the waterhole for some water, and at the same time Ziwa came to say hello to the orphans. Ziwa guided his family to the water trough next to stockades. His family were not as comfortable with the Keepers, but they trusted Ziwa not to put them in danger. A Keeper came out to take photos of them and the little boy got scared and ran to hide under his mother. Ziwa saw the baby was panicking, so he moved to be close to him and reassure him. Ziwa was the host and he wanted to show his wild family that they were safe and that he would protect his family and the babies.
The orphan herd were all very happy to see Ziwa and have his guests come to the stockade. They were all very joyful, running around and trumpeting in celebration.
This morning was very cold and the orphans did not want to drink the water from the troughs in the stockades. The Keepers saw that Maktao, and Enkesha’s troughs were completely full, as if they hadn’t drunk anything all night. After checking the temperature, the Keepers guessed that they hadn’t touched the water because it was unpleasantly cold. The Keepers even noticed a difference in the way Murera and Sonje were walking, but this changed back to normal when the morning warmed up.
Later in the day, the orphans went to cross the Umani Springs but there was a herd of buffalo blocking the way. Zongoloni and Alamaya had started crossing at another point, but she then spotted a crocodile with a bushbuck in its jaws. They both charged at the crocodile, trumpeting loudly to try to save the bushbuck. The crocodile rushed back to the water and left the bushbuck. Unfortunately, the bushbuck did not survive its ordeal.
Ngasha saw a wild herd approaching and wanted to go greet them, but he was also scared that they would not welcome him. Ngasha went to greet the female elephants, until a tough bull pushed him hard. Murera and Sonje were watching, scared of what was happening, while Mwashoti observed in disbelief. Fearful of getting in the way or being pushed, Enkesha and Maktao moved off in one direction, while Kiasa and Kiombo moved off in another direction.
Zongoloni and Faraja arrived later, both in happy, energetic moods. When Kiasa saw Zongoloni, she was very happy and ran to her. The orphans wanted to go to the Chyulu area, but Jasiri tried to block their path. Alamaya showed the orphan herd a different way to get there, leaving Jasiri alone.
While still in the Chyulu Hills area, they encountered two dik diks playing. One of the tiny antelopes ran under Alamaya, who got confused and scared and trumpeted loudly. This caused the whole orphan herd to run over to him to see what was happening.
The afternoon was much warmer, so the elephants celebrated in the mud bath to cool off. They had lots of fun. Kiasa and Kiombo were very happy, showing off their swimming skills, until Ngasha arrived and immediately started pushing the babies around. The babies waked out, leaving him alone with lots of space to wallow. Of course, he got bored quickly and didn’t enjoy being in the mud bath by himself.