Thursday, June 4, 2009

What a Difference our Differences Make?

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,

but by the moments that take our breath away"


This article from AFP was emailed to me this morning and it is so beautiful that it would be a great disappointment not to share it here with you. Please spare your compassion reading it and hopefully, it will make a difference in our life, boleh tak?

p.s. Plus, this week is my writer-bloc week (I need to check if it is another scheduled maintenance works:)




NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean , then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'", ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park , told AFP .

"After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added.
"The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it followed its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years,' he explained. 'Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away".

This is a real story that shows that our differences don't matter much when we need the comfort of another. We could all learn a lesson from these two creatures of God, "Look beyond the differences and find a way to walk the path together".


3 comments:

Jimbo said...

Read more about Owen & Mzee at their blog:

http://www.lafargeecosystems.com

(click on ... caretakers diary)

(The O&M blog was dormant for a while, but is now
alive and well as of June 2009)

Join the Owen & Mzee Yahoo Group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Owen-and-Mzee_Group

See Owen & Mzee Movie trailer:

http://tinyurl.com/oxomy

Author's fabulous website with movie:

http://www.owenandmzee.com

Download Parent-Teacher Guide at:

http://images.ibsys.com/2005/0429/4432216.pdf , or

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/tradebooks/discguide/owen_mzee_dg.pdf , or

http://www.grandcanyonreaderaward.org/4432216.pdf

Visit my O&M blog:

http://jimbos-weblog.blogspot.com

Fi-sha said...

Dear Jimbo

Thanks for the wonderful links on Owen and Mzee! Cheerio!

Jimbo said...

It was my pleasure.