Training a young rhino (Kenya)

My Australian student spent some of his gardening leave on a trip to Uganda and Kenya before starting his new job, so we talked about that trip for our conversational lesson when he got back.

    He’d sent me, on WhatsApp while he was out there, a photo of three rhinoceros he saw.

    This reminds me of something my flatmate Jona (an Israeli Jew) told me about what happened when he was living in Kenya.

    Pope John Paul II was due to bless a young rhino on his visit, so the Kenyans had to train it, in case it bolted on the day or, worse, charged the pope.

    Jona said, “For a while prior to the visit, we’d regularly see this striking sight of the wild life park’s worker feeding the young rhino:  a black man all dressed up in white billowing robes, mimicking the pope.”

(Kenya, 1985)

PS:  The collective noun for rhinos is a “crash“.  Males are “bulls“, females are “cows“ and their young are “calves”.  The word “rhinoceros” comes from two Greek words:  “rhino” (nose) and “ceros” (horn).

The Chinese for rhinoceros is 犀牛 xīniú / “sharp bovine“ – “sharp“ presumably for the pointed horn on the nose, “bovine“ because it looks like a cow/bull.  The character 犀 is almost exclusively used in relation to “rhinoceros“, the other being the adjective 犀利 xīlì / “sharp sharp“ (for eyes and writing style).

(From googling)  Garden leave, also known as gardening leave, is a period during which an employee is not required to work their notice period, but still receives their regular pay and benefits.  The employee is still technically employed and cannot work for another employer or engage in activities that could jeopardize the current employer’s interests during this time.