WEEDWHACKER
Headmaster Magagula, since his arrival in January 2007, has instituted a number of positive changes. Among them is hiring a groundskeeper, Mr. Mbuyiseni Gama. Mr. Gama needed to go to South Africa for a week to convince the mining company his (late) brother worked for to settle the death benefits. The grass keeps growing, however, whether Gama is present or not, so I asked and received permission to use my spare time to cut the grass in Gama's absence. MAN is it fun. That thing packs a ton of power. Nothing like watching 4 foot tall clumps of grass fall like dominoes before you when you put the whizzing head of the cutter at their base. Even though Gama does a better job (he has been a groundskeeper before) and he is back, I continue the work after classes are over each day. The grass grows very tall very quickly, and provides safe haven for snakes. Ruth and I have seen one each near the house, including one sighting of the very poisonous green mamba. I described the snake to Mr. Khumalo (long, bright green, and thin) and he said it was a green mamba "but they never bother children". Ummm, okay-but I'm not taking any chances. This schoolgrounds and teacher housing area won't be a Kew Gardens or Kirstenbosch (two very nice botanical gardens, Kew in England and Kirstenbosch in Cape Town, South Africa), but it will look nicer and be much safer.

GO GREEN
A recent article in the Times of Swaziland listed tips Swazis could take to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases-so that little Swaziland doesn't strand any polar bears on icebergs. When SUVs and trash-fired power plants are as common here as donkeys laden with corn bound for the grinding mill, I'll start to worry about Swaziland's carbon dioxide footprint. Ask my kids, after getting snow twice in three days when they were staying a 10 minute walk from the ocean in North Carolina, if global warming is on the way.

Anyway, one of the tips was making sure cars are filled to capacity when travelling. I read this tip aloud to some other teachers in the staffroom, and one said "We've been doing that for years". As though Swazis need to be convinced to put one more person in any form of transport. Talk about carrying the low sulfur-content coal to Newcastle.

MICROMANAGEMENT
Last week Mr. Magagula introduced a micromanagement plan for the school. Saying "micromanagement" among management aficionados is, as I understand it, tantamount to screaming "fire!" in a crowded movie theater. After reading the memorandum outlining the plan, brought my concerns to him privately. His reasons made sense. Still, lots of teachers aren't happy with their time and locations so closely monitored, and I still have reservations too. We will see how it goes.

BON VOYAGE
Last week we learned our friends the Rogers are returing to America after about 8 years here. Ben and Susan Rogers led Children's Cup, an NGO supporting orphaned children in Swaziland. "Cup", among other things, set up Care Points around the country for kids who had no food whatsoever. The Care Points also provide education, medical attention, and Christian teaching. Not only did the Rogers do a good work with Children's Cup, they opened their home for innumerable get-togethers. Those gatherings provided much-needed home-culture contact. It may sound wimpy or arrogant to say it's recharging to hang out with other Americans sometimes, but it's the truth. Being able to vent both joys and frustrations with people sharing the same cultural background helps put those highs and lows in perspective, and gives enthusiasm for the week (or months) ahead. The Rogers provided this, and it was very refreshing. Children's Cup will continue in Swaziland under other leadership while Ben and Susan will anchor Cup in the States. Visit www.childrenscup.org for more. Though we hate to see them go, we understand the timing is right. It's also tough to see folks who have been here so long leave, because we start to feel like old-timers here. Godspeed and a big thank you to Ben and Susan, and to their children Kayla, Trinity, and Levi.

A PICTURE PAINTS A THOUSAND WORDS...
...but we all know the experience of smells triggering intense memories. Some smells put you right back in a spot years ago. I had that experience earlier this week as we prepared for breakfast. The girls set about making a tea selection (thanks, mom and dad, for all the Celestial Seasonings varieties!), and they ironically chose rooibos. I say "ironically" because rooibos is a South African tea; once again, we're carrying the coal to Newcastle.

The scent of the rooibos took me right back to Swaziland in the early 1990s; rooibos is a variety commonly consumed in homesteads, and Marcos Bradley and I were living in a homestead in the early 1990s for 10 memorable days. The scent recalled what seemed like better times: Mother Malinga (she died unexpectedly a couple of years after we got here), Stefu (a 4 year old who probably died of AIDS who also stayed at the homestead), three teachers (Maseko, Nzama, and Shabangu) who have died, Babe Dlamini when he was hale and hearty, umkhulu (grandfather) Jeke who died of old age in 2006. A month ago I learned that a student who finished in 2008 recently hanged himself. Just last Saturday Kit and I went to town and caught a lift part of the way with Maseko's widow; that brought back fond memories of Mr. Maseko, and that "it just can't be" feeling one gets about an unexpected or untimely death. It feels like we're tasting some bitter parts of life here now, as well as the sweet and satisfying ones.

WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN?
I'm now 43 years old, in what used to be called middle age. Whether 43 is still middle age or not, I don't know. I do know life goes on, and I'm right in the middle of it. Yet the imminent departure of the Rogers, the passings of some of our Swazi friends, and the growing realization that I and my beloved family members are also mortal is beginning to sink in.

So what is next? Will I see my family and friends after they pass on, or after I pass on? C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite writers, puts it this way in his book "Mere Christianity" (forgive me for the long quote; this is close to my heart): "Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and the scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us...The Christian says 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world...If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.'"

I suspect the melancholy stares into space while sitting in the backseat of my colleague's widow's car, or the thought of the goof-off but kind student of just 3 years ago now buried, or the happy memory of Make Malinga's radiant smile and flashing white teeth, or the sadness that I'm not likely to see again soon some friends who are leaving Swaziland, fall into the category of "not available on earth longings". Yet with Lewis, I do believe those longings have a fulfillment; I do believe that we can see again, and never again be separated from, those loved ones. From Peter Kreeft's book "Handbook of Christian Apologetics": "Thus the Christian's answer to the most skeptical question of all, 'What do you really know about life after death, anyway? Have you ever been there? Have you come back to tell us?' is 'No, but I have a very good Friend who has.'" Time (it's 10:45PM on Friday night) and space don't allow me to go into the Christian explanation of life after death; Lewis' "Mere Christianity" and Josh McDowell's "More Than A Carpenter" (both small and easy to read; give them a try!) do a much better job than I ever could anyway.

Grace has heard aloud all seven books of Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" about 4 times-the first time when Ruth was nursing her as a newborn in the summer (in Florida) in 2002. Near the end of the final book, "The Last Battle", we read this (forgive me again the long quote):

Tirian [the last king of Narnia] stood holding his breath and wondering who would come out [of the gate]. And what came out was the last thing he had expected: a little, sleek, bright-eyed Talking Mouse with a red feather stuck in a circlet on its head and its left paw resting on a long sword. It bowed, a most beautiful bow, and said in its shrill voice: "Welcome, in the Lion's name. Come further up and further in." Then Tiran saw King Peter and King Edmund and Queen Lucy rush forward to kneel down and greet the Mouse and they all cried out, "Reepicheep!" And Tirian breathed fast with the sheer wonder of it, for he knew that he was looking at one of the great heroes of Narnia...But before he had much time to think of this he felt two strong arms thrown about him and felt a bearded kiss on his cheeks and hear a well-remembered voice saying: "What, lad? Art thicker and taller since I last touched thee!" It was his own father, the good King Erlian: but not as Tirian had seen him last when they brought him home pale and wounded from his fight with the giant, nor even as Tirian remembered him in his later years when he was a grey-headed warrior. This was his father, young and merry, as he could just remember him from very early days when he himself had been a little boy playing games with his father in the castle garden at Cair Paravel, just before bedtime on summer evenings. The very smell of the bread and milk he used to have for supper came back to him." The wonderous reunions continue in the book. No one can do it like Lewis. While you pick up "Mere Christianity", get a copy of "The Chronicles of Narnia", too. You can get all 7 books in one volume, published by HarperCollins.

Though separations are painful, they need not be permanent. With Reepicheep, I invite you: "Welcome, in the Lion's name. Come further up and further in." Christ holds forth to us purpose on earth and life everlasting with Him and all who choose Him. Choose Him.

From the song "Friends", from the collection "Dove Hits 2003": "Friends are friends forever/if the Lord's the Lord of them; and a friend will not say never/'cause the welcome will not end; though it's hard to let you go/in the Father's hands we know/that a lifetime's not too long to live as friends".

Rudy for the gang