Roland and I recently
returned from a trip to Africa. Most of our time was spent on safari in the
Republic of South Africa, where we saw dozens or perhaps hundreds of zebras,
giraffes, and antelope. We also saw hippos, crocodiles, lions, leopards, cheetahs,
wart hogs, and rhinos. But something was missing from the list.
Elephants.
Everyone told us we were
sure to see elephants on safari. Our tour guide even “guaranteed” it. But
everyone was wrong. On our morning and evening game drives at Songimvello Game
Reserve, we saw evidence of elephants (primarily their droppings) but no elephants
even though our safari guide tried to chase them down by taking us everywhere
there had been a sighting in the last few days. Unfortunately, the elephants
were no longer there.
We also spent a day
driving through Pilanesberg National Park. Our tour guide had “guaranteed” we
would see elephants and he passed asked our Pilanesberg driver to find some.
But again, although we saw evidence of elephants (their dust in the distance), they
were gone before we arrived.
After South Africa, Roland
and I went to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. We were only there for one full day,
during which we saw the Falls in the morning and took a cruise along the Zambezi
River in the late afternoon. When the crew asked us how we liked Africa, we
told them we loved it but were disappointed that we hadn’t seen elephants.
We were heading for the
top of the Falls on the Zambia side when the captain suddenly turned the boat
around. I was confused until he said he had heard of an elephant sighting and
was taking us there. Roland and I were grateful to the captain when we saw our
first pair of elephants. They were off in the distance on an island but
recognizable by the naked eye and well within range of my 300 mm lens. After a
while we turned around again and finished our trip to the top of the Falls, or
at least as close as it was safe to go. And on the return trip we saw two more
elephants. I’m not sure how you can tell one pair of elephants from another,
but these were on a different island so we are pretty sure they weren’t the
same ones.
So what does our chase
after elephants have to teach about writing? I am getting ready to start
looking for a publisher for the murder mystery I wrote as my pandemic project,
and a writer’s search for a publisher can feel equally hopeless as we submit
and submit and submit with no success. But persistence paid off in our search
for an elephant, and that’s the writing lesson here. If you don’t give up, you’ll
eventually find someone to publish your book.
In the meantime, keep
chasing those elephants.
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