Stories of Life : Africa

You probably have read or watched the news at least once in your life, maybe on CNN or maybe on ABC. Chances are, you heard a few stories concerning Africa. For example, you may have heard about the car-bombing in Mogadishu, heard stories of everything that is going on in this continent.

But those are not the kind of stories I am talking about today.

“What do you mean? They’re stories, right?”

Yes they are, but I'm talking about African folktales. The ones that a parent might tell their child. Many of Africa’s folktales, I found, consisted of animals. Most of them actually told  a story with a tortoise involved. For instance, “The Tortoise and the Lizard” is a story about a greedy tortoise, a lizard, a farmer, and a cave full of yams. The tortoise later ended up with a broken shell because of his greed. Kind of crazy sounding, I know.

Another tale I read is called “Why the Bat flies at Night” This one is about (surprise!) how the bat came to fly only when it’s night. According to the story, there was a war between the animals of the sky and the animals of the ground. The bat had been killed, but the sky animals and the ground animals all refused to give it a proper funeral because it was different from them.

It kind of sound familiar, doesn’t it. That may be because events that happened in both of these stories do happen in real life. Karma pays you back in life and many people are not accepted because they are different.

African folktales, they teach quite the lesson, would you agree?