You know how old folks sometimes
ramble about daily details? (Here I go.) The trade winds are blowing
steadily, and most days the heat isn’t too bad. We are already
taking more cold showers, though. The garden is amazing, and we
have more fresh tomatoes than we have ever seen before, enough
to eat at every meal, enough to give away to the little neighbor
kids. We are eating fresh bananas from trees that we planted.
Kinsey and I play recorders almost every day, and Lora sews with
Leiwia. Today they’re making another shirt for Robea, Leiwia’s
husband. She doesn’t really need Lora’s help any more;
it’s an excuse to come over and talk, and bring the baby
over to play. One-year-old Beverline is walking well now, and
we all laugh as she yells at our cats, kisses herself in the mirror,
and points at the moon. Rachel plays cards with Emily during hot
afternoons, and all the kids play a wild running game in the dusk
on the lawn. It looks like a mix of dodge ball and kick the can,
and you evidently have to yell a lot in Bislama or it doesn’t
count.
Kinsey and Emily are working like maniacs to finish their schooling
in order to have a school-free vacation. Lora has helped with
the year-end kindergarten assessments, which she inaugurated when
she ran the kindergarten. Leann, the Ni-Vanuatu teacher who took
her place, has done well. Three little boys will be ready for
first grade (in English, their third language) next year. I am
reviewing math with the year ten students, who are getting ready
for their final exams. We still have three weeks left; I’d
like to see the class averages go up another ten points! (Teachers
never lose hope, do they?) These are the exams that will determine
their future. Some will earn a place in year 11. For some, their
education will be over.
You know how old folks tend to dwell in the past quite a bit?
We find ourselves doing that. “Maybe this is the last time
I’ll be on campus,” I think as I walk to the University
of the South Pacific’s library. “I remember the satellite
conference in that room over there, talking with teachers from
Fiji and Tuvalu.” It’s a time to evaluate, to look
back from this new perspective. There are some things that we
are proud of having contributed to, but the main things that we
accomplished cannot be ticked off a list. We think of moments
with friends, the understanding we have gained of life here, the
times we have shared as a family. The annoyances of insects and
abscesses and cyclones fade, and we even find boiling drinking
water has a certain tenderness about it, like folding diapers
when your last child is almost toilet trained. We think that we
have been very lucky to have lived here for the past two years.
We are grateful.
You know how old folks get to cleaning out the attic and deciding
what they should do with all the stuff they’ve accumulated?
Well, we’ve started that process ourselves. We are all re-reading
favorite books and deciding which few we will send back to the
United States and which we should donate to libraries here. We
look at clothes, most of them moldy and faded, and try to decide
if they are still OK to pass on. We don’t have much by U.S.
standards, but it’s still a lot to think about, to be responsible
for. We don’t want our “heirs” fighting over
what’s left! On the other hand, it’s kind of freeing,
a repeat of the winnowing process that we went through before
coming here. For example, we have collected a lot of shells. We
don’t need them all. We can pick and choose individuals,
perhaps an especially beautiful and rare one, or a perfect example
of a common one, or just one that helps us remember a cherished
day.
Old folks like to tell stories, sometimes ones you’ve already
heard. What have I forgotten to tell you? Well, I haven’t
talked much about biology. These islands look to us like luxurious
jungle, of course, but in reality the land ecology is very simplified.
Only the good travelers made it here, the species that could float
or fly or hitch a ride on something that could. The islands, just
cooled volcanoes or raised coral platforms, haven’t been
here long enough to create a lot of diversity of their own. New
Caledonia, not too far to the southwest, is an old island, and
a celebrated hotspot of diversity. We are not. There are some
endemic species, such as orchids and doves, but not like the diversity
of Hawaii or the Galapagos, and nothing at all like the Amazon.
The more plants we get to know, the more we discover that were
brought here by the early Melanesians, maybe 4000 years ago. They
brought almost all the edible plants with them. They also brought
lots of the flowering ones, simply because they were colorful.
I think of those early settlers, heading out in their canoes crammed
with roots and sprouts and cuttings, launched with song along
the wind.
There is one interesting gift that island biology has contributed
to our understanding of ecology: the larger the island, the more
species it supports. That sounds too simple to be important, but
it’s vital. Flip it around: the smaller the island, the
fewer species. As more and more islands have been studied, as
well as terrestrial “islands,” such as mountains and
isolated forest areas, a pattern has emerged. An island one-tenth
the size of a similar neighbor will support only about one-half
the species. The pattern roughly holds across all ecosystems,
whether they are oases in the desert, stands of uncut timber,
or stretches of unplowed prairie. The general rule is that if
we preserve one-tenth of any given ecosystem, we will eventually
lose one-half of the species there. If we preserve one percent
of the system (one-tenth of one-tenth), we will save only one-fourth
of the species (one-half of one-half). Any honest discussion of
wilderness needs to include this principle.
You know how old folks sometimes offer unsolicited advice? I
catch myself doing that. Faculty meetings are already planning
for next year, and I am willing to offer opinions concerning things
that won’t really concern me. (Those of you who know me
well will not be surprised by this!) Occasionally someone will
ask for help designing a new teacher evaluation form or a new
way of tracking attendance, and I am grateful not to be entirely
out of touch. Yet.
So, humor an old man and listen to some unasked for advice. Save
more wilderness and fewer possessions. Travel lightly into tomorrow,
but don’t forget to carry the beautiful and the cherished,
along with the useful, as you go. Try to live in today. Create
music and listen to laughter and know what phase the moon is in.
Eat a lot of vegetables, but taste weird new things once in a
while, too. Find excuses to be neighborly.
You know how old people sometimes get teary and say sentimental
things as they’re about to leave? (Here I go again.) Thank
you all for being our faithful friends and correspondents and
supporters. We love you. We will carry you with us, always.
The wind is rising, and who knows where it will carry us? It
not only blows where it will, but it blows us where it will, too.
Trust it.
Love and peace,
Bruce
The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
101
|
