Turning 50

Next year Hoogland Health Hydro turns 50.

Since 1977, our mission has stayed the same: to help people regain their health and keep it, so they can return to, and stay in, contributing roles in their families, workplaces and communities.

Over five decades, thousands of guests have come to us tired, unwell or uncertain, and left with the knowledge, habits and confidence to carry on giving to the people around them.

What each person brings back home may sometimes seem small on its own, but together it adds up to a stronger, healthier society.

As the traveller went on, he heard the same story from others, and something more. People had stopped visiting each other. Each family kept to itself and guarded what little it had, afraid that if it shared there would be nothing left for its own children. Nobody asked how a neighbour was doing, because nobody wanted to hear that a neighbour needed something.

The traveller put down his bag in the middle of the square.

“I think I can help,” he said loudly enough for the people nearby to hear. “If someone can bring me a big pot, I’ll make soup for everyone with my special soup rock.”

He reached into his bag and took out a large, smooth, grey stone. He turned it in his hands so it caught the light.

People started to gather. Some laughed. Some shook their heads. A woman muttered that hunger had clearly driven the man mad. But they were curious, and in a town where nothing had happened for months, a stranger with a magic rock was at least something to watch.

After a while a young man came back carrying a heavy iron pot his grandmother no longer used. The traveller thanked him, filled it with water from the well and set it over a small fire. Then, with great care, he lowered the soup rock into the water.

Everyone watched. The water began to steam, then bubble. The traveller stirred it slowly with a long stick, leaned over and breathed in the steam as if it were the best thing he had ever smelled.

At last he took a sip from a wooden spoon.

“Mmm,” he said. “It’s starting to taste really good. But it would be even nicer with an onion in it.”

One of the onlookers, a thin woman with a shawl around her shoulders, said, “I have an onion,” and ran to fetch it.

She came back with a small onion, a little soft but still good. The traveller sliced it and dropped it into the pot. He stirred, waited and tasted again.

“Much better,” he said. “You know, the last time I made this soup, someone added a carrot or two. That really brought out the flavour of the stone.”

A boy at the front said, “We’ve got carrots,” and was gone before his mother could stop him. He came back with three carrots, a bit bent and dusty. Into the pot they went.

Now people were moving closer. The smell coming from the pot was beginning to be a real smell.

“It’s lovely,” said the traveller after another taste. “Though a few potatoes would make it a meal.”

A farmer who had kept a small sack hidden under his floorboards hesitated, then went home and returned with four potatoes. A baker’s wife brought a handful of barley. An old woman brought salt and a bundle of dried herbs from her kitchen. Someone found half a cabbage. A man who had said nothing all afternoon came back with a small piece of salted meat he had been saving for a day that might never come.

Every time something went into the pot, the traveller stirred, tasted and smiled, and every time the soup really was better.

Others brought what they could: bowls, spoons, a bench, a loaf of hard bread to break up and share. Someone carried out a table. Someone else lit lanterns as the light faded.

When the traveller finally announced that the soup was ready, the whole town was in the square. He ladled it out, and there was enough for everyone, with second helpings for the children.

People sat together for the first time in months. They talked about the drought, and about the children, and about who on the far side of town was ill and needed checking on. Someone started a song. Some people laughed so hard they had to put their bowls down.

Late in the evening, the old man from the well came over to the traveller.

“That’s a remarkable stone,” he said. “Would you sell it? We’d all put something towards it.”

The traveller fished the rock out of the empty pot, wiped it on his sleeve and put it in the old man’s hand.

“Keep it,” he said. “But remember, the stone was never the thing that made the soup.”

Next morning he picked up his bag and walked on down the road. The town was still poor, and the rains still hadn’t come. But the shutters were open, and people were knocking on each other’s doors again.