2. Gentle Giant

I hear someone say there are two giraffes at 9 o’clock.  As the Jeep slows down, I turn and see them in the distance.  They’re standing motionless on the side of the road and looking in our direction as if they’re not sure what to make of us.  The giraffe closest to the road decides to make a run for it and crosses over. He leaves our line of sight before we can move close enough to get a good photograph.  “Hopefully the other one will follow,” someone says.  We slowly creep forward and move up a small hill as the second giraffe gets closer to the gravel road we’re on.  I keep my lens focused on the gentle giant because I know that it could get spooked and run in the other direction at any moment.  Then the photo opportunity would be lost.  But that isn’t happening.  The giraffe bravely crosses the road in front of us, hustles to “hide” behind a tree, and then peeks at us as if it were saying, “Do you see me?”  I see you, and I’m watching you…  My eyes and lens are fixated on the beautiful animal and the scraggly tree as I wait to see what the giraffe is going to do next.  As I watch it and it watches us, I realize that it looks so vulnerable.  One would think that the animal’s height and strong, long legs and neck would make it courageous.  But it’s not…  The expressive eyes it tries to hide behind a branch tell a different story, one of fear of the unknown.  In this moment, I see and feel the connection that this towering creature has to human beings in terms of how we all try to hide — often from what’s right in front of us.