“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.
No comments:
Post a Comment