Skip to main content

Geckos and books

The sky grew threatening dark as I sat in the library of the Baptist mission compound this afternoon, but the heavens didn't open until after supper -- right when our supper guests might have been considering leaving. It poured and poured at two different intervals in the evening but now all is calm again except for the crickets chirping loudly outside the window.

Speaking of wildlife, I saw some magnificently coloured lizards at the resthouse in Douala and was today mildly surprised to find a very large gecko hanging out in the bathroom of the guest apartment another lady and I were outfitting for a soon-to-be-arriving family. He scampered away as soon as he saw us, but I was surprised at his size. Geckos in Myanmar were never more than 2 or 3 inches long, tail included. This little guy was over half a foot.

What was I doing in the library all afternoon, you may be wondering? No, not reading away my adjustment period in Cameroon -- I was cataloguing books for the library! Oh, what bliss! To sit at a computer and do data entry for books! Elsie had to send Jenny (one of "my kids") to drag me away shortly before supper. I look forward to returning to it tomorrow.

No, seriously, I don't wish to lead you to believe that data entry is the only job I enjoy, but after feeling very much like a little puppy or a shadow or a burdonsome child, following everyone around, it was nice to get to work on a task I could do competently and to know that I was actually doing work which would be of use to someone and free up some time for them to do other tasks, and which they are probably only too happy not to have to do.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm very impressed at your explanation for being such a geek. Data entry....you must have been jumping for joy, dear!
(Glad you could help someone out,though.)
August 7, 2007 at 10:54 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My favourite nativity scene

“There’s no accounting for taste.” That’s my dad’s favourite way of explaining personal tastes that are incomprehensible to him, like living downtown, and riding bike in winter. The inexplicable factors which determine an individual’s likes or dislikes are probably the only way I can explain why my favourite nativity scene contains a horribly caricatured black magus, a random adoring child attired – to my fancy – like a Roma person, an old shepherd carrying some sort of blunderbuss. And a haloed holy family with an 18-month-old baby Jesus. This is the "Christmas Manger Set – the Christmas story in beautiful cut-out scenes and life-like figures." See how the 1940s-era family admires the realistic flourishes, like raw wood beams and straw protruding from the edge of the roofline; the rough, broken wood of the stalls; the tasselled camels; the richly dressed magi; the woolly sheep; the Bethlehemites on the path in the background, ostensibly out to get water, judging...
2 comments
Read more

Upside down economics of Jesus: household action and global change

--Presented at a CAWG event in Altona -- In Living More with Less , Doris Janzen Longacre shares a story about envelopes from Marie Moyer, a missionary in India, who was studying Hindi with Panditji. Marie writes: “From his philosophic mind, which probed the meaning of events and circumstances, I learned more than Hindi.” Just before her teacher’s arrival one day before Christmas, she’d received and opened a pile of Christmas cards and discarded the envelopes as he walked in the room. She writes: “He sat down soberly and studied the situation, then he solemnly scolded me: ‘the reverberation of this wasteful act will be felt around the world’.” Marie was stunned. “What do you mean?” she asked him. “Those envelopes,” he said, pointing to the wastebasket. “You could write on the inside of them.” “Chagrined”, Marie apologized and rescued the envelopes with the help of Panditji, who “caressed each one” as he pulled it out of the garbage. This forever changed Marie’s relationship to p...
2 comments
Read more

Broken people...

After reflecting with one coworker on how often churches in all their forms really mess up and hurt a whole bunch of people in the process -- and how "we gotta do better" -- I stumbled into another conversation with a coworker which highlighted our brokenness, and I suddenly realized what was wrong with my take in the first. I wanted the church to be better at fixing our mistakes, or better yet, at not making them in the first place. But maybe this "fix-it" attitude is partly the reason we keep blowing it again and again! My friend recollected an experience when a church community was in a terrible place: compounded mistakes, hurts, and frustrations had blown up, spewing pain all over all parties. (I'm sure anyone with a long history in the church can think of one, if not several, such occasions in their past.) A new Christian who observed all these goings on responded in an unexpected way. Instead of "you people are a bunch of screw-ups! How could this pos...
5 comments
Read more