While our little storytellers and their counselor were asleep in their tents, another group of Bears huddled together under the beautiful South African night sky. Their overland truck had developed a problem the driver was not able to fix, and they had to wait until morning for help.
“Pffft,” she had complained to the mechanic who answered her call. “It went pfffft. And then it stopped.”
Now, sometimes men smirk when they hear a woman describe a noise made by an automobile. I should know. Many years ago I tried to describe a sound that, as I found out later, was caused by a metal container clinging to the underside of my car. I tell you, it isn’t easy to imitate the clinks and clanks and boing-boings of an excited tin can that hoped to be on the way to a wedding, but was mistakenly captured by an old sedan speeding toward a grocery store. Yes, I understand, most men would have recognized the “alien to a car” sound, and would immediately have suspected an empty tomato soup can. Well, hurray for men!!!
But back to our driver, Pearl Nobuntu.
“Pffft,” she had blown a spray of spit into the evening air. “It went pffft. And then it stopped.” After she had nodded several times to the bad news, “nobody can come to fix until tomorrow,” she flipped her cell phone shut, stuck it into the wide pocket of her bush colored skirt, broadened her face into a smile and clapped her hands together.
“Bears! Beeears! Back on the truck. Can you hear the elephants? They’re hungry. They like to munch on little Bears.”
Pearl Nobuntu knew how to keep a close watch on a group of rambunctious Bears; she had once been a safari guide, shielding adventure-crazy families from hippo attacks and lecturing them on the dangers of sunburns. Her grateful customers had rewarded her with her favorite sweets, Swiss chocolates and apricot jelly tarts, until eventually she had grown too large to guarantee speedy and safe retreats from roaring lions and hissing snakes. Since the beginning of this year she escorted new Bears to small villages and remote camps where sick or abandoned children celebrated their arrival. Yes, Pearl Nobuntu found much joy in showing these newcomers her homeland. And because she was such a kind person she was loved by everybody. Even the man who listened to her spirited “pffft” that had traveled via radio wave across the bush to his tiny repair shop, even he respected this woman and did not ridicule her for her lack of automotive know-how.
In the bed of the overland truck, she distributed bottled water and emergency crackers to the Bears who called themselves the Rainbow Nation. They had taken this name earlier in the day when, by chance, they had met a Bear with a large colorful sign. Of course they had no idea that they were face to face with Bear number fifty-one, in search of a mystery Baobab. Fifty-one told them about Bishop Desmond Tutu whose description of South Africa as a rainbow nation had found its place in history when President Nelson Mandela wove it into his inaugural speech on May 10, 1994. Bear fifty-one’s sign was filled with the words that would be this group’s introduction to the heart of South Africa. They read it in unison:
“Each one of us is intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country.
Each time one of us touches the soil of this land,
we feel a sense of personal renewal.”
Then Bear fifty-one turned the sign and let them read the part about the rainbow nation:
“We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”
Pearl Nobuntu had chuckled at their serious faces. “Good words,” she had said, “but we still have quite a ways to go.”
And now, in the darkness of the night, as she covered the Bears with blankets that had been stowed away behind her seat in the truck for just such an emergency, she smiled at the group of youngsters with the lofty name and whispered,
“Good night little Rainbow Nation.”
No comments:
Post a Comment