Images ignite the imagination, especially images of wildlife photography. These photographs were taken in 1998 by Tippi Degre’s parents, so you may have seen them before. (Thanks to my friend Terry Nickelson who sent them to me.)
How would our lives be different today if we’d had a childhood like this?
Born in Africa to French wildlife photographer parents, Tippi Degre had a most unusual childhood. The young girl grew up in the African desert and developed an uncommon bond with many untamed animals including a 28-year old African elephant named Abu, a leopard nicknamed J&B, lion cubs, giraffes, an ostrich, a mongoose, crocodiles, a baby zebra, a cheetah, giant bullfrogs, and even a snake. Africa was her home for many years and Tippi became friends with the ferocious animals and tribes people of Namibia. As a young child, the French girl said, I don’t have friends here. Because I never see children. So the animals are my friends.
According to Wikipedia:
Tippi was born in 1990 in Namibia, where her parents, Alain Degre and Sylvie Robert, worked as freelance wildlife photographers. …
What Tippi has done since these were taken:
Tippi later moved with her parents to Madagascar and then to France, where she became a celebrity. A book of her adventures (Tippi of Africa, ISBN 978-1-86872-083-5) was published and translated in several languages. My Book of Africa (ISBN 9781770070295) is a bestselling novel of Tippi’s adventurous life in Namibia. She also set up a website, and returned to Africa to make six nature documentaries for the Discovery Channel.
In Paris, Tippi attended a local state school for the first two years, but was then homeschooled because she was found to have little in common with the other children in Paris. She is now studying cinema at la Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris.
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She also reminds me of Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s, The Jungle Book, and even a little bit of my dear Wildflower.
Do you have a favorite photograph? Thoughts? Questions?
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A lovely story and a wonderful childhood. My mother was telling me about her time in Africa, when she was evacuated there. She lived with family who were not kind to her. She was given a baby duiker (deer) to look after and she was forced to do it and feed it at all hours – it had sharp hooves and tore her clothes. She regrets now that she didn’t have a better time there, but it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t like the white kids because she was English, she wasn’t like the black kids. She said to her aunty one day ‘If you don’t like the blacks so much, why do you spend all day in the sun trying to get as dark as you can?’. That didn’t go down well. This was during the war, of course, and things were very different then. I think, had she been given the chance and not lived with her unpleasant family, she would have been a lot more like Tippi.
Some day it will be like that…in the new creation.
Hi Carrie, what an interesting story about your mom. I do wish she’d had a happier experience. I’ve seen 6 fawns in the last week here in the mountains. I can’t imagine trying to care for one of them.
Jo, I like the idea of a new creation. Thanks for stopping by!
I love them all but the snake photo. ( I respect snakes and the snake world, but just can’t look at them too much.) My favorite is Tippi hugging the frog!
And from my inbox:
“Susan, I can well imagine she had little in common with the children of Paris….I can’t help but feel a bit envious of her experiences and her awareness of communicating at the heart and soul level…thanks so much for sharing these…love to you, as always….D”
“Susan, the photos and the story beg for a children’s book! Pat”
Me: I love hearing from you. I agree with Barbara about the snake photo. I almost didn’t put that one in!
What a coincidence! We both have new posts on the same day and they’re both about images telling the story. Mine look like Vermeer; some of yours could be in a 90s United Colors of Benetton ad!