Fire, Fear, Yarn, Song, & Peace

Fire, Fear, Yarn, Song, & Peace

This afternoon, on a perfect day - blue skies, pleasant temperatures -
I was sitting on our verandah. Prudence and Matilda had come over for
"cotton" or what we call yarn. It is a very popular item and I have
been dispensing it until we are down to a few balls. The yarn from
the US is much better and thicker than what you get here. Lots of our
children can crochet and knit, in addition to the mothers and aunties.
As we were sitting peacefully, we began to untangle the last ball of
cotton of pieces that had gotten all mixed up. It was a sweet
peaceful time.

However, in the field outside the fence, one of the frequent bush
fires started. The flames were quite high. Natasha is very afraid of
fire and she had made her way to the verandah. So I had her sit in my
lap. I covered her eyes and ears with my hands. The fire is very
noisy and almost sounds like rain coming down. I started singing and
the others on the verandah with me joined in to help cover the sound
of the fire.

Kids got buckets and ran the "hose pipe" (hose) out to be closer to
the fire. They were filling buckets and handing them to some of the
workers who were trying to keep our grass fence from burning. There
was no danger to us since on our side of the fence there isn't
anything that would keep the fire going. However, we really didn't
want to have the fence burn up and with it some of our privacy.

Although there was a lot of action, I had a lot of joy and peace as I
sat on the veranda, singing with the girls, enjoying being with them,
comforting Natasha, and (for the most part) enjoying the beautiful
day. I realized that I need to take more time to just sit with the
kids on the verandah enjoying the beautiful time of year and the break
from school, with gratitude for all that we have, including the love
of these children.