First Wonder Goes Deepest: Surprised by goodness...

My pal, Nyokolaci

Have you ever been shocked into silence by others loving kindness? Humbled by a youngster’s generosity? Surprised by goodness?

I have.

I recently discovered that sweet potato starters are something of a Didinga hidden treasure.

Running over to the local Home Depot, isn’t really an option in these here parts.

For the past few weeks, I have been asking most anyone who would listen where I could collect a batch of my own starters. Yet, try as I might, all of my attempts proved to be futile.

That is until, last week.

Ducking out of Joyce’s hut I found her, Nyokolaci and a pile of sweet potato starters lying on the ground.

Excited by Joyce’s good-fortune in securing her own starters, I exclaimed in Didinga something close to, ”Wowsers! Where in the world did you get those starters? You lucky dog, you!”

Matching my enthusiasm, Joyce looked at the starters and then up at me with a huge smile on her face and explained that they weren’t hers, but mine.

Confused, as I so often am here in Didinga, I asked her again where she got her starters.

Simultaneously raising her chin, eyebrows and lips in unison towards Nyokolaci, the local equivalent to pointing, Joyce said, “Ngaherung (my Didinga name) the starters are all yours. They are a gift from Nyokolaci.”

Nyokolaci, Joyce’s nephew, a small and quiet boy of ten, has assumed the role, as so many Didinga children do, of live-in nanny for Joyce. Caring daily for her two small girls, Poi and Yaya, he is fed and allowed to attend school, an option he would not be afforded in his home village.

Though he is rough and tumble, hates to bathe and loves to race his motorcycle (two carved sticks) through the mud, he is also responsible and loving, patient, self-sacrificing and kind.

Earlier this past month, Nyokolaci slashed by hand our compound’s tall grass, a task that took him more than three days. In exchange for all of his hard work he was given a used, long-sleeved t-shirt. He was thrilled with the arrangement, proud of a job well done and his new t-shirt. However, that very afternoon I saw Joyce wearing his new shirt.

The following day, sitting on our porch, watching the rain fall I asked Nyokolaci why he wasn’t wearing his new, warm shirt. Quietly, with downcast eyes, he told me what I already knew, that Joyce had taken the shirt from him.

Just as quietly, I asked him if he was mad at her for taking what he had earned. With a surprised kind of grin he turned to me and said, “Ngaherung, being mad at others is not good. God does not like it.” I told him that he was right.

Though I have come to teach, I am so often taught.

I am thankful tonight for a little, rough and tumble ten year-old boy named, Nyokolaci.