From: David Wierda

http://cargo-euro.com/seen.php?David_Wierda

David Wierda

Yashimbawula! Relics from my old MySpace page

As we grow up, we learn that this is NOT a nice world. By the grace of God we also discover GOD IS GOOD.

FULBE PROVERBS
If you like where you fell, don't forget what tripped you.
A monkey sitting in the fork of a tree can't understand the one hanging from a branch.
Better to spend the whole day finding a way around than to plunge in and drown.
Calling demons isn't difficult; it's sending them away again.


LYRICS: King Without A Crown, by Matisyahu (Opens in a new window)

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you're made to feel
as if your love's a crime
But nothing worth having comes
without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight
...Bruce Cockburn, Lovers in a Dangerous Time, 1983

LYRICS: Lovers In A Dangerous Time, by Bruce Cockburn (Opens in a new window)


LYRICS: The Crossing, by Johnny Clegg and Savuka (Opens in a new window)

"I'm trying to say what I think brotherhood really is. It begins—it begins in shared pain."
"Then where does it end?"
"I don't know. I don't know yet."

More about Mary, by Andrew Fishel

Mary Tired of her Sheep,
No Longer Just a Lamb.
She Wanted Something Different
From An Everpresent Ram.

She Traded For An Elephant
Kept in a Massive Cage,
Then Started to Cut Off Its Trunk
So She Could Tell Its Age!

The Elephant Stampeded
In Excruciating Pain
And Trampled Poor Miss Mary
Into Nothing But a Stain!

The Moral of this Episode
Is Plain For All To See.
Never Take An Elephant
For Any Kind of Tree!

By Andrew L. Fishel, illustrated by Maria Wierda

sacred space

I have found a good quiet place to pray on the web.

when a road rally's not boring

My first experience as a road rally spectator was anything but boring. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1985 in what was then Zaire and is now again the Congo . I had just become Peace Corps Volunteer Leader in my region, and I needed to bring some new volunteers out to their posts in the Land Rover I drove. We dropped off the first volunteer at his post and continued on towards the second volunteer’s village. We rounded a curve on the bush road when a car hurtled at us. I wrenched the steering wheel left as the rally car screamed by. We looked at each other. The road was not closed, not to our knowledge, and we had many miles to cover before dark. Riding at rally cars was no fun, but I didn’t want a night in the bush either.

 

We continued on cautiously. We tried to estimate the number of minutes between cars as two or three more cars roared at us down the one lane road. Finally we came to a one lane bridge. There we waited till a car lurched around the bend in the road on the far side of the bridge and crossed in front of us. We hesitated briefly—once two cars were far close together than normal, but then we hurried on to the bridge and gunned the sluggish Land Rover engine across the stream. We stopped on the far side and listened before going around the bend on the side of the hill on the far side.

 

We continued on like this, watching the road ahead carefully and trying to be well off to the side of the dirt track each time another car came at us. We began to leave the clay behind and the track became a path through deeper and deeper sand. Getting off the road quickly became difficult and getting off the road at all became impossible in places. We reached a village where a weekly market was just winding down, so we parked the Land Rover, found ourselves some beers, and settled in to watch the stragglers go by. When about an hour had passed with no cars, we continued cautiously on. It was well after dark when we arrived at our destination, but we did not spend the night in the bush.

marmalade and honey

The breakfasts and the long empty tropical beaches are what I remember. In the late 80's I went to the Bungalow Beach Hotel in the Gambia for the first time. It was August, during the rainy season, off-season for tourists. The nearly deserted beaches were excellent for long walks and even when the rain came it was a fine rain that didn't keep us from the beach. The breakfasts were hard rolls and butter, marmalade and honey, Nescafé and evaporated milk with sugar for a poor man's café au lait. I think there was Laughing Cow cheese, too, though that is not what I remember. I did learn my love for marmalade at the Bungalow Beach Hotel, but any breakfast tastes better when it's lazy. I was back many times after that, usually as part of a big group for our spiritual conferences, but it is those first lazy mornings that stay in my memory. My traveling companion, David Cuthbert, is long back in Europe, and married now, the last I heard. He did try his hand at making marmalade once we were back in Guinea. It was OK, but it wasn't that English marmalade in a lazy off-season hotel.

boy in the woods