Dodos and Drongos!

“Dead as a dodo”;

“What a drongo she is!”

 

An aussie will sometimes say in reference to someone who did something foolish especially while driving – “silly galah” – I may be wrong but I believe that comes from the fact that the galah (a bird) will often sit on the road especially in the outback and nearly get itself killed by cars and trucks using the road.

 

But since coming to Africa I have met up with two other types of birds which are used in our colloquial speech.  The first one was a few years ago while visiting a museum in East London in South Africa, which had a taxidermed “dodo” bird.  This bird is now totally extinct, hence the term “dead as a dodo” to describe something that is dead and has been lifeless for sometime with seemingly no chance of it exhibiting life again.  I guess we even use the term to describe a phone line when there is no connection signal. But it was fun to see what this bird actually looked like and where the saying came from.

 

Then just this morning I met up with a couple of ‘drongos’ – the feathered variety.  The term “drongo” is not used in a complimentary sense, and I am yet to discover what it is about these shiny black birds that has earned them a reputation such as to warrant inclusion in our colloquial speech.  The two this morning were perched on the top of PG’s roof behind our house following their breakfast of a couple of bees (from a hive under our bathtub, accessed from a gap between the bath drain pipe and the bricks of the wall – a problem which we still haven’t fully decided how to fix – suggestions welcome).

 

No, my day is not so boring so as to spend it watching drongos have breakfast!  Life is incredibly busy here right now (needing to find new office space and move, counselling, resolving interpersonal conflicts, trying to get a fledgling ministry off the ground (including a Christian magazine that is now needing a new layout/graphics person since the guy who was to help us has had to temporarily leave Botswana while his immigration status is renewed/resolved and it is unsure how long it will be before his return), a bit of gardening here and there, trying to keep up to date with correspondence).  But enjoying God’s creation brings joy and rest to the soul and we thank Him for His beauty reflected in all that He has created.