So. I like elephants.

Elephante. Olifant. Slon. Elevant. Elefantti. Elefan. Gajah. Eilifint. Elephantus. Elefante. Zilonis. Dramblys. Tembo. Fil. Voi.

There's a new baby Asian elephant at the St. Louis Zoo. Her name is Kenzi and she's the baby of the baby elephant that was born when I was little: Raja. This is Kenzi at 4 days old:
Look at those gams! I love elephants. I think people somehow have a fascination with certain animals, you know? Elephants are that to me. I don't have the obsessive "I buy everything I see that has an elephant on it" kind of thing about them. Although, I will admit that my cell phone holder has an elephant on it. I'm more of an admirer of elephants. I think they're really fascinating and majestic animals. They're huge, but still really amazing. And the ways that they interact with each other is easily understood, I think. They're tight-knit and the familial bonds that they have with each other are similar to other animals (like primates...). I don't really consider myself a person who has heroes, but the closest I've ever come to identifying heroes are the people in the elephant orphanages scattered across Africa who work with the orphan elephants and try to keep them alive after they lose their parents. Elephants (like other animals) grieve deeply when they lose a parent and little elephants can grieve themselves to death. The people who run and work at the orphanages have such a big job and work so hard to keep those elephants from starving or grieving themselves to death, and they teach them to play and socialize and eat on their own and create a new family group out of the others who have lost family members as well. It's a really great idea and those people amaze me so much. The orphans take up so much of the workers' time that those people are really sacrificing their own bonds with their human families to try to keep these elephants alive and well. It's a huge undertaking and I really admire that sort of dedication, especially to animals.