A friend recently wrote a beautiful account of his time in Mana Pools, a magnificent national park in Zimbabwe. In his piece he gave some advice: get out from behind your desk and go out into the world whenever you can. So on Monday I did exactly that. My foray wasn’t into the bush, it was to St Johns Prep School in Harare where my youngest nephew was taking part in the public speaking finals. Fourth in line to speak on a set topic was a little guy with a blazer down to his knees. He took the stage. His start was strong but he lost his way on a couple of occasions. Finally his face puckered up, his mouth widened, and then, floods of tears. He stood there with his arms rigid against the sides of his body until the teacher in charge led him away. As he sat down I noticed a boy in the row behind him pat him gently on the shoulder. But there was still another round to go. Each boy had to do 30 seconds on a surprise topic. I held my breath as the little guy got up again and made his way to the stage. I think everyone else did too. But he launched into The Problem With Pets with confidence and vigor. He wasn’t the best but he’d gotten up and tried again. The applause carried him home. We learn our best lessons where we least expect them; often not from behind our desks.

This entry was posted on April 1st, 2009 at 11:27 am by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.