Children’s Stories written on our travels

His hoof struck sparks where he pawed the ground. He tossed his head reveling in the feel of his mane on his muscular neck. Nostrils flared and eyes red with excitement. Tensed, his body filling out his broad chest, he contemplated the unknown shimmering light that hovered before him.

He was young to be the matriarch, the elephant who was the head of the family. A family who stood around her, their stomachs rumbling in displeasure at her inability to make a decision. She had, unusually, been appointed by her mother, as normally it was the oldest female who became the matriarch.

Alongside the Great Ruaha River, which winds through the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, is an ancient baobab tree. It isn’t the largest baobab tree, and from its size one would think that it was only a few thousand years old, rather then the hundreds of thousands of its true age. Around it are larger trees.

The plains of Northern Bahr-al-Ghazal, South Sudan stretch from the edge of the world, until they are swallowed by the sky. It’s a land of grass in the winter and water in the summer, when the floodwaters from Central Africa arrive. This land was given to the mighty gazelles, to grow strong and run free, their rapier like horns standing proud against the sky.