snake by snake

Yesterday the man came to mow the lawn. As we sat on the porch by the mud room, someone noticed something wriggling around in the grass so the kids went to inspect. On closer look they discovered a snake. A wee snake about 10 inches long and no wider than my pinky finger.

BUT A SNAKE!

At least those were their feelings. Angela got a stick but as she doesn't like snakes, she handed it over to me to pull the snake out. The poor dude had a nice cut which made his guts ooze a little. I pulled it out of it's hole and Mirembe took over.

The kids were crying out and shouting, "Mirembe! Mirembe! Mirembe! Mirembe! Mirembe! Mirembe! Mirembe!"

As he hoisted the snake hanging over the stick and took it out to the field by the road. a parade of children followed him still shouting, picking up sticks and rocks along the way.
It looked like they were going to burn a witch or something.
Mirembe flung the snake off the stick just close enough whereby he then took a small post and started beating it while Claudio and Joseph threw rocks.
He beat it dead, and everyone made sure it was sufficiently buried by thrown rocks. All the time kids are squealing and carrying on in such raucous as if to scream it to death.

Apparently this isn’t an unusual scene back home. Of course, the snakes are much bigger and more poisonous than a little gardner snake, but this tour is suppose to be training ground for these kids. We’re not making them Americans, we’re trying to help them grow into great Africans. Why not start in the garden?

What activities do we do that makes us the better people that we are meant to be? I had a Catholic professor at a predominantly Protestant school. She always instructed us by saying, “I’m hoping I’m making you better Protestants as you are refining my Catholicism.” It’s not about converting but about honing. When I ran track I didn’t want to run the 10K (neither did my teammates- they would have had to pull out the calendar to time me) but their dedication to their intense and grueling race urged me on to dedicate as much energy and focus to my 15 second hurdle race.

It’s easy to think being better means changing something about our current circumstances. Sometimes the change that leads to refinement is just in our pursuit and attitude. We can be better where we are by being a bit more intentional, using inspiration from co-workers or friends to motivate our current progress, and appreciating the unique situation we’re in where self-improvement is within our grasp and worth seeking.

Let’s embrace who we are, where we are, and where we can go…snake by snake.