Elsa, Pippa and Penny- part 1:Elsa

My blog wouldn't be complete without telling you a little about Elsa,Pippa and Penny.Of course I can't get all of the information described in a couple of books in just few lines so I'll include only basic facts.As I mentioned Joy didn't have children but she treated her animals with mother love and cares.It would be easy if she kept them like her pets,making her happy,saying it's the only way cause they've lost their mothers and there is no other way.But she prefered taking them back to wild life where they truly belong and can be really happy.She put her wild friends before her own comfort and health.Joy said she didn't like spending so much time living away from other people and it was hard to sent off curious visitors sometimes ,cause she really enjoyed some company.But she never allowed herself that because it would make her animals feel bad and it was dangerous for their kids to get used to humans.

Elsa the Lioness



Elsa is probably the most famous of Joy's animals.The interest people showed in the book about Elsa encouraged Adamson to continue working with other wild animals.Joy got Elsa when the lion lost her mum.When George Adamson was sent to take care of a dangerous human-eating lion,he and his co-workers were attacked by a lioness and it led to her death.Later George and his co-workers found out she was a mother and just trying to protect her children.So George felt it was his duty to take care of her children.When baby lions got too big and Adamsons couldn't no longer keep them they had to send 2 of the lions to zoo.George,Joy and they workers all agreed to keep the smallest one-Elsa.Since Adamson's way of life and work allowed Elsa to be close to wild,she felt it calling her and the family decided it's better to bring her back to wild life.
Of course an animal brought up by people can't become completely independent so Joy and George had to continue giving her food.Even when she learnt to pray Elsa continues to depend on them.But she managed to brought up 3 completely independent children.First Elsa was freed in Masai Mara but couldn't stand the climate there and had to be moved in Meru national park.The local people however disliked the many guardians in the region of Elsa's home and insisted on her removal saying that since she had lived with human beings local people were endangered.Sadly Elsa got sick and had Babesia felis.She died before they had to move her gain.She had 2 children,2 boys- Jespah and Gopa and one girl-little Elsa,they all were moved to national park Serengetti after Elsa's death.Elsa is buried under the tree where she and her children used to play.Later Joy Adamson's body has also been moved there.Joy said she has never been afraid of Elsa,even when she was sick and angry,she could always trust her and depend on her and her loyalty.

Joy's connection to Kenya is deeply emotional,based on strong love and admiration for Kenya's beauty.Her heart,as she said more than once,belongs to Kenya and it was like her second mother coutry.Adamson enjoyed all shapes and forms of African beauty and shows it in her portraits,photographs and mostly in her books.Art is not the only thing she did to reach her goal of preserving this beauty.Her whole life,all of her efforts were for preserving the wildlife.Except her work with the big cats,that gave worthy information about their lives and habits,she made the world think about lots of important topics.The fund she made where money from her books sales went was used for Kenyas' parks needs.Encyclopedia Britanica includes Joy Adamson's name in "300 women who changed the world".She is one of the people who showed their contemporaries that nature is in pain,that human beings are ruining unique plant and animal species every day with their activities,that our world has serious problems we need to open our eyes for.She made lots of young people care about ecology.Joy Adamson and her contemporaries opened the eyes of the long blind for harmful human activities society and made then care more.Her motive for doing all this was the love for her wild friends and Kenya.

Joy Adamson had married three times,she found her true love in her third husband-George Adamson.He was also in love with Kenya and african culture like her.They raised and brought back to freedom Elsa,a female lion.Later when Joy tried the same thing with a leopard and a cheetah,George was still raising and bringing back to free life other lions.Although they often spent time away from each other because of their work,the distance and little time they spent together couldn't break their love and care for each other.Their common goals and ideals made their love even stronger.They didn't have their own children but were giving all the love and care to their wild kids.Sometimes Joy and George were even sacrifising their own health,busy with too much work to do for their wild friends.While George was working at Kenyan parks they lived in houses where the workers were living.After he retired, they moved to a beautiful house on lake Naivasha.Today the house is a museum and educational center.Even there Joy enjoyed wild animals' company.She dedicates her book "Friends from the forest" to them.
Juliet Hukslie,a friend of Adamsons,says Joy didn't like having too many things in her house,she liked simple life with as little as possible.As Joy often says she regrets people left their wild nature and she had always tried living as close as nature as possible.

Her real name is Friederike Victoria Gressner.She was born in Trropau,Austria-Hungary(now Opava,Czech Republic).She considered herself austrian.Joy Adamson was born in a wealthy family that always supported her love of art,ever since she was a kid.Her talent for arts is really amazing-she studied music,art(paintings),made sculptures.People who knew her when she was a kid say even back then she had a deep connection and true love for nature.Some of her later portraits of local african people were in Kenya's president residency,rest of them in Nairobi's national museum.
Joy was often drawing and photographing her wild friends.She also made a few short documentary movies.Art was in her blood,it was always a part of her.Of course her books are the best of her art that reached people all over the world.

Joy Adamson-if we look her life or books(that are a mirror of her life) up in things written right after her death we'll see she's described as "colossally successful" and "brilliant".She made the world hear about her not only because of her talanted artistic (writing,paintings) works but also because of her big heart she shows in her works.Joy Adamson made so much for Kenya's wildlife,more than a lot of people do even today when we're trying to do much more for ecology than back then.But the problems she told us about are still alive today,unsolved and unfortunately getting worse.That's why we mustn't forget her,leaving her deeds in the dust like we do with her books left on our shelves,not remembering them,not reading at least a bit from them.
This is the purpose of my blog.I hope I showed you a bit of this amazing woman's life and works or reminded it to those of you who already know her.Of course there's always much more to say...