David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage
Mathilde had been spotting imaginary elephants in the bushes the whole time we had been in Kenya. They are her favourite animals, so you can imagine her little face when she walked down the trail through the forest and it opened up into a clearing with three baby elephants! She got so excited: "Elephants!.. mummy come and see, come and see" she said, taking Inger-Lise's hand and pulling her forward.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, of which the orphanage is a part, was set up by Daphne Sheldrick in memory of her husband, who died in 1977 after many years as a game warden in Kenya.




Only a rope separated us from the elephants and it was lovely for the children to see and touch an elephant the same size as them! The elephants had a meal of leaves and milk and then were led off and some larger elephants came along. There were no adult elephants because they are released into the wild when they are old enough. One of the keepers talked for at least half an hour about the orphanage.

I was amazed at how emotional elephants are. The babies need to have a "mother" with them at night to keep them company and make sure the blankets stay in place. Each keeper has spend the night with a different elephant each night, though, because otherwise the elephant gets too attached to its "mother". Apparently they learnt this lesson when David Sheldrick had been looking after a baby elephant. He had to go away for a few weeks and the poor thing died.

Jeremy