david korte photographs

Monday, Jan. 24

I am cleaning up after dinner on the back porch. It is 9pm and out in the garden I hear a shuffle and grunt. Looking into the darkness, faintly illuminated by streetlights, an elephant wanders past the porch, pulling plants here, snapping branches there. Behind this elephant, an juvenile elephant follows, and before this is over, six elephants have passed through the garden, meandering between our house and neighbors. We can hear them munching on bamboo, crunching through a hedge, and then can see their silhouettes as they amble down the road to browse the next garden.