Leaving Time

The year is 1999. The place is Botswana, Africa. Alice is working at a research facility where she can study elephant behavior in the wild. She comes across five elephant corpses. They’ve been massacred by poachers. The lone survivor is a newborn female calf. Alice knows she should walk away and let nature take its course, but she can’t.

Instead, she lures the baby elephant back to her cottage at the research facility. At first, she must improvise a way to feed the starving infant, making many mistakes in the process. While rummaging through the quarters of the native rangers for some powdered milk, she meets Neo, who gives her a tin of baby formula and some advice about how to care for baby elephants.

The two quickly unite to try to save the infant. Much to Alice’s surprise, her boss grudgingly agrees to allow the animal to remain in camp for a month until the calf is strong enough to be returned to a wild herd. Neo names the elephant Lesego, which means “lucky” in his language. Neo and Alice bond while caring for the elephant and eventually become lovers.

During the time she’s raising Lesego, Alice recalls her own childhood, and being raised by a single mother.