It was a pretty hot night in my banda and I was distracted by rats nesting in my speergrass roof. Unfortunately they’re pretty active during the night. But anyways, I enjoyed listening to the familiar sounds during the night like the ones of the crickets. I got up at sunrise, prepared myself for the day and left my banda to go to the kitchen where the table was already prepared for breakfast. As always, Claudia was already up. I had a cup of coffee and when Stefan joined us she boiled eggs and made toast.
After breakfast we left the farm to visit Alfred down at the elephant trench. I knew the place as I had seen the devastation of a few elephants destroying the harvest of our neighbour in 2014. We also had elephants who entered the Eco Farm but only cracked a few branches of a popo (papaya) tree before it was scared away by fearless Moritz. We then tried to protect the farm with bed linen that we hung around the farm after soaking them in a mixture of chili water and mud. I guess it worked but it was not a very useful solution for protecting a big area. I remember many nights in Africa when farmers protected their harvest by banging sticks on pots and shouting out loud soon after dawn when the elephants left the park and crossed the river towards the farmers fields. The same story in the early morning… It must have been a very frustrating situation for the farmers and I understand that they are not at all friends with the elephants. As more and more farmers complained about the situation the park staff offered to build an elephant trench to prevent the elephants from accessing the fields. Alfred was assigned as the project leader for this.
We soon reached the river, a branch of the river Nile, where the elephants used to cross. The close trench was highly visible just a few meters away. There’s been quite a lot of workers who digging their way through dense, clayey soil. This was hard work, I can tell from my very own hands-on experience. Alfred approached to welcome us on site. He explained how to build a proper elephant trench. It’s got to be seven to eight feet deep and six feet wide. The soil needs to be piled up about 3 to 4 feet behind the trench. That should do. Unfortunately they encountered water after about 5 feet on the left side of the trench, so they could not dig as deep as they had planned to but after a few meters from where they had started they were able to dig to the planned depth. But due to budget restrictions they were only able to continue their work until the end of the week. They would later try to apply for more funds to finish the trench. I hope it’s going to work but I assume that the problem will not be solved by that trench. In the best case it will be moved to some other farmers farther down the river, in the worst case it will not change anything at all. We shall see…
the table was already prepared for breakfast
Claudia boiled some eggs
Swiss napkins…
down at a branch of the river Nile
right here elephants crossed the river to search for food on the fields
the elephant trench, flooded with water at about 5 feet
it’s very hard work to dig as the soil is very dense and clayey
the excavated material is supposed to be piled up behind the trench
Moritz watching the goings-on out of harm’s-way
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