Storytelling: A Cultural Exchange
Adam Cholong Ohiri Aham, South Sudan and David Heathfield, UK
Adam Cholong Ohiri Aham is Deputy Dean of Students at the University of Juba in South Sudan and an advocate of storytelling in education.
David Heathfield is a storyteller who runs storytelling and drama workshops for teachers and students freelance around the world www.davidheathfield.co.uk In the UK he is a teacher trainer with Horizon Language Training www.horizonlanguagetraining.co.uk He also teaches English at INTO University of Exeter. His teacher development book Storytelling with our Students will be published by DELTA in April 2014.
E-mail: david@davidheathfield.co.uk
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Introduction
David and Adam correspond
How Hare tricked Elephant and Crane
What you read below is a cultural exchange that came about through David Heathfield and Adam Cholong Ohiri Aham striking up a conversation while at the Museum of Liverpool during the 2013 IATEFL Conference in Liverpool. After enjoying The Beatles Show at the museum, we sat down in a quiet corner of the same gallery. Adam told David a Hare folk tale from his ethnic people, the Otuho of South Sudan. David reciprocated by telling Adam a Hare folk tale from his native Devon, England. Following the conference we had a short exchange of emails which we have decided to publish here.
Below is Adam’s Otuho story and there is also a link to David and musician Kimwei retelling Adam’s story to an entranced audience of adults and children of diverse ethnic backgrounds in the World Storytelling Tent at the Exeter Respect in June, an annual festival to celebrate cultural diversity.
We both hope that our exchange will inspire you to keep sharing traditional folk stories across cultures and throughout teaching.
David and Adam
On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 5:09 PM, David Heathfield wrote:
Hello Adam
It was great to meet you at the conference and to learn the story of The Hare and the Elephant. I'll retell this story and let everyone know that I learnt it from you.
At IATEFL Harrogate 2014 my new Teacher Development book on storytelling (published by DELTA) will be launched. I hope to host a World Storytelling evening event and will tell your story.
Warm wishes
David
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:50:21 +0300 Adam Cholong Ohiri wrote:
Dear David Heathfield,
Indeed my best greetings and wishes. I've reached well in Juba and I've taken up my normal duty. Your good name remind me about the book of Emily Bronte the Wuthering Heights and Mr. Heathcliff the hero. Well story telling method in teaching English gives great innovation on teaching English language and it makes so close to natural learning and acquisition of various life skills. Thank you for the days we spent in the spectacular moment in the historic city of Liverpool especially the wonderful museum and the general view by the shore. Well your presentation will be a hot cake and every person will like to hear and concretise the Hare images as he deals with the situation on the ground. The story is so inductive as to build human intellectual reasoning and competence. Thank you for elevating the method which is old but everlasting techniques of human folkstory device that keeps to revolve throughout different generations. It is so vivid a method!
Thanks.
Adam Cholong Ohiri Aham
University of Juba
Deputy Dean of Students
On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 8:57 PM, David Heathfield wrote:
Hello Adam
Thank you so much for your email. Perhaps we could submit a joint-piece about storytelling for publication.
I've written out the story you told me but I've made some small changes. Please can you correct any mistakes in the story. It's attached and also is here below.
Could you also answer the following questions:
What age students do you tell folk stories to?
Why do you tell your students folk stories in English?
What do your students learn from listening to folk stories?
I appreciate your contribution.
Thanks
David
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:07:34 +0300 Adam Cholong Ohiri wrote:
Dear David Heathfield,
I've enjoyed the story you vividly rewrite and I tried to add something on what you've started. It is so wonderful you've indeed revived the importance of story telling as method of language teaching. I tried to answer your excellent questions. I hope my answers will find place in what you thought to bring.
There are three questions that I answered from top to bottom. The age for such stories in our tradition are told to young children of five to 12 year-old maximum. It is always done by elders, that is to say grand Pas or Mams. The suitable time is in the evening before or after supper, it depends. Sometimes the story may make them to sleep forgetting their delicious supper. It is important to build students' communication competence in early age. Such stories do a lot of language teaching and learning. It builds students' skills. Especially listening and speaking skills. Listening to story is an art as the person keeps quiet following every bit of the story line, characters, turning point, tension, and relief or catharses. Stories enliven students' moral impulse and lesson. Above all it builds gradually students intellectual skills to reason, discuss, debate and solve riddles. Students tend to learn a lot of wise ways of doing things, above all they learn the continuation of live identity and culture. It protects them from serious cultural alienation.
Thanks so much David for all that. I've no objection to cooperate with you in your respected project. Please find with attaching version of the story the part I've added.
Adam Cholong Ohiri
University of Juba
On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 11:16 PM, David Heathfield wrote:
Hello Adam
I greatly appreciate your answers and your huge improvements to my retelling of your wonderful story. As I read it, I can hear your voice telling me the story.
All my best
David
On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 10:38 AM, adam ohiri wrote:
Dear David Heathfield,
It is great to know you and I'm so pleased with the idea you thought about when we first met in that wonderful historic city Liverpool. It candles my early memories of primary and secondary school as pupil and student. Such stories my mother love to tell us every evening when in happy mode. They always exchanged with my father the role of telling us stories. They had wanted to train us to sing different kinds of songs. They were great poets and singers. We were not able to cope up with all that. We always travelled to school and stayed for 9 months away from home. We were not able to keep their articulate and poetic mythical spirit. Not only that but also they were great folkhistorian, well verse in their history. In African tradition history is orally transferred from generation to generation embedded in their songs.
Coming back to your Hare story. Please, I would like to say your story because it was your initiative. To us the Hare is always symbol of clever person, a person who uses his mind and reason unlike one who uses force, emotion and believe on that because he is muscular and strong physically. To our elders that does not help. A person should know how to maneuver and plan things. Hare is strategist he calculate and plan before he act. He is proactive and not reactive. Teaching language is the early method used to mentor children. The Hare Trickster stories develop not language competence but mental competence to reason, negotiate, solve and resolve complex issues.
Thanks so much.
Adam Cholong Ohiri Aham
On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 12:43 PM, David Heathfield wrote:
Hello Adam
Please enjoy listening to me tell The Heathfield Hare, the Devon folk story I told you in Liverpool: www.worldstories.org.uk/stories/story/32-the-heathfield-hare/english Perhaps your students will enjoy the World Stories website - if you log in to the Teachers Area, you will find many Advice Articles and Storytelling Guides which I wrote for teachers.
Greetings from Devon!
David
Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:49:39 +0300:
Dear David Heathfield,
Please greetings and best wishes.
I will visit your website and encourage others to do the same.
Adam Cholong Ohiri Aham
a folk tale from the Otuho people of South Sudan told by Adam Cholong Ohiri Aham
Farmer Elephant planted beans in his field and soon his crop began to grow. Along came Trickster Hare and ate up some of the delicious green shoots. When Elephant found his crop had been spoilt, he was most upset.
‘Oh Hare, I have found signs of somebody entering my farm and spoiling my crop. I don’t know who has eaten some of my bean shoots and spoilt part of the farm?’
‘Elephant, I will do my best to find out the spoiler and this greedy lazy element, this good-for-nothing. Your Gracious Mr Elephant we’ll soon catch the thief. Meet me at the Fortune Teller’s house.’
Hare thought for a while of how to hide his true act of theft and spoiling. Elephant knew the fact that somebody spoiled his crop. But Elephant didn’t know that Hare was the person behind all that. Hare slipped away and decided to make a plan to cover his crime and find a scapegoat. He fetched sticky gum from the tree and made a figure in the middle of Elephant’s field. Hare ran to where Crane lived.
‘Crane, you look so hungry and miserable. Let’s go to the farmer’s field. It’s not far from here. At this time he is not on his farm. There we will eat enough beans and take some for our children to eat! Not only that, my best friend, but we will have time to play about in the farm. It has beautiful and rich views with a water creek for us to bathe and swim.’
Crane and Hare agreed to meet at the farm. Crane opened his beautiful black wings and flew off to the field and waited for Hare. When Hare saw him he jumped up happily and said to himself, ‘O! My plan worked’. When the Crane asked him ‘What did you say?’ the Hare smiled sarcastically. ‘Hi Crane, here is something interesting for us,’ said the Hare, ‘look at all the rich beans. But you see over there, there is something that looks like a statue, why don’t we go and see it?’ Hare went ahead and was quickly in front of the sticky gum statue. He then laughed loudly and pretended to have not seen something like that before.
‘Good day’ called Crane stupidly.
But the sticky statue gave no answer.
‘How rude not to greet your guests!’ called Crane.
However, Hare interjected by saying to Crane ‘You don’t need to talk to such deaf person. The best thing in my opinion is to touch it. See, I’m touching it.’
Hare indeed touch the sticky statue twice but nothing happened to him, that is to say, Hare did not stick onto the sticky gum statue. Hare encouraged Crane to do the same as he did.
Instead of touching, the Crane kicked the silent statue with his foot, but his foot got stuck to the sticky gum. He decided to kick it with the other foot that also got stuck. In his frustration Crane struck with one black wing, but this wing, too, was stuck. Crane tried to get away by flapping his other black wing, but this too stuck to the silent statue made of sticky gum.
When Hare succeeded in tricking the Crane he jumped up and started to dance, now coming up with another story that he found the true thief of the Elephant’s farm. He started to sing, satirising the Crane for being lazy and stupid. The Hare told the Crane that he was now going to break the news to His Gracious Mr Elephant. He jumped and quickly ran to Elephant.
Hare arrived at the house of Elephant, panting and advised him to go to the fortune teller. Hare said the fortune teller was the only person with experience of such cases of farm thieves and spoilers. The fortune teller would manage to discover the spoiler of his beans and farm. Elephant reacted quickly to the news and accepted the idea. At that instant, the Hare hid a lump of black charcoal and accompanied Elephant to the house of the fortune teller who welcomed them kindheartedly.
Instead of Elephant telling the story, Hare, being articulate and witty, took the lead and told the story of what happened on Elephant’s farm. Hare could not wait but asked the fortune teller to try his best to unmask the person who destroyed the farm.
The fortune teller performed his ritual incantation and prepared to cast his stones. While he was doing that, Hare stealthily threw the black charcoal among the stones and leant over to Elephant. ‘Can’t you see, it is there the thing that keeps eating and spoiling your beans and your farm. Please it looks from the stones laid down and the charcoal that the thing is still there. Let’s hurry otherwise it will escape.’
Elephant was astonished and bewildered. The fortune teller accepted the interpretation of Hare and added flavour to the whole thing by pointing out that the charcoal showed that the thief must be the colour black and would get away if the Elephant did not move quickly.
Hare and Elephant rushed out of the place in haste to reach the farm as quickly as possible. The Hare led the way to the farm. As they were about to reach it, he cried aloud and said to the Elephant that his sharp eyes could see that thing. ‘O! Come on it is high time to capture the thing while alive. It is dangerous to let such creatures escape.’
Hare watched and laughed and went running ahead while Elephant followed behind, struggling with his huge body. The two hurried to the field.
Elephant saw Crane with his black wings in the middle of his field. ‘Crane, you are the one who ate all my bean shoots.’
‘No,’ cried Crane, ‘it wasn’t me!’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ cried Hare, ‘just beat him.’
Elephant began beating poor Crane who could not fly away. His feet and wings were stuck to the sticky gum statue.
Hare laughed and laughed.
Crane cried out, ‘It was Hare who tricked me, Elephant. He’s the one who made me get stuck to this sticky gum statue. Hare has tricked you too.’
Elephant stopped beating Crane and listened. Elephant remembered seeing Hare in his field. Elephant remembered the piece of charcoal among the Fortune Teller’s stones. Elephant turned around but Hare was skipping away.
‘You tricked me Hare. You ate my crop. Now I will punish you.’
Elephant charged after Hare and caught him with his trunk.
‘I’ve got you, Hare. Now I’ll throw you down against the hard stone road, Hare!’
‘Yes!’ cried Hare ‘Throw me against the hard stone road Elephant. But whatever you do, don’t throw me in the long grass.’
‘Ha! Is that what you’re afraid of, Hare?’
Elephant raised Hare high in the air and threw him down in the long grass with all his strength.
‘Foolish Elephant,’ cried Hare, ‘the long grass is so soft.’
Hare skipped away towards the trees and Elephant charged after him. Hare was fast but Elephant was faster.
As he reached the first tree, Hare dived down into a hole among its roots. Elephant reached his trunk down into the hole and caught Hare by the leg.
‘Ha ha ha,’ laughed Hare, ‘you’ve caught the tree root, Elephant!’
Elephant let go and caught hold of the tree roots.
‘Oh no, Elephant,’ cried Hare, ‘You’ve got my leg. Don’t pull me out!’
Elephant pulled and pulled and tore up the tree by its roots.
Hare skipped out of the hole and towards the next tree and Elephant charged after him. Hare was fast but Elephant was faster.
As he reached the tree, Hare dived down into a hole among its roots. Elephant reached his trunk down into the hole and caught Hare by the leg.
‘Ha ha ha,’laughed Hare, ‘you’ve caught the tree root, Elephant!’
Elephant let go and caught hold of the tree roots.
‘Oh no, Elephant,’ cried Hare, ‘You’ve got my leg. Don’t pull me out!’
Elephant pulled and pulled and tore up the tree by its roots.
Hare laughed and skipped out of the hole and towards the next tree. Elephant charged after him. Hare was fast but Elephant was faster.
As he reached the tree, Hare dived down into a hole among its roots. Elephant reached his trunk down into the hole and caught Hare by the leg.
‘Ha ha ha,’laughed Hare, ‘you’ve caught the tree root, Elephant!’
Elephant let go and caught hold of the tree roots.
‘Oh no, Elephant,’ cried Hare, ‘You’ve got my leg again. Don’t pull me out!’
Elephant pulled and pulled and tore up the tree by its roots…and so it went on, tree after tree. And so it goes on still…
Elephant is still trying to catch Hare, and Hare is still tricking Elephant.
The early folk stories of the people of Otuho tell us to take care of the trees and our environment. Unfortunately today there are large parts of South Sudan where the survival of the trees and our environment is at stake
Here are David Heathfield and musician Kimwei retelling this story at Exeter Respect Festival:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=usgWuBr8jUs
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the CLIL: Content and Methodology for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Literature course at Pilgrims website.
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