Dassie

Once upon a time a Dassie was living at Cape

Point. This Dassie was particularity lonely, he

was orphaned after a sea storm and now he

didn’t know where to go. He wanted to have

family so badly so he had the plan to go and

look for family. As a start he went to the old

Dassie.

Old Dassie was was very smart and he was

known for reading a lot. He told Dassie that

he once read that it didn’t matter what family

you are from; you are always closest related

to the African Elephant.

‘But how does a African Elephant look like and how am I going to find him?’ Said Dassie. But the Old Dassie just looked at him and said: ‘I do not know, he probably looks like us.’

Dassie thought about it, looked at Cape point

for the last time and turned around. He would

go looking for his family!

He

secretly jumped on a tourist bus and decided

to ask around if anyone saw an Elephant. The

people on the bus didn’t understand any

word he said so he asked the Ostrich.

‘Excuse me, sir the Ostrich, do you know

where the Elephants are?’ Asked Dassie as

polite as possible not to upset the Ostrich

who was showing of his featers to the people.

‘I don’t know Dassie, but I heard from the

people that you can find a lot of Elephants up

north. Good luck!’

Dassie also asked a penguin mother. ‘I don’t

know where the Elephants are but I have

heard they are very big.’ So Dassie wanted to

go up north to look for a big Elephant.

In Cape Town Dassie bought himself a ticket

to go by train. But all he found in Stellenbosch

was wine. It became dark and Dassie did not

find a place to sleep so he went back to Cape

town and hide in the ferriswheel.

The next day he was ready to really go up

north and decided to fly! But he steward did

not want to sell him a ticket so Dassie went to

the castle in Capetown were he still had some

friends living.

They were happy to help him, and convinced

the steward:

Dassie flew to the most northern airport in

South Africa the Steward could find for that

day: Kruger National Park Airport.

Dassie jumped in the first car he could find!

Now his search for his family should be easy.

First he asked two horned creatures ‘Excuse

me, are you Elephants?’ The two looked

around, ‘sorry are you talking to us???

Hihihihi, no of course not!’ They jumped away

and left Dassie without a clue what to look

for.

Then he saw a huge animal with a long neck

and beautiful spots. He asked her to ‘are you

an elephant?’

The giraffe smiled and said: ‘No I am not, the

Elephants are much rounder than I am, you

see. They don’t have a long neck, like us.’

Than Dassie saw animals without a long neck

but substantially bigger than himself. And he

asked them more careful than before: ‘Do you

know where the Elephants are?’

‘No,’ said the small lion. ‘my mother and

aunts are also looking for them.’

‘Do you know what they look like?’ Said

Dassie.

‘Ehm, they have a strange colour, they have

no real colour, it is not black or white,

something in between. ’

‘Thanks! If I find them I will tell them your

mom and aunts are looking for them.’ Said

Dassie. But the lion cup mumbled that the

Elephants already knew that.

It was a long day and Dassie decided to drive

back the car by himself, leaving the tourist

behind in flabbergasted state.

He hit a traffic light and took a look at the

damage. Maybe it was better to leave the car

there and go looking for a bed.

Dassie found a Hotel key in the car and went

looking for the door it fitted in. He had a good

night of sleep in the sparkling white sheets of

the Mariu guesthouse. In the morning he

decided to take a detour and go looking for

elephants somewhere else.

He went the best spot at God’s window and

overlooked the valley. Nothing looked like an

Elephant.

He looked at the waterfall’s

but nothing looked like a elephant.

He did see that they had made their holes in

the potholes:

Dassie asked one of the very funny looking

bird where he could find the Elephants. But

this one was in no mood to talk and chased

him away, so he went back to the park and

started looking for his family.

It could not be an Elephant but maybe he

knew where they were. The animal was very

kind and offered to help him looking and took

off with 112 k/ph. Dassie waited for a while

but the animal didn’t come back.

There he was! He was not really that much

bigger but he was not white or black and his

ears also resembled Dassie’s ears. But the

monkey told him he was not an Elephant, he

looked back at his friends and told one to go

high in a tree the look for Elephants.

‘You don’t really know what you are looking

for, do you?’

‘Ehhh, no, I have never seen the Elephants

but we are family.’

The Monkey started laughing and jumped

away. ‘Ow, according to my friends you

should follow this trail and you will find

them.’

He asked some herd, but they were not

Elephants, and they were a little bit offended.

He drove further, and then saw a big, ‘not

white of black but in the middle’ animal. But

there was no family resemblance at all! So he

asked him, ‘sir, do you know where the

Elephants are?’

The big animal started laughing, walked away

and Dassie was so afraid of this loud sound he

jumped away in the shadow.

A smaller one came by and he asked her:

‘madam, do you know where the elephants

are?’

She looked at him without laughing and sad:

‘Ow darling, we are Elephants. Can I help you

with something dear?’

A little tear fell of Dassie’s cheek, finally he

found them. ‘Madam, I think, ehhm, well. We

are family, did you know?’

‘I didn’t dear, but how nice!’ She said. And

then she made a strange sound with her

trunk. Dassie looked at her with big eye’s so

she explained. ‘I am telling my sisters we have

a visitor. Do you want to come with me, I will

introduce all of them.’

From that

moment on, he followed her everywhere

although she was hard to keep up with if you

are 100 times smaller.

This story has been made possible by the wonderful country: South Africa, the photocamera

of Eline (Thanks!) and of course by Cris & Elise who took care of Dassie.