THE ROCK WITHOUT EDGES
I recently went through the photographs
taken by Benny of the various Zanzibar scenes that were familiar to us when we
were growing up. It would seem that the
majority of the pictures were of the new St. Joseph’s Convent School and the
magnificent efforts that have been made to give it a new look.
But what caught my eye was the picture of
the sea front and of the steady deterioration of the old School where I had
spent a few very happy and eventful years and which invariably puts a smile on
my face when I recall some of the boyish events that took place there.
The picture taken of the beach just
opposite the old school brought some sadness to my very soul. The scene pointed out to the steady erosion
of the rocks and the disappearance of the little ponds where we, as little
boys, spent hours trying to catch little tiddlers and “zebra” fish so that they
could be transferred to the small ponds where we could watch them swim in utter
confusion of their new environment. We also remember how excited we got when we
saw an eel hiding in some of the deeper crevices in the rocks and the strategy
that we employed was to starve the eel of water by spending hours emptying out
the larger pond of its life sustaining water until the eel accepted defeat and
came out of its hiding place. The fate
of the eel was tenuous at best and we looked upon its defeat as a form of man’s
dominance over the animal world. Our
argument was that if we could rid the world of its dinosaurs (did we really?!)
surely we could rid the world of eels, snakes and everything creepy. No thought was given to conservation and that
these creepy crawly things had an important place in the environment. Our ignorance of the frailty of the
environment and man’s hand in its wanton destruction was not part of the
“nature study” course that we took. All
that I remember of that particular course is the study of the manatee (see cow)
and often had dreams that it was “mooing” through its undersea kingdom and
feeding its young with milk.
Sometimes we were fortunate to find a bunch
of eggs deposited by cuttlefish under a rock.
Each egg contained a tiny cuttlefish that was fully formed. We had much fun collecting these eggs and
extracting the cuttlefish into our ready- made little pond just for the
pleasure of seeing them swim around and squirt tiny spurts of black “ink”. The rock formation has now been worn down by
the relentless power of the ocean waves, ironing out the rough edges that
sometimes housed little oysters that were always ready for the picking.
I was happy to see all the ugly sewage
drains that emerged from the School and which emptied themselves into the sea
gone forever. Perhaps the concept of a
septic tank was late in coming.
The entire picture taught me a lesson. I have grown old like the rocks on the beach
and with age has come the acceptance that the sometimes rough sea of life has
polished much of my rough edges and has made me, like the rock, a curiosity to
my grandchildren who look at my pictures growing up, but show a remarkable
acceptance and appreciation of what they now see.
I
guess that we oldies can learn from the young!!
