We had the principal over the other night, and he grew up in Africa and told the boys a story about going deep into the bush when he was about ten and seeing some African children, who, when they caught sight of him, started screaming and crying and running away. Later, he found that in that tribe, the parents told their children:

`If you are bad, the white people will come and EAT you.’

What I have found since is that it is still a common practice in some tribes to tell children that. Given the history of white people on this continent, it is sure understandable.

What is your worst memory of high school? For me, there are so many it is hard to pick just one, but taking the SAT would certainly be in my top ten. This week, RVA administered the SAT on campus, and I was asked to be a proctor. I don’t know what a proctor does in real life, but I was supposed to walk the aisles and look grim, which is not a hard thing to do when hanging around juniors.

The fear in the room before the exam was almost solid enough to touch. The power of this test to influence your life made normally confident kids almost quiver in their seats. After the test began, you could almost physically see a change in the kids: `Hey, I know this stuff!’ By the end of the test, there were some who seemed to be strutting in their chairs, which seems hard to do and would hurt a guy my age to try.

There are five hundred kids here, and because it is a boarding situation, you get to know the kids in a way that is much different than most places. Some of it is fun: a basketball game when you know all the kids playing takes on a different dimension. When one of the kids got accepted at a big college in the states, it was a victory for all of us.

But the other side of it is you see all the hurts that kids can hide in a less intimate setting. There were senior girls who didn’t get invited to the senior banquet, and there was no mistaking the pain on their faces. I saw a kid who practiced everyday for months and still didn’t make the rugby team, and his sadness was palatable. That happens everywhere, I know, but I notice it so much more here, because I am with these kids all day long.

When your home is the states but you have lived longer in Africa than America, graduation takes on a different facet. Many of these kids have boarded since sixth grade, and in two months they will leave Africa, some of them never to return. Moreover, when you and I graduated, the next day most everyone was still living in the same town. When they graduate, everyone scatters. Same town nothing: they might be lucky if their best friend is in the same country.

How do you deal with that when you are 18 years old? I know there will be grace, and these kids are some of the brightest, most well adjusted, kids I know, but I wish I could make it better, and I know I can’t.

Africa is the only place I have lived when I could see dust clouds in the middle of a downpour. It has finally started raining here, and the children have been running outside rejoicing. If you have never been in a place where life and death depended on rain, count it as a wonderful blessing.

The other side of rain is it brings out the flying ants. Have you ever made a really stupid promise to your kids? My really stupid promise was to eat a flying ant, and tonight I did it. The boys caught many of them, fried them in oil, and the countdown began. 3-2-1 Eat it Uncle Steve!!

And I did. And it was tasty enough to eat another. And like many things in life, the anticipation is worst than the reality. But when you see Nan’s face when we get the pictures back as she ate one, you might not believe me.

YP