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Harambee Fables: The vain baboon
Eighth class of the Primary School of Kimange

Many years ago baboon was the most beautiful ape. He was fast and could jump with ease from one tree top to another. Whenever the animals went out to steal crops from man’s shamba, baboon would never be caught. He always laughed at his cousins - the monkeys and the chimpanzees who would be caught and whipped mercilessly.

“Oh, poor you! How could you be as slow as a tortoise? You should learn to be fast like me, when
you sense danger”, he would tease them.
The animal once went to steal maize from man’s shamba. Baboon quickly ate to his fill and took a
few maize cobs home. He then alerted man from a top of a tall tree: “Hurry up! Some thieves are
feasting on your maize!” Man hurried to the shamba before the animals could escape and shot several of them with poisoned arrows. Baboon watched the drama from the top of the tree with glee. With time the other animals got fed up with baboon’s behaviour. They avoid him and rarely talked whenever he was within earshot. One afternoon baboon found monkey peeling a ripe banana, his only meal for that day. Without uttering a word, he grabbed the banana from monkey.He quickly ate it and when he was done threw the peel at the poor monkey’s face. Shell shocked, monkey stared at baboon for a moment, before asking: “Surely, why did you do that?” “To teach you to be fast when eating delicious bananas”- baboon replied. Monkey walked away feeling humiliated as baboon laughed loudly at him. He told other animals what baboon had done to him and they were very upset. They decided to put an end to his unaccettable behaviour. They held a sliding competition involved sitting on the back of a tree and sliding down a steep hill. The one who would take the shortest time to slide down the hill, would emerge the winner.Upbeat about the competition and boasted he would be the first. Eager to show off his prowess, he sat on the hard bark of a tree and made himself comfortable. As he was about to take off, Monkey pulled the bank from under his bottoms, as chimpanzee shoved him down the hill.Thinking that the animals had done this by mistake, he screamed for help, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The sharp stones and thorns along the steep path were unbearable. These bruised his bottoms so much that he felt as though he was sitting on hot charcoal. His effort to hold on to vegetation along the path were frustrated by the animals who continued shoving him down the hill.

He screamed in pain as other animal joined monkey in mocking him. “Are you not the toughest of us all?”
- they asked-. When the baboon had finally reached the foot of the hill, he rushed to a nearby stream, to cool his
hurting bottoms. But the pain would not go away. The other animals screamed with laughter. “Look at his bottoms. They are as red as scarlet ” – hyena laughed - “ I can’t wait to see him jumping from tree top to another with his red bottoms”. Baboon ran deep in the forest to hide. He tried to administer different herbs to heal his bottoms, but they have never healed to date. He realised that pride comes before a fall.

Text in pdf format - Italian version

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