Dear Fellow,
The year started out well. The first day found me in a house fellowship where we sang choruses, accompanied by the guitar, followed by declarations of the faithfulness of God, and proclamations of hope about the days ahead in the new year.
The fourth day wasn’t much different. It found me at a picnic, an event hosted annually by a friend I met for the first time the previous year. She will be doing this for the fourth time (or so) on the fourth of January this year. I was thrilled by the invitation, even before I got a picture of the whole event formed in my head.
The event started late—about an hour after the set time. I was beginning to fume. The person who came after me resolved to leave forty-five minutes after the set time for the event. At that moment, I couldn’t think of reasons to excuse my friend for such a delay. I hated that it seemed my time was wasted. Before it was one hour and thirty minutes late, the host came to the venue. Of course, apologies were tendered. Without further delay, the event kicked off.
Through the event, I had to admit I had never been to such a gathering. My idea of what a picnic was didn’t go beyond having meals that were exotic and uncommon. At this picnic by my friend, we had the commonest of meals during the Yuletide in this part of the world—a little jollof rice, purple hibiscus juice (commonly known as zobo), chin chin, meat, creamed salad, and meat. And oh, there was cake. But the cake came at a price. We had to sweat it out to get the cake. How so?
The Seeking and The Garden
The event took place at the famous reading garden—or, just call it an outdoor library—in the city of Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Jarding Reading Garden has a long record of wonderful and memorable encounters; at least, I have a personal record of such encountersa. I couldn’t have asked for a better choice of venue. It doesn’t have the grandest furnishings you could find anywhere else in the city, in places that promise you a comforting and suitable atmosphere. Jarding Reading Garden offers you a reconnection with nature. Its sheds, ground cover, and ambience are charged with life—thatch materials, organic grass, and bird songs. Jarding Reading Garden is located within the Jos Museum premises.
My friend had us all coming from different locations in the city. She met some of us the previous year only. Some have attended the previous Family and Friends Picnic. This was my first. The feature which stood out for me, apart from the fact that her father was present and active in the fun, was the game of seekingb we played together. You know hide and seek (or the Gulder Ultimate Search). This time around, it was humans seeking out tiny, little treasures including a broken piece of glass, a feather, a cracked, boiled egg, a key, a twig, a candy, a group photograph, and of course the cake. You sought out each of these pieces using clues scribbled on slips of paper.
It is not how the instructions on the paper got my teammates (there were two teams) in a frenzy at a point in the search that makes me wonder in retrospect—of course the power of words was illustrated. It is how my friend made something so beautiful out of that natural, non-exotic space, with low-budget meals (that must have cost much to serve nearly 40 people or so, though). How she made laughter on our faces with the simplest of jokes you will ever hear and so much more.
One of the games we played went in this manner. We held our hands in a circle. A question was asked. One after another, round the circle, we all answered. The question: “What was the first thing you saw in 2023?” There were more people who saw their phones first than those who saw anything else. A powerful inference was drawn from the exercise; we had to admit how glued we have become with our phones. The second rule of the picnic was to put our phones away for the most part of the time there. It was such a wonderful outlook to have at the start of the year.
The Close
I wrote this on the second day of February, about a month after the picnic. I seem not to forget the whole experience. It played out nicely in my head and births beautiful imaginations in my thought process. My friend emphatically told us, when unravelling the mysteries behind each of the pieces found out during the search, that it really doesn’t cost much to do much. For me, calling us all together that day, catering to our welfare, and not asking for a dime was so much. And I have not responded in the best way possible yet. The best I have done in response is to write this—and have you partake in such a wonder of an experience.
As you learn to make the most of every moment, of every little opportunity to add beauty to someone else’s life, I invite you to reconsider my friend’s nudging. That it really doesn’t take much to do.
It took me a while to call the friend in question friende, but she earned it. Before then, she told me that everyone is her friend. She sees everyone as a friend and doesn’t demand that you earn it first. She thinks of everyone as a friend unless you decline it so forcefully. Despite some heartbreaks and heartaches, it appears it doesn’t hurt much for her to dare to trust and love again. Perhaps she is learning, that love is larger than its containerd.
Stay wonder and light to folks around you, good Fellow.
Your LetterMan,
Tongjal, W. N.
aJarding Reading Garden was the birthplace of an article I wrote last year titled “A Mailman for A Moment”; and also of the first podcast episode published on RANDOM DESPATCHES titled “Beautiful Interruptions.” Click to get to the content: The article | The podcast episode.
bGame of Seeking is the best name I could come up with for the activity described above. Perhaps there is a name for the activity. I will like to know if you know it: kindly respond in the comment. Thank you.
cIt was exciting to have my friend’s instant response granting permission to use a snapshot of the clues. Here was the chat for permission:
dI have grown to be quite critical about using the word friend. To me, the word means more than merely having an acquaintance. It goes deeper and implies responsibility. Here is a concise thought on friendship from last year: “Of Friendship”
eThat very sentence was inspired by this statement from Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), a Nazi death camps survivor during the Second World War, in her autobiography The Hiding Place: “And so I learned that love is larger than the world that shut it in.”