Skip to main content

Book Review - The elephant whisperer

Image
By
Lawrence (the writer) described the adventure as both physical and spiritual. This story takes place in majestic Africa. South Africa to be exact. The writer described elephants as the planets most powerful animal. I asked my friend Bard and was told that the African bush elephants are the largest land mammals, and they can weigh up to 12,000 pounds. They are also incredibly strong, and they can lift up to 9,000 pounds with their trunks. The writer mentioned "the magic of Africa" and I smiled because this fits with my feelings about the beautiful continent.

There was drama with the elephants from the get go when the elephants escaped. It kept me interested but I knew that this would not be the end for the elephants else the book would not be three hundred some pages and there would be no story to tell. I was engrossed in the story and I was deep into a world that was foreign to me. It was surely an adventure. When I reached the middle of chapter five by the time the animal psychic entered the story I began wondering if this was a fictional or real account of events.

Animals are beautiful. They just want to live and be free like we do. They have as much right to the Earth as we do. I came to learn that Thula Thula (the name of the game reserve) is the Zulu word for "peace and tranquillity". The writer was able to paint beautiful pictures of nature with an adventurous energy that I could appreciate. Working on a game reserve with wild animals was a dangerous undertaking and it helped that Lawrence was passionate about what he did. Animals try to understand us as we try to understand them and even make friends with them. I am reminded of my adventurous walks through the back roads of where I live trying to photograph any bird I could see. I was connecting with nature and this gives a nice feeling.

Shortly after the big rains of the story it began raining by me. The place turned dark and the writer was talking about spirits. I wondered if there was any meaning to this. I think of rains as blessings from above and it was a welcome reprieve from the hot spells we were having in Trinidad. There was even a flash of lightning and thunder that followed to add to the mystery. The writer's adventurous spirit meant lots of close calls and me saying, more than once, thank God things did not take a turn for the worst. Sadness did come and more than one time. A reminder that life does have its struggles and grief is a part of life.

I come away with a great appreciation for the world and work of conservationists. I got glimpses of life in that part of South Africa at that time. I left asking myself, what can nature and animals teach us? I am impressed that I can finish reading books in two days. To be with a book for more than a few hours a day is a good test of my patience. I plan to read many books in the coming months and share my reviews on this blog. I am reflecting on how the reading stand (where I am sourcing my books) has added a nice dimension to my life. I am enjoying getting lost in books and my love for reading books is growing. This no doubt will work well with my love for writing and my other loves and bring me success.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Loved it, informative and it's also so true. That grief is a part of life.
September 23, 2023 at 7:18 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Running php and apache on termux

By
This was my experience getting php and apache to run on termux apt update && apt upgrade -y apt install php-apache I was following an old blog post that used php 7 and got these errors Can't locate API module structure `php7_module' in file /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/libexec/apache2/libphp.so: undefined symbol: php7_module Cannot load /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/libexec/apache2/libphp7.so Corrected in apache config file vim $PREFIX/etc/apache2/httpd.conf LoadModule php_module /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/libexec/apache2/libphp.so Apache is running a threaded MPM, but your PHP Module is not compiled to be threadsafe.  You need to recompile PHP. Comment out mpm_worker and use mpm_prefork #LoadModule mpm_worker_module libexec/apache2/mod_mpm_worker.so LoadModule mpm_prefork_module libexec/apache2/mod_mpm_prefork.so This still does not work as apache (httpd) was failing silently. According to Chatty LoadModule php_module ...libphp.so often fails in Termux becau...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stuck running sftp server on termux alpine for multi-user setup

By
The below is my journey trying to get multi-user sftp working using alpine on termux pkg update && pkg upgrade pkg install proot-distro openssh proot-distro install alpine proot-distro login alpine apk update apk upgrade apk add openssh shadow sudo apk add vim vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config Port 8022 PermitRootLogin no PasswordAuthentication yes Subsystem sftp internal-sftp Match Group sftpusers     ChrootDirectory /sftp/%u     ForceCommand internal-sftp     X11Forwarding no     AllowTcpForwarding no addgroup sftpusers adduser user1 adduser user1 sftpusers mkdir -p /sftp/user1/upload chown root:root /sftp/user1 chmod 755 /sftp/user1 chown user1:sftpusers /sftp/user1/upload How I run my server each time pkill sshd rm -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* ssh-keygen -A /usr/sbin/sshd -D -d -d -d From another termux session sftp -P 8022 user1@127.0.0.1 Connection reset by 127.0.0.1 port 8022 Connection closed Some troubleshooting steps mkdir -p /run/sshd chmod 75...
Post a Comment
Read more

Recursion example with SQL

By
I asked my friend Chatty, can you use recursion in SQL? For example I have a table (ID, value) ordered by increasing ID. Can you guide me through using recursion to select all the rows of consecutive repeated values using and creating an SQLite database. Provide the small sample data. Is there a better way to do this? A More Modern Alternative (Window Functions) In real-world SQL, this problem is usually solved more efficiently using window functions like: LAG() ROW_NUMBER() SUM() OVER But recursion is excellent for learning traversal logic and hierarchical thinking. Recursion example using sqlite on termux DROP TABLE IF EXISTS sample; CREATE TABLE sample (     id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,     value TEXT ); INSERT INTO sample (id, value) VALUES (1, 'A'), (2, 'A'), (3, 'A'), (4, 'B'), (5, 'B'), (6, 'C'), (7, 'A'), (8, 'A'), (9, 'D'), (10, 'D'), (11, 'D'), (12, 'D'); WITH RECURSIVE grouped AS (    ...
Post a Comment
Read more