In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from college.
>
> On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant
> standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed so
> Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected
> the elephant's foot, and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it.
>
> As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out with
> his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
>
> The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look on its
> face, stared at him.
>
> For several tense moments Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else
> but being trampled.
>
> Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.
>
> Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
>
> Twenty years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son .
> As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and
> walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large
> bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot off the ground then
> put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all
> the while staring at the man.
>
> Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if
> this was the same elephant.
>
> Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his
> way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back
> in wonder. Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around
> one of the man's legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing,
> killing him.
>
> Probably wasn't the same elephant.
