Life and Death

Yesterday as I was returning from lunch a group of children came galloping toward me, faces brimming with excitment and pride. The leading thrusted his hand toward be and in his hand was a little bird's nest and in the little birds nest was a little brown bird. All perfectly intact, perfectly perserved. It looked as if the bird had just laid down for a nap in his life's masterpiece and never woke up. I don't know where the children found it but we took the little birds body and burried it under a tree.
But it was one of those moments that takes you breath away and reminds you how transent life is. This little bird spent the majority of its days building the it's nest from and then one day death takes him and all that is left of her existance is a twiggy fortress. But if you must die you die and accept it.

The stars here are amazing. The night sky seems smothering in all its complexity. Looking up into the specks of potential life straining their light down to be on Earth, makes me appreciate my smallness and connectedness to the rest. That in the grand scheme of things I am no bigger or more important than any of these children, than the farmer who I watch evermorning hurding his cows, nor am I any bigger than that little brown bird.

Yesterday, I joined a little teen meeting in a local school house. The topic that day was love. Most of the discussion was in Sosotho so I couldn't understand the details. At the end we all stood together and I listened as they sang a hymn. Then terrifyingly, out of no where, they asked Me to close the meeting by preying. Now, as we all know, I don't know how to prey. I literally had no words. But I just thanked them for accepting me and giving me the opportunity to spend time with them and I thanked god for this time together and I told them how ver grateful I am to know them. Walking back home over the grassy hills of Lesotho we jumped on eachothers backs seeing who could bare the heaviest load.