ROAD TRIP

     I was in my Fiat 500 driving from Nairobi to Mombasa about 9:00 p.m. in the summer moonlight.  I was traveling at an ordinary speed with car lights on.  It was a warm eighty degree evening.

     I was just passing through when suddenly two herds of animals appeared.  There were about twenty huge gray elephants on one side of the road.  A herd of about twenty beautiful giraffes stood in the moonlight on the other side.  Their bodies reached about eight feet with necks reaching at least fifteen feet.  The spots were variegated in the moonlight.  The new babies were moving with the herd.  All were minding their own business without making a noise.  Both herds had various-sized animals, large, small, young and elderly.  I didn’t feel alone.  I felt like they were my "close" friends.  In the moonlight, they looked smaller in the distance.  I felt safe after passing the herd, even though my Fiat 500 was small in the crowd and had almost stalled in the loose sand.

     The animals were in the Tsavo Game Park, which is a designated game refuge.  Grass is available and plentiful.  The park is a vast area covering many miles of grassy savannah for the animals to roam freely.  During the monsoons, rains come at mid-day, followed by sunshine the rest of the day.  Visitors come to the park on safaris, carrying cameras, riding in zebra-stripped vans, their cameras focused on any and all animals in the park.  It would have been my greatest delight to share this special moment with others, and observe these “wild” animals in their natural habitats.

     This was a casual evening in the moonlight for the lovely elephants, giraffes and me.  I shall always remember “being close” to these majestic creatures.

Beverly Templin

TEA  1963-1965