Elephant greetings

What a story I have to tell today! Last night around 12:30AM, I heard a bucket shuffling outside. Thinking it was the askari (night guard) being noisy, I rolled over and tried to sleep again. Then, I heard a big crash and a rubbing sound. At this point I thought I should probably investigate. I grabbed my head lamp and went into the other room anticipating a broken window. I was sure surprised to turn and see and elephant trunk coming through the door. There is an orphaned elephant on the ranch here that I had heard about but not been lucky enough to meet. Well, she must have heard about me too because she sure wanted to come in to greet me. After about 30 minutes I had decided it was definitely her and not a wild elephant especially since when I blew on her trunk, she blew back. So, I opened the door and made my way around the front of the house where the askari's radio was hidden. For the next two hours, I basically was patiently trying to get her to follow me through the gate to get out of the compound. I wonder if she actually understood and just didn't feel like following. She is quite brilliant... being an elephant and all. Well, after a lot more destruction, she finally followed me out but there are two gates to the compound and I had opened both in hopes that she would wander out. Well, we went out one gate and when I started rushing for gate number two, she sensed it and ran right along with me. At this point I think I had a bit of a reality check that it probably wasn't so safe to run through long grass with my bum ankle and a 1 ton animal running alongside me. I slowed down and she beat me to the gate. I guess she wasn't quite finished with her visit yet. Another hour went by and I finally persuaded her to come out with some tasty grass I picked. After I closed the gate, she finally got the hint and sauntered off. Needless to say, her visit was not very conducive to the purpose of me being here... my research... as I missed out on a good 3 hours of sleep last night and am quite sleepy today. In addition, my morning was spent waiting in the African fashion for someone to come fix the door so I could leave the house. Alas, all is well now and now Encarsus and I are "rafiki bomba" (great friends).