I'm just about to climb over the top of the gate and into the elephant barn to join Lek Chailert as she softly sings lullabies to Faa Mai and the other elephants in the barn, when Kim loudly shouts my name in a panicked voice. I look down towards the ground just in time to see my backpack – filled with my camera, lenses, audio recording gear, and travel notebooks – get whisked away into the darkness by an errant elephant trunk.
"Africa is Africa because of the animals there. But we can no longer take their presence for granted. At this rate, within the next twenty years, they will be gone. Imagine a world where very soon, these animals can only be seen in the sad, drab confines of a zoo."
"There are an estimated 35,000 elephants being killed in Africa each year. That's 10% of the population every year. There are now just an estimated 20,000 lions left in Africa. That's a 75% drop in the last 20 years. At the current rate, there will be no elephants or lions left in the African wilds within 15 years."
You either get the point of Africa or you don't. If you can't get past the fear of animals, of poverty, the juggernaut of nature, then you probably won't. But if you do stand in it and smell it and listen to it, then it will be one of the biggest, most profound and powerful things you will ever feel.
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