Thursday, November 22, 2007

Vexed by Small Things

“Woman Slices Hubby’s Manhood.” (Manica Post Headline)

“Now don’t get the impression that I care ‘bout what you do,

But when it gets close to Thanksgiving, I’d hide if I were you!”

(Song Lyrics by Lacy J. Dalton)

“I call him Footnote Ab.” (G. R. Davis, Wofford Biol.)

Although Old Mutare may not be the Center of the Universe, we do occasionally hear about goings-on in the rest of this world. Wednesday, for example, I learned that storms in Bangladesh had killed at least 1800 people. Such a tragedy lends perspective to one’s life, and on this Thanksgiving Day I must be grateful that my own frustrations have been less than the bites of anemic gnats! Still, being in a self-centered mood, I shall list my recent “gnat bites” and hope that they amuse you.

Minor Irritation 1: Neocolonial Exploitation. My first complaint is about Invigilation. This curious custom, by which teachers are required to monitor other folks’ examinations, is a holdover of British colonialism. I am scheduled to invigilate 12 exams. Fortunately, these have been collapsed into six examination-periods, but still, that’s more than 18 hours of watching students sweat. Furthermore, to insure the integrity of the process, an Invigilator is not allowed any personal amusements (such as reading novels or grading one’s own exams), and the Director of Examinations will come by to make sure that this rule remains inviolate.

Because I have other work to do, I griped a bit about Invigilation. The response was, “You don’t have Invigilation in your country?” The tone of voice can best be imagined if you raise an eyebrow and say, “You kill half the girl-babies in your country?” I responded, “No we do not!” The tone of my response can best be imagined if you raise both eyebrows and say, “Our Freedom Fighters whipped the imperialistic Redcoats bad at Cowpens, and if the Brits had stuck us with a stupid neocolonial custom like Invigilation, we’d have swum the Atlantic & burned freaking London!

Minor Irritation 2: Contagion. My second complaint is about the Botswana Boys. They have tried to be extremely nice to me. Last week, however, they gave a computer-virus (which I am still fighting), and then they gave me a bio-virus (not HIV) that has me hacking & coughing and sneezing through life these days.

Minor Irritation 3: Getting Stoned, again.
My third complaint is dental. Toward the end of last week I broke another tooth. (This time the small piece of quartz was in beans, not rice.) I made another appointment with the good Dr. K, and he fixed me up. This time the event was less pleasant than previously: (a) the more complex repair took longer, (b) nobody was singing “Immortal, Invisible…,” and (c) no injection was available (Zimbabwe has shortages, you know).

The actual complaint: I have learned that I’m the real Thanksgiving Turkey. I hope you will not think that Irritations One through Three have been sufficient to push me towards Un-Thankfulness. Nay, friends, I am a tougher customer than that; even Zimbabwe’s dental privations are as nothing to macho-man Ab Abercrombie (uh, at least not ex post facto). What has unsettled my spirit is an uninvited memory.


Now let me stipulate one incontestable fact before I write another sentence. I have heard tell, from absolutely reliable sources, that Bishop J. Lawrence McCleskey is a fine man, a gentleman, a veritable prince of a fellow. It must be true; it is true, and I am an absolute turkey because I cannot transcend my vanity and let go of my anger towards this good man. I was first reminded of His Episcopal Excellency when I read the Post headline quoted above.[1] Then, on Monday, for my sins, I was forced to enter the J. Lawrence McCleskey Building—and was instantly bitten by the Black Dog of Depression.

Here’s some background. In the Year 2000, I was walking across the A.U. campus with a favorite student. This young gentleman, a thoughtful fellow who has gone on to do fine things, asked me, “Sir, why is it that all the buildings at this university bear the names of white men?”[2] I answered that I did not know. Then, in my vanity, I added, “…but I promise you one thing. If Methodists in the South Carolina Conference[3] ever give A.U. a building, it won’t be named for a white man.”

Now here’s a bit more background. When I was back in the States, while His Excellency, J. Lawrence McCleskey, was Presiding Bishop of the South Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Noble Man Himself graciously requested that I come to Columbia and talk about raising money for Africa University. Of course I complied with this episcopal summons, and I made my stuttering, inelegant, half-assed case for scholarships. “But,” responded H.E., “perhaps a building is needed. A building would be so much more permanent.”[4] At that point I told H.E. about the complaint of my A.U. student—and about the promise that I had made to this young man.

Today the plaque that names A.U.’s Theology Building for the Reverend Bishop J. Lawrence McCleskey is supported by four bolts and four ornamental screws. This week I have expended too much time trying to loosen ‘em.[5] Yesterday—I was so depressed—I actually prayed about my anger & my great vanity, and I think I have a solution that may save my neck on this Turkey Day. Shoot-fire, I even hope that His Excellency the Reverend Bishop J. Lawrence McCleskey would approve. I’m just going to give the building an additional name. Yep, I’m going to print out a statement on a plain sheet of paper and post it over the (thus far) official plaque. I reckon that my statement will be allowed to remain for only an hour or so. But somebody will read it, somebody will remember it, and, well, some memories last longer than bricks. Anyhow, here’s what the statement will look like:

This building was donated, out of love for the people of Africa, by members of the South Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. The fund-drive was conducted under the dynamic leadership of the Reverend Doctor J. Lawrence McCleskey, Presiding Bishop. Officially, this building bears the bishop’s name. In a deeper sense, it bears other names. These are the unspoken names of slaves who suffered in the ricefields of Charleston County, of Orangeburg students slain because of their protest against injustice, of preachers and politicians and school kids and game wardens and lint-head textile workers—of all children of Sand and Palmetto who learned to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly in the paths of the Lord. In recognition of these millions of unnamed saints, this building is now re-christened with the following two names that do resonate in the hearts of South Carolinians. This is now the

Marian Wright Edelman

and

Talmage Boyd Skinner

Building


Marian Wright Edleman grew up a preacher’s child in the strong Black community of Bennetsville, South Carolina. Throughout her adult life, she has never failed to Speak Truth to Power, standing like a tough, wind-blown palmetto against the storms of injustice. Because of her love, the children of South Carolina, of the United States, of Africa, and of the world lead richer, fuller lives.

Talmage Boyd Skinner, part Amer-Indian and part White Boy, grew up hunting rabbits in the cotton fields of Anderson County, South Carolina. He became a Methodist preacher, and he served every congregation with a love that transcended every separation of this sinful world. Nobody has loved Africa and Africa University better than this man.


[1] I do not know why I was thus reminded. I feel sure that the Great Man has never had any problems in his marriage. Nevertheless, when I saw the headline, I glanced at the knife clipped to my pocket and thought of J. Lawrence McCleskey.

[2] This complaint would no longer be true at Africa University—not quite.

[3] I love the South Carolina Conference with an emotion usually reserved for kinfolks and foxhole comrades. Although one of American Methodism’s poorest Conferences, our girls and boys in the Palmetto State have given more generously than anybody else to Africa University.

[4] I am sure that I have quoted this statement imprecisely, and I am sorry for that. I was probably upset because of my prejudice that scholarships are actually more permanent than buildings.

[5] In our ag-school grading system, 5 out of 8 is passing, but that doesn’t apply to the purloining of plaques.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Saints and Labors III: American Saints with African Connections

“To all, life Thou givest, to both great and small; in all life Thou livest, the true Life of all….”

“Immortal, Invisible…,” Number 27 in the first U.Meth Hymnal

Saints from the Bayou Country. I’ve never found worship services to be much fun, and therefore I approached chapel last Wednesday without enthusiasm, commenting to my best friend, “If this isn’t inspiring, I’m gone.” As it turned out, I stayed for the full service because 07NOV was a morning of minor miracles. First of all, the chapel’s sound-system worked, and for once I could actually hear what was being said. Second, we had interesting visitors. As you will recall, in late summer of ’05 two massive hurricanes hammered the Gulf Coast of North America. Hearing this news, students and staff of Africa University—near penniless, as I have repeatedly emphasized—took up a special collection and sent it to U.Meth churches in Louisiana. On 07NOV a VIM team, comprised primarily of parishioners from those churches, arrived in Old Mutare. Personally understanding the nature of desperation, these Katrina survivors brought with them this world’s best cure for physical human need: Yankee dollars! Third, the VIM team included a Black pastor, and (another miracle) this American visitor was invited to preach. He screamed, shouted, waved his arms—and imparted a message of erudition, challenge, and hope. I have never before seen an A.U. congregation respond with such enthusiasm. The students streamed out of chapel, prepared, as the Reverend VIMmer Rudy Rasmus had ordered, to pass through any Samaria, bearing Living Water. (For some of our ag students, this will include best-practice techniques of irrigation.)

Future Saint of the University. One pleasant aspect of my trip to the USA was talking, by telephone, with Lavinia. I won’t tell you her last name right now, but I will say that I am living in her house. Lavinia is a big-time academic lawyer practicing up in New Jersey (or some such godforsaken clime). A year or so ago she applied for a Fulbright Fellowship to Africa, and in its wisdom the Foundation smiled upon her application. Therefore, next semester, Lavinia will be teaching and conducting research at Africa University’s Institute for Peace, Leadership, and Governance. This means that she will not be teaching ag students (her loss, and theirs), but she should have some interesting folks in her classes. After all, in Africa, what could be more interesting than exploring issues of conflict resolution and post-conflict reconciliation? Perhaps Lavinia will even solve the problem of warfare over seats on A.U.’s town-bus. Anyhow, I am thankful for Lavinia. First, I enjoyed talking to her, and I am convinced that she will bring new, important insights to Old Mutare. And, second, I really am living in her house. Since I am not a paid member of Staff, and since (gratias Deo) I am definitely not a missionary, my claim to University housing was minimal. However, A.U.’s “Powers that Be” (& who knows who is really in charge here?) had to hold a house vacant for a Prestigious Fulbrighter, and therefore I got Lavinia’s house for a semester.

Because we should all want Lavinia to be comfortable in her marvelous house, I am tempted to stage a contest among the (3? 4?) readers of this blog. As part of her grant, Lavinia has license to ship a bunch of boxes to Zimbabwe—free, through the U.S. Embassy in Harare. What should we advise her to send c/o Uncle Sam? I think I can guess some of your recommendations. Wendy Campbell will doubtless suggest a crate of Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter. Lizzie Norman will recommend a Holmes mystery and two extra copies of Netter’s Anatomy. Vivian Fisher would send a few hundred memoirs about the First World War. I don’t know for sure about the rest of you, but personally I’d advise Lavinia to ship a really nice snake-cage. Last Friday a very friendly cobra showed up in Lavinia’s house. Being in an unsociable mood, I evicted the house-cobra to a distant locale. For that I apologize, Lavinia; you’ll never find another quite so nice; in fact, the consensus here is that you’ll see no cobras at all. Still, if you are very fortunate, you may come across some ophidian friend, and you’d need a nice place to house it.

Seriously, I am very glad that Lavinia is on the way. A.U. cannot afford to lose that Fulbright position, & the people here really need new insights into conflict resolution. So, were it in my power to Canonize, I would name Lavinia one of the Saints.

Sinner Redeemed. Archie Carr finished college with a Bachelor’s in English Lit, but in graduate school he got religion & switched to zoology. After sojourns in southern Africa and in the Caribbean, Dr. Carr returned to his native Florida. And over the years he became a sort of patron-saint for Southern herpetologists—partly because he could apprehend nature with amazing insight and partly (I admit) because some English teacher had shown him how to write so darn well. Archie Carr loved all things living (on his deathbed he asked a friend of mine to sneak a Short-tailed Snake into his hospital room), but he had a special fondness for turtles and frogs. I think Archie liked turtles because they endure. And he flat-out said that he liked frogs because they know the secret of life—which is to gather with friends on warm, rainy nights, thereupon to sing about the general joy of living & the particular hope of sex.

I don’t know how many frog species live on the Africa University campus. Presumably the total is between 16 (the number I’ve observed thus far) and 39 (the max that Alan Channing [2001] considers possible for Manicaland Province). I do know that A.U.’s anuran fauna is highly diverse (we have eight Families here; that’s about like the entire USA, which is a bit bigger than our 600 hectares), and I do know that virtually all species are rain-dependent.

Rain, and frogs, should not be taken for granted in southern Africa. In wintertime, you typically don’t see either one, and if you do, the vision is fleeting & pretty much irrelevant. But during September the cold abates, and in October the days are actually warm (= hot, if you’re a Yankee). November, as I have suggested, is for Old Mutare the month of Maybe. During November the southward progression of the solar equator gives us more daylight, more input of radiant energy that can heat the air and cause it to rise. Rising air, pushed ever higher by still-warmer air beneath it, begins to cool, and as the air cools to its dewpoint, water-vapor within it begins to condense. When the condensing droplets reach a critical size, they fall to earth—as convective precipitation, summer rain, the Rain that gives life to Zimbabwe’s people and frogs.

As any Zimbabwean can tell you, in some years this miracle does not happen. Moisture-bearing air-masses fail to move down from the Equatorial North and fail to cross the Afro-Montane Highlands that shadow us from the Indian Ocean. Obviously, no amount of convective uplift can squeeze water from entirely dry air, so drought results. During drought-years Old Mutare becomes as dry as my statistics lectures: maize-plants shrivel before they bear, children go hungry, and A.U.’s frogs have nothing decent to sing about. But in a good year, summertime brings the rains to Old Mutare. Agricultural toil is substantially rewarded. Termites emerge in clouds, thick as water; young children catch them afly and eat them like popcorn. Pangolin and aardwolf haunt the margins of civilization. Church crowds sing with thanksgiving. And the frogs of Old Mutare go wild with a joy that would delight the heart of Archie Carr.

Of course, not all frogs are alike. Toads are the gamblers among our local species. It doesn’t take much to excite a congregation of toads; give ‘em a light October shower, and they’ll risk their eggs in some temporary pool, hoping that the tadpoles will at least be safe from aquatic predators. Ridged frogs and reed frogs demand a little more out of life. They’d like some assurance that their eggs will hatch before they dry, so these animals seek more permanent water such as intermittent streams and agricultural canals. Rhacophorids (= Afro-Asian treefrogs) and rubber-frogs are among the cautious ones, and if you listen for their singing on nights of modest rains, you might consider them puritanical in their breeding habits. But let the skies break open! Then the rhacophorids will ascend the trees that lean over dry ponds a-filling. There, in ménages of two to a dozen, they will stir their reproductive fluids together to construct foam-nests that will protect their eggs until the tadpoles can free-fall into the waters below. And the rubber-frogs, with their gaudy skins of UGa red and black? On a perfect night you can run your hand through the right water-course—and have a rubber-frog attempting to mate with each finger (& perhaps 2 with the thumb).

So, during the month when Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, this is the big miracle that I am praying for—the breaking open of the skies and the affirmation of Life by the frogs of Old Mutare. Oh bear my petition before the Almighty, Saint Archie Carr.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Saints and Labors, II

It’s now November, the scariest month in Zimbabwe, and things have been slightly unquiet in Old Mutare since my return from the States. Our ag students are restive because they are covered up with tests—entomology earlier, curve-fitting yesterday, genetics Monday, production econ and plant physiology still to go. Meanwhile, the University has announced a mid-semester tuition increase, payable immediately, and food prices in our dining hall have tripled in the last two weeks. Because one of our busses was wrecked (only 1 fatality), transport to & from town is now a real bitch: pushing, shoving, and physical rudeness rule a Hobbesian waiting-line at the bus-stop. Vague rumors hint that the V.C. (= Vice Chancellor, equivalent to a U.S. university president) might resign. Elaborations suggest that my noble dean could replace him, but Prof Tagwira is not actively seeking the post. The dean of the Theology School is said to be less reticent; she gave me some leaves of spinach, presumably not in solicitation of my (irrelevant) support. Actually, the V.C. seems quite content to me, and I see no reason whatsoever to credit any of this speculation. I just think that nervousness generates gossip—and that people are nervous because it’s November.

To share our November disquietude, we have another VIM team on campus. These good folks are from Indiana & Ohio, and their ostensible mission is to dig a latrine. (I am not making this up.) More important to me, they brought the three laptop computers that Terry Fergusson had purchased for the Ag School. My dean was ecstatic about the computers (particularly about their price), thanking me so effusively that I was embarrassed to ask for repayment (but I did). Of course the problem of allocating the laptops will be, uh, interesting; several faculty members have eyed them with more lust than Jimmy Carter ever felt in his heart. I reckon that, because it’s now November, people are nervous about what blessings they do and do not receive, so perhaps a new laptop could be interpreted (a la Max Weber) as a sign of divine favor in a scary season.

In November it’s no surprise that exploitation of the campus’ natural resources is increasing. Yesterday I came across a new camp of 6 gold-prospectors on the second mountain. These folks had no place on the river and were hacking at a quartz vein on the dry hillside. On the near mountain my trail-camera snapped photos of two hunters (one with a rifle) and their seven dogs. In official (and legal) exploitation, our fields are been plowed & disked: they await either soya or maize or both; decisions will be based on factors of economy and weather.

As November begins, the general preoccupation of agricultural eastern Zimbabwe is rain. We’ve had a few teaser-clouds, drifting in from northern convections. And Wednesday, in response to higher humidity, a Natal puddle frog called in an Ag Building sewer-drain. Needless to say, he was captured, photographed, and released. Today the skies are crystal-clear again, the frog is silent, and farmers are apprehensive.

As November matures, ceremonial gourds will rattle in local church-services while the people pray for rain. If none falls before mid-month, some folks will climb the highest hills to tiny Zimbabwes (roughly = stone walls) and petition gods brought southward with the Bantu invasions. Meanwhile, the VIM teams will praise the Lord and enjoy the picture-perfect weather.

I have started writing this blog-entry on 2 November. (I definitely should be planning lectures about Analysis of Variance, but I don’t feel good enough to contemplate Latin squares and completely randomized designs.) Halloween has passed, uncelebrated: with November hard a-coming, ghosts here were not considered especially funny. All Saints’ Day, on the other hand, had more significance, at least to me. In my last blog I tried to honor a few present-day saints by name. But anybody with sense knows that the greatest saints are seldom specifically recognized. A mother pretends she’s full so that her kids will eat a bit more. A man gives a few kgs of mealy-meal to a stranger. A cook is up at 4AM to buy bread for people whom she scarcely knows. The host of such saints is countless, and each provides a window beyond the scariness of this immediate month. And so, to heck with November fears! Come rain or no, the saints will keep right on laboring, until, for all of us, “…hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong. Alleluia, alleluia!”