THE DEAD FROG AND THE AVOCADO

 by Adam Harbinson

One of my daughters lives in Africa. She rang me the other night and she sounded like she’d had enough of the ‘Dark Continent’.The thing that brought matters to a head that morning was a huge African frog that lay dead and putrid on the doorstep as she set off to school. It was half eaten with its bits squashed and spread all over the place.

Then to make matters worse, she arrived in class – with bits of frog still stuck to her shoes – to find that 25 of her 40 pupils hadn’t done their homework. Their excuse; ‘We were praying’, sounded impressive – until she explained that Rwandans have problems pronouncing their ‘l’s – it turned out that the entire class was ‘praying football’ well into the previous evening, and so they overslept.

I've been in Africa a few times, and I found it fun when the kids ran alongside me, touching my white skin and shouting, ‘Musungu!’ But after a couple of years I suppose anyone would tire of it. My trips to the local market to buy a pineapple or a bag of Irish potatoes were a fascinating expedition, a exercise in haggling, but having to beat the price down from extortionate to reasonable every week just isn’t funny anymore.

‘What can I do dad?’ she wailed. ‘What advice can you give me?’ – and all I could say was, ‘It’s Africa. Get over it. You won’t change it, so you will have to change – or come home.’

However, as she railed against the very dead frog on her doorstep, she also happened to mention, just in passing, that there was an avocado tree in full bloom at the other side of the garden. It seemed to present itself as a compensation for her. And it struck me; that’s Africa. There’s a raw ugliness about it, but it is also very beautiful.

Perhaps my daughter, whom I think I know very well, had a bad day because that day she focused on the dead frog. Normally she would see the avocado tree.   

In each of our days there are dead frogs and avocados, and the quality of our lives is dictated by the choices we make. We can choose to see a fragrant avocado in our partners, our children or our parents, our church or our place of work, in the weather or in our surroundings. But so often we settle for a frog.