Resource 4: How Mrs Banda found her story

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Grace Banda tried to think of a story that was not well known. She remembered a proverb that was based on a story. The proverb said: ‘palibe m’mbulu waukulu kupambana unzace. Mimbulu yonse imalingana’, which means ‘there is not wild dog bigger than another, all wild dogs are equal in size.’ She remembered that the story was about a master and his servant travelling on horseback, and that the servant told his master about a wild dog that was the size of a calf or an ox. She also remembered that there were rivers to cross, and one of them was called ‘m’tsinje umene umatenga anthu onse abodza’, which means ‘the river that drowns all liars’.

Since she was not sure of what actually happened, she asked her sister-in-law Chisece about the story. Chisece said that the servant in the story was a habitual liar. Once, he even told a story of a bug, likening it to something so big, the story could not possibly be true. They were still short of details, so they went to Mr Mbewe, who had been a teacher of Chinyanja, now an inspector of schools. He could not remember the story, but remembered that a version of it was in a particular reader, one of the Local Readers..

One day, Grace was speaking to Miss Betty Ngoma, a maths teacher, and found that she knew the message behind the story. She said that the master used a certain technique to stop the servant from lying. He didn’t want to accuse him directly of lying. Miss Ngoma said that the technique worked, as the servant repented and told the truth before they reached the river. But she also couldn’t remember the details of the story.

Grace then went to Mr Yohane Longwe, an attorney. He also knew the proverb and the message behind the story. He thought it had arisen because a community was sick and tired of the lying of a particular man. They decided to put him to a vigorous test, and teach him a lesson. Mr Longwe’s version of the story is at Resource 5: The river that swept away liars.

Resource 5 also contains two traditional Ugandan stories – The lazy hare and the 20-eyed monster and The singing bird, which have morals to teach.

Adapted from: Umthamo 2, University of Fort Hare Distance Education Project