Waxing philosophical tonight I had a ‘whole of the moon’ moment this
evening. For those of you who don’t know the song the hook line is “I saw the
crescent, You saw the whole of the moon”. It’s a poignant song and like most
clever ones the chorus kind of stays with you.
I’ve had another good day today. It really has been a revelation being
able to focus on a small number of tasks during this visit rather than rushing
round like I usually do. I’ve been getting my maths together today as part of a
curriculum review in our school. Not having taught maths for many years and
having had no need to do much beyond the basics for quite a while my maths is a
bit rusty. It’s encouraging to know that the relevant theory and concepts are
still accessible in one of the dustier corners of my brain and satisfying
getting the test paper answers right. (I must beware of getting too carried away
here – it’s still fairly straightforward maths). I had a fun time after our
praise and worship session this evening doing some maths revision with the
children.
Back to the whole of the moon. As I have blogged previously I am a bit of
a creature of habit and have a few rituals that I like to stick to when I’m
over here. One of them is using the same shower cubicle at night. It has been a
hot day today so I was really looking forward to my late evening soak. It’s
usually a good idea to check that there is actually water in the showers before
getting undressed. Water check completed I stepped under the shower – and the
water stopped almost immediately. Annoyed I considered heading back indoors.
The stars persuaded me to try the cubicles on the other side of the path.
Tonight there are no clouds in the sky and the stars are amazing. Its lovely
looking up at the stars while you are scrubbing off the dirt and sweat of the
day – quite awe inspiring. Fortunately the water level was fine and I was able
to enjoy my shower. I had though that the view of the stars from my usual spot
was pretty spectacular but the view from a different viewpoint was out of this
world. The rows of shower cubicles are arranged at right angles to each other
and looking down the sky line rather than across it, (as I usually do), made
the stars stretch on for miles. In the ten years that we have been in Kosele I
have never before stood still and enjoyed that particular scene.
It made me think. Standing still and adopting a different perspective
opened up a completely different view to me – a much ‘bigger sky’ than I had
imagined before. Our work here in Kosele is still full of challenges. “African
Time” still drives me nuts. Having to slow down my thinking so I communicate
better is occasionally frustrating. There is always something new to learn. It
is, of course, blindingly obvious that adopting a new take on familiar problems
is generally a wise thing to do. Sometimes you have to be prodded fairly
vigorously to take the obvious step. I’m grateful that tonight’s reminder was
such a beautiful object lesson.
No comments:
Post a Comment