The Sun

If you want to check out some pictures of us go to Eric's blog: www.ericsteffen.blogspot.com

(I started this in a letter to David and then wanted to share it so he'll have to bear with me as he'll be getting it twice)

Some days are frustrating. Training can get monotonous and we are all ambitious people with the ultimate desire to make it to our sites so we can "begin saving the world" (or perhaps teach a workshop on group work in the classroom). It is not uncommon to find us sitting in a group complaining about something.

What is uncommon is to see us all in awe. For a group of us to actually to be appreciative of something together is rare. Today we had that moment. Today it was the sun.

We were piled into a taxi coming home from Polokwane. Unfortunately I found myself in the back. The back of the taxi is not the preferred seat. It is a van bench on which four people must squish no matter what the size or what they are carrying. The idea of "personal space" is a myth at the back of the taxi. Luckily, I got to share the back of the taxi with three other volunteers. We tend not to mind the back of the taxi as all of us are love deprived and any excuse to get next to another human being who is going through the same experiences is a good one.

As we were all gabbing about something not of significant importance, probably food as that is the subject of many a conversation, we noticed the sun.

The African sun is unique. It's as if they got one sun and the rest of the planet hast o share its less beautiful sister. If there is anything I could let you have a glimpse of it would be the sun because no words or pictures can actually capture it like the experience of it.

We stared out the taxi, across the savannah (yes, I use the word savannah in description because I actually experience the reality of it and not simply the cartoon rendering in The Lion King) at the sun. Everyone immediately dismissed the notion of possibly damaging their eye sight because the gift of sight is not really precious until seeing this sun. It has shades: there is a layer of blood red, followed by a subtle, more demure red, and ending in a warm tangerine orange. It's shape is perfect: a huge round circle without blurs or impurities.

As it dipped below the mountains, across the savannah, I remembered the words in books describing it, the oscar winning pictures that filmed it. They didn't even come close to the magic it emulate They gave me a glimpse, here I discovered the world.