Now is the time of karanga. The season where it does not rain for months, so that the dust in the air obscures the mountains and the heat shrivels the grass and leaves. It is also the season of fire, but not as in billboards with those arrows pointed to “very high fire risk” and news bulletins of out of control bush fires. Fire season as in “what shall we burn tonight?”
The other evening we decided to burn. There was a thick blanket of fallen teak leaves (most leaves at least the size of a large dinner plate) near the area where my three year old neighbour has a tyre-swing. Her mother does not like snakes. Snakes like fallen teak leaves.
Have matches, will burn. Bye bye snakes. Happy mother, happy child.
We swept the edges of the leaf carpet so that the leaves were close enough together to catch well, and so that the edge of the pile was demarcated so that, at least in theory, the fire would stop and not set the rest of the compound on fire. After using a match to catch the first leaves, we carried burning leaves to intervals along the carpet to create a row of fire. And soon there was a blaze around 20 metres long and at least 5 metres high. The heat pushed me back and turned my face red. The textured brown waves of leaves became a fine black dress on the ground. And then there were no more leaves to burn and the flames became glowing gold specks on the ground and then simply the aroma of smoke in the air.
Bye bye leaves. Bye bye snakes. Happy mother, happy child.
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They said it was a bush fire. Maybe it was a burn off that got out of control. Maybe a charcoal stove that got overturned. I do not know. But, I know what her screams sound like as we take the dressings off her arms and legs and try and remove the burned dead skin.
They brought her to us wrapped in a sheet two days after the fire. By then another child had died from the burns. After two weeks of dressings and care I am sure she will live. Will she want to though?
Scarred skin. Arms that will not straighten. Haunted eyes.
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Flames mesmerise me. As long as they do not touch me. As long as they do not make me too hot. As long as their smoke does not slink into my lungs. As long as they stay contained within the boundaries I set for them.
I like comfortable, comforting fire.
I like a comfortable, comforting God that stays within the boundaries of my life that I set for him.
But he is an all-consuming fire.
Will I let his fire purify me, to chase away the evil that lurks within, to nourish the ground so that new growth sprouts up? Or will I let it scar me and constrict me?
Life Down the Rutted Red Road 