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Hector Moyo HR Column
My Bible provides me with guidance as well as hope. It talks about seasons; good and bad seasons, all being periods that form a year. Without the one, the year is incomplete. You go through winter and the dry grass — at that stage you cannot fathom ever seeing summer and its lush grass. However, it surely will come, make no mistake. Read the story of Hezekiah and the dry bones, will you!

The above is a farmer’s prayer at this time of the year, when the veld becomes really bad and you ordinarily feel like giving up.
It reminds me of this young lady poet who performed at the Colleen Bawn High School speech and prize day event; call her maNyathi — brilliant young poet.

There used to be a term during the “Dream Team” (national football team — the Warriors) era known as “scouting for talent”.
There is talent in abundance in the nation, it is a question of scarcity of scouts in the various disciplines, I say. MaNyathi did a poem on never giving up and how the word “impossible” should cease to exist in our vocabulary —beautiful stuff it was.

Well done Headmaster Ncube and the other stakeholders for the superb event, you have a reason to walk tall.
We do recognise that in the education field they are going through their summer season, what with all the speech and prize day events at this time of the year! Gwanda High, let us make a date for next year as I could not make it this year, much to my disappointment.

I used to enjoy parables during my school days —earthly stories with heavenly meanings was how they were described to us. Parables were not for the mean — they used to confuse the Pharisees — hayikhona!

Then there are case studies, earthly stories with earthly meanings. You go through your studies without coming across case studies, then know that you will have limitations later in life.
Case studies just like parables are meant to stretch one’s mind. Case studies are quite easy by the way, they simply test one’s understanding of principles and concepts and their practical application, period!

Documentary on elephants in the Kruger National Park
I once stumbled upon a television documentary based on a story that happened at the Kruger National Park — earthly story with an earthly meaning. It was sad but with very rich pickings.

It was about a couple that was trampled by a herd of elephant, while on honeymoon at the Kruger National Park. The couple had come too close to a herd of male elephants that subsequently lost its cool.

A study of this bizzare incident yielded astounding results. It was discovered that this herd of elephant had grown without guidance from the father and mother elephants, after having been weaned at a young age and kept separately, in an experiment that subsequently accounted for this strange behaviour.

The explanation given was that young elephant cannot do without adult elephants, for this is where they get their guidance.
The elephant’s trumpet becomes what a rod is to human beings — spare the trumpet and spoil the young elephant!

William Golding has his own case study in Lord of the Flies, the novel. It is an old novel with a British setting, where some children out in the sea, get marooned in an island due to bad weather and go through the pain of living without adults. They start off following their boarding school rules, but not for long.

They eventually start hunting each other down —decadence of rules and morals. The good news about this sad story is that these children were eventually rescued by an English officer, after a rescue ship had been sent out to look for the marooned boys.
Moral of the two stories, the youth need the elderly for their development to be complete. This fact of life cannot be debated nor denied.

Take home this week?

The wheel was invented a long time ago — it is complete as it is and we cannot hope to re-invent it! However, we can try and come up with different size profiles, between low and high. The adults and the youth cannot do without each other, at work and socially.

The forth coming book, Passing the Baton Stick talks to this need. Start saving for this wonderful book, for it is soon going to emerge from the printer’s “long tunnel” — the light is now visible. Watch this space for more details about its launch.

It is time for me to rest my case study inspired article for today, as I watch the sky for those rain clouds. I have a desire to plant my fields in my rural home this year!

Send your views to e-mail address hecandbe@ gmail.com or sms 0777556081.