In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from
Northwestern University. Hiking on his own through the bush, he came
across a young bull elephant standing with one foreleg raised in the
air.
The elephant seemed quite distressed, so Mbembe approached it very
carefully.
He got down on one knee and inspected the pad of the elephant's
upraised foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.
As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out
with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its
foot. The elephant turned to face Mbembe, and with a rather curious
but solemn look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.
Mbembe stood frozen still, thinking of nothing else but being trampled.
Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and ambled away.
Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with
his teenage son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the
huge creatures turned and came over to where Mbembe and his son were
standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front
foot off the ground, then put it down. The big elephant did that
several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at Mbembe.
Remembering the encounter with the elephant back in 1986, Mbembe
couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the safety railing and made his way into the enclosure.
He walked right up to the bull elephant and stared back in wonder.
The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.
Probably wasn't the same elephant.
2007-04-15
20:05:31
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18 answers
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asked by
ry_in_dubai
3