An old woman and her son lived together in their small grass thatched house. They had a hen and three sacks of maize grains which they usually fed on. Sometimes they could go to bed having spent the whole day without eating anything. At some point in time, this became a routine.

One day the son was moving in the village when he saw a rat being hit to death. He asked, “Why are you killing the rat?”
The people replied, “The rat has eaten our maize grains.” The son told them he would give them some of his maize grains. The people were happy and so the rat was freed. So the son went home and set about dividing the few grains he and his mother had and gave out some to the men from the village, as promised.

The two of them continued with the usual way when some days later he met with a cat being beaten to death and he asked again, “Why are beating that cat to death?”
“The cat has eaten our hen”.
The son told the men, “I am going to compensate your loss with a hen, so you let the cat go.” They did exactly that and they continued with their usual way of surviving with the mother, they planted and their crops grew and now they had enough to eat.

Reflections:

1.) What can we learn from the way the son intervenes and the solution he brings?

2.) Does he loose anything by stepping in to help the animals who are being beaten?

3.) Have you experienced stepping in to help when you think someone is being treated wrongly?

Storytelling Session Details

Storyteller: Nyayang Ruach
Language: Nuer
Community: Nuer (living in UNMISS PoC)
Story Researcher: Nyechuol Ruai
Place: Juba PoC
Date: 2015

From the Story Researcher:
This teaches us of patience and how to value lives of others around us. I picked that story because when I looked at it I thought of the society we are in now. Where someone has done a simple mistake it’s taken as a heavy issue where it leads to loss of lives. The boy in the story saw grains and a hen couldn’t lead to a loss of lives and he had to solve it.