Safari passionate Fadiman recounts scary elephant incident
BY PROFESSOR JEFFREY FADIMAN
Sometimes a student would single-handedly create a wildlife crisis. My students and I had finished a picnic on the ground, 50 yards in froth of a safari lodge. A single elephant walked by, another 50 yards away. A single student, Terry, suddenly rose and ambled toward the elephant, holding out a banana and called “here, Ele, Ele, Ele.”
The elephant obligingly turned, flapped its ears and ambled towards Terry, while every one of us screamed at him to come back. Terry flew back to the picnic, the elephant behind him, picking up speed… “TRUCK!” I yelled, and every student fled for the truck and clambered in. I got in the cab, tried to start it but couldn’t.
Meanwhile, the elephant stamped the picnic, but smelling more food in the truck, he headed for that. Instantly, the students scrambled over the front of the vehicle, racing for the lodge. At the same moment, the lodge staff emerged, trotting dutifully to the rescue carrying pots to bang together and scare the elephant away.
Safe in the cab. I breathed easy—one breath. There, in my rear-view truck mirror, stood Terry, in the truck, protecting the food. Each time, the elephant reached for some with his trunk, Terry slapped the tip away, shouting “NO, NO, NO. SCAT! I screamed at him to run for the lodge. He went over the front of the truck and lived to bother me another day—while the elephant peacefully ate the food in the truck, and staff and students alike dissolved into laughter.
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Jeffrey A. Fadiman, 85, is a professor of Global Marketing at San Jose State University in California, and a Language and Area Specialist for Eastern and Southern Africa. A graduate of Stanford University with two years at the Universities of Vienna and Free Berlin, this Fulbright scholar taught both U.S. and global marketing tactics at South Africa’s University of Zululand. He first experienced Africa in 1960 by canoeing up the Niger River to Timbuktu. Thereafter, he lived in Meru, Kenya, where he rediscovered the traditional history of the Meru tribe, which had been crushed by British Colonialism. Fifty years later, the Meru accepted him as the first White Elder of their nation. Professor Fadiman has supported both Tanzanian AIDS orphans and the schools to which he sent books, pens, paper, and hope.
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