It was a cold night and Sedi the baboon was sleeping with her mother. They had walked miles in search of water and food. The draught had killed lot of baboons that season and only a few were surviving and most of them had to search for food and water in different places. Sedi was still young. She couldn’t do much without her mother. That night her mother only managed to find enough to feed Sedi. The mother was weak. Her hands and feet were sore with blisters. She was tired from carrying her, Sedi couldn’t sleep that night and the cold didn’t help. She wanted to help her mother.
When morning came, she tried to wake her mother. She thought her mother was just cold and wanted to sleep more. She called “mama, mama, wake up, the sun has come out, wake up mama.” Her mother did not respond. Sedi came closer and started to shake her “mama wake up, it’s time, the sun has come…” Before she could finish her sentence, a small voice interrupted her. “She is gone child, she is gone.” Sedi looked around to see who was talking, but she did not see anyone. The voice came again, “she is gone child, she is gone.”
Sedi noticed that the voice was from the little plant beside the rock on which her mother lay, she was surprised but responded anyway “she is not gone, she is here. Can’t you see her? She is here”. She tried to shake her mother again, “mama wake up, wake up.” The little plant explained to her that gone means she has passed on and she is not coming back. Sedi shook her even harder; she was crying so hard her eyes were sore. She didn’t know how she was going to survive without her mother. The little plant let her cry and sleep for a moment; when she woke up, she cried a bit more.
“You have to dig deep and bury her,” said the plant. “How am I going to do that? I am too little to dig. I am also going to pass on like her. I am not going to survive. I am so thirsty and hungry” she sadly responded. She walked around the rock and wondered what to do.
“I cannot leave her here. I should dig…no, I’ll die too. No, I’ll dig enough to bury her and leave. Oh, what should I do?’’
She sat for a moment; the plant kept telling her to dig before it got dark. She started to dig. The soil was not as hard as she had thought. She kept digging, ‘I can do this’, she told herself, weak and hungry as she was. Just as she was about to give up, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She dug again, “water!” She jumped and screamed, “water!” She laughed hard as she started to drink from the hole. She was overjoyed. Tears flowed from her eyes. She thanked the plant and the plant also asked for a bit of water; she did as the plant told her and something magical began – the plant grew tall.
She had never seen such a giant tree in her life. The water started to fill the rivers and other plants started to grow. The water carried her mother. She tried to stop her from being carried away by the flow. Now with a huge voice, the plant said to her, “let her go. She is going to watch over you wherever she is; she is resting and happy for you.” “Goodbye mama” Sedi said. The giant tree started producing banana fruits for her to eat. This was so magical that animals of different sizes and types began to show up. She recognised some of the baboons from their village, and they hugged and lived happily ever after.
Read The Little Brown Bean Who Wished He Was a Hot dog – Children’s Story by Ogbu Eme, Nigeria
