A Glass Full of Water

  Losing your car keys is so frustrating and annoying. Most times, we find them and all is well with the world again. Losing your car keys on holiday can magnify the stress. Losing your keys on a beach far away from home is next level stress and the chance of finding them is very small.  Recently, while walking with family on Matapouri beach 40 minutes north east of Whangarei, we noticed a man walking towards us furtively looking in the sand. Quick looks between each other meant that for the next half hour or so we helped look for the impossible find. Other walkers on the beach joined us. I estimate that up to thirty people were now helping. Wonderful to see and be a part of. I’m not sure if the keys were ever found and that isn’t the point of this story. People unknown to each other cared enough to work together to help a stranger. POINTS to PONDER We have all been in the position of being in a frustrating, worrying time. A bit of shared humanity in such times is impor...

They say we remember our teachers, not for what they taught us, but for the way they made us feel. In my experience as a student and a teacher that is an insightful statement. Mr Black, my sixth form Art History teacher at Auckland Grammar School (in the early 1970’s) was an exceptional teacher. Seemingly very old, he made his subject relevant, engaging and interesting, because  he taught with passion and skill. On one particular occasion he was a teacher who did the right thing by me. Looking through my school bag at home after an art exam I suddenly realised that I had inadvertently put two completed pages of my exam in my bag along with unused spare paper. Oh no! All my exam results were important to my chances of University Entrance being accredited. My heart sank. Who was going to believe me? This was a school that ‘stuck by the rules’. Consequently, I didn’t get much sleep that night. The next day Mr Black was waiting for me outside his classroom door. He asked me where the...

Many years ago my twin brother Chris and I were travelling through Orewa, north of Auckland to our home in Warkworth. We were hungry, so stopped at a fast food place. Standing at the counter after ordering, I couldn’t help but notice a large handwritten sign on the back of an office door. The wording on the sign concerned me. It read, ‘Some staff are lazy. Do your job properly or I will fire you.’ My immediate thought was, that’s no way to treat people. A   sign like that showed the culture in the place was wrong. The sign message was disrespectful and rude. My anger grew. I asked a member of the wait staff if I could see the manager… I assertively told the manager to take the sign down and to treat all workers with dignity and if he had an issue with a staff member then deal with it in private in a fair way. He looked at me blankly. I repeated my message in a more forceful tone. Seemingly ignoring me again, he turned away without saying a word, walked over to the offensive sign a...

On a break day from our education aid work in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, the RATA team of teachers, staff and a number of children piled into a van to drive to the Elmina Castle on the Ghanaian Coast. It was built in 1482 by the Portuguese and by the 18th century, 30,000 slaves passed through the Door Of No Return each year on their way to North and South America. After a long drive, our first view was of crows flying in circles around the high castle walls. The  crows reminded me of vultures looking for their prey. Inside the main building we walked into a cell. It smelt damp and reeked of despair. We held rusty chains and knew that once, long ago they were around the bloody ankles of slaves about to leave Africa. We went upstairs and looked through a trapdoor to the floor below. Here the commandant would look down from his room and choose the next slave to have for his pleasure as they filed past. Awful beyond words. We then came to the Door of No return. This door led t...