Ryan’s Rock

I’ve mentioned before that Africa gives one time…time to contemplate, time to zone out, time to be more or less useless.  Needless to say it’s been pretty good to me!  I’ve been here over a year now, and there’s one place in particular i’ve spent more time than anywhere else in Lesotho…a very special place where i’ve done much learning and self exploration.  A dark, dreary, cramped, and uncomfortable….thing.  I wouldn’t call it a hut…but let us imagine a 6×14 ft portable box dropped in the middle of the school grounds and left to rust for about 12 years.  Throw in some black, dusty chairs, a rickety worn out door with a broken handle that blows open or slams shut at the slightest of breezes, a few aging windows that are struggling to stay in the frames, a few piles of textbooks, a chaotic jumble of student workbooks, random boxes full of those tiny little useless stubbs of chalk(i call them chalk-letts…get it?  I’m hilarious), and at maximum of 12 exhausted teachers worn out from the day and at last you have it…the Maliba-Mats’o Secondary School Staff room.

It’s funny to think just how much this dreary, damp-feeling room has shaped my experience…but the surprising truth is…i don’t really mind it…actually that’s an understatement.  I might not like to admit it, but after a year…i might actually enjoy the staff room.  The company is great, even in spite of the fact that everyone is talking in a language i don’t know 90% of the time.  When I have spare time, I read books….good ones, and also some of my proudest moments as a teacher have been delivered to me in the staff room.

That being said, there are indeed times that I need to get out.  Sometimes the dreary, faux-wood walls start to compress around me…the Sesotho–especially when there’s a lot of it happening at once–turns into meaningless, incomprehensible garble, no matter how much i want it to make sense.  The light pours in mercilessly through the windows and I can feel my brain starting to press against the back of my skull…begging me to let it out…so i do.

I walk about 100 yards to the edge of the plateau that the village lays on.  There lays a rock.  This rock is comfortable to sit on, but also nicely contoured to the shape of my back, so if I want to rest my eyes, the option is there.  The rock is a simple enough thing in itself…brown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . rocky.  Hardly enough to inspire a second glance.  I sit down.

To my left is the stream flowing through a valley from the top of the mountain pass.  This stream continues in front of me, in a valley about 500 feet below.  I’m opposed by the green wall of a mountain, towering ahead.  The stream continues down to my right, where it meets up with a breathtaking sight in its own right, the katse dam reservoir.  It’s actually more of an infinitely winding, serpent-like lake than a reservoir(trying to do it justice here, but there is no way to put it into words).  The sight as a whole is nothing short of breathtaking.

Aside from the lizards licking insects from the rocks around me, the birds swooshing–literally a ‘swoosh’–around my head, and the clouds rolling overhead offering much more than fun shapes to look at(altering states of pleasant skin-toasting serenity in the sun and cool, refreshing peacefulness in the shade), the geology of the place is just incredible.

I love to ponder the geology of the area.  How many thousands of years of work the stream has been putting into that valley…how many millions of years back I would have to go to witness the growth–rather than the crumbling–of these mountains.  At times, particularly after a good rain, I can watch erosion at work…a rock will come trundling down the mountain of it’s own accord, popping, bouncing, and rolling its way down more and more violently until at last it settles itself in its new home with the stream.  A new question comes to mind–how long will it take to smooth the contours of such a boulder?

Such thoughts usually have me pondering–contemplatively…happily, mind you–the insignificance of my own life.  These mountains have risen, and…they will die.  How many mountains were here and washed away before these?    A potentially crushing idea…or is it the deepest form of inspiration?   A mountain is another temporary shape of this great earth.  I’m reminded of the buddha throwing his handful of dust in the air…it holds its shape for a moment, and then it is gone.  We are no different than the dust, but in that sense we are eternal.  The dust didn’t disappear, it just went somewhere new.   In the end I’m pleased, acknowledging my potential.  If I wanted to, I could rule the world…but I don’t.  Instead I lay down, staring at the infinite sky.

From this angle the cool air rushes up from the valley, and then sinks back down onto my face.  With my eyes open, I see nothing but blue sky(when the weather is right).  Combined with the effect of the wind it gives me the very distinct feeling of falling up into the sky.  Like a sky-diver with no earth to fall into.  I feel infinite.  Then i rise.

Once again I’m inspired by the view.  I can’t help but feel an ownership of it.  Somehow, I am just as much a part of everything I see as it Is a part of me.   I imagine Edward Abbey having scribbled in a notebook somewhere in Arches National Park…Abbey’s Land, he had called it.  This world…all of it, as far as I can see, is my special place.  “McClaine’s Land…” I can’t help but let the words slip out from my tongue…and I decide the sampling to be quite satisfactory…I swell with pride, and try it again…My land, as seen from this rock.  My rock.  Ryan’s Rock.

From there my attention may shift to the cave across the way, with the guinea pigeons and their beautiful blacks and whites taking flight in the distance, or sometimes the motorboat at the fish farm will start whirring around ahead and my attention will once more wander.  I’ll contemplate on my time at the reservoir, my swims, my fishing failures, my memories of Tom…on and on and on.  My possibility for thoughts there are endless.  The only disappointment is that time will not stand still for my little corner of the world.  I want my thoughts to continue, but who has the time for that?  Not me.

Yes, even in Africa, time may find a way to grow more solid roots.  I look at my watch and rise.  Young, eager, Basotho minds await.  Fortunately, as always, my trusty rock has pushed into the perfect state of mind.   I’m ready for anything.

Tagged as: rock