Only elephants should

Remember only elephants should wear ivory? It was on T-shirts, TV, everywhere you went back in the 80s, culminating in the 1989 PR exercise of the then President Moi burning 12 tons of ivory as a statement against poaching. Don’t know if this brainwashing worked on you, but I realized recently that it had slipped into a corner of my conscience, unobtrusively set up shop, and made its presence felt when I was tempted to wear ivory.

Maputo (the coolest city ever! And that’s probably ‘cause I’ve yet to explore the rest of Mozambique –soon as I complete the ‘how to detect and avoid landmines that were moved to places unknown by the 2000 floods course– I’ll take on that adventure) has several spots where craft traders sell beautiful carvings and earrings, bangles, rings, candleholders, chessboards, and jewelry boxes, all adorned to varying degrees with ivory (and ebony). These are beautiful pieces of art, and part of me would love to buy everything that catches my fancy, while another part bleeds at the thought of strong elegant ebony forests diminishing so that we might have… trinkets… Now, if they were huge imposing artistic pieces guaranteed to be owned by our great grand kids (barring a myriad of insect invasion/rot setting upon them), perhaps my heart would bleed less, but most pieces get you excited in the moment, and in another month, year or two, you have no idea where you put them ….

The earrings are gorgeous large ivory loops, no metal in sight, the bangles would make an awesome match! and the price has me quickly reaching for my purse, only for the refrain “only elephants should wear ivory” to start in my head… At first it’s almost inaudible, eventually reaching a crescendo when I fish out my wallet and start counting out the meticals. It forces me to say ‘thanks but no thanks’ to the seller, who, not understanding the war currently going on inside me, offers to reduce the sale price even further, telling me how beautiful they’ll look on me, how I’ll be his first customer of the day, etc. I walk across the road, wallet still in hand and sit at a café across from the craft market to think about it, or rather, try to get the ‘conservationist concerto’ to can it! long enough for me to make the purchase. Nothing doing. So I walk away empty handed, wanting but knowing it’s not right to…

That social marketing stuff is powerful in a very sneaky way, and it does reach some people, wapende wasipende.