I like reading because it makes me feel proud about myself. There is a lady called Lucia Modjadji but I know her as Sis Lucia, she encouraged me to be confident, committed and proud about myself. With her encouragement I wrote a story.

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Once upon a time, a man, a lion, a dog, a donkey, a puff adder, and an eagle, were going to war together. They travelled all day, until at last, the sun went down.

“Where are we going to sleep?” asked the donkey.

“Look,” said the puff adder, there’s a hut, and someone is coming out of it, we can sleep there.

So they went to the hut and called out to the people inside. A man and his wife came out.

“Please, come in,” they said to the travellers. “You are welcome to sleep here, but we are very poor and we have no food to give to you.”

“But, you have a cow.” Said the lion. “We saw it outside your house.”

“It’s the only thing we have.” The man said. “If we kill it, we will have nothing.”

“We will reward you.” The travellers said. “Please kill it for us.”

“I want you to give me its blood,” said the lion. “I’ll repay you someday.”

“I want the bones,” said the dog. “And one day, I will reward you too.”

“Let me have the milk,” said the man. “I’ll give you something wonderful one day.”

“Give me the fat,” said the puff adder. “And I promise you, you won’t be sorry.”

“And I…” said the eagle, “I want the small pieces of meat under the skin, give them to me and I’ll reward you.”

“I don’t want the meat,” said the donkey. “But if you give me some grass from your roof, I promise, you’ll never regret it.”

So, the man and his wife killed their cow. They gave the blood to the lion, the bones to the dog, the milk to the man, the fat to the puff adder and the small pieces under the skin to the eagle. They also gave the donkey the grass from the roof of the hut.

The travellers slept well that night and the next morning, they went away.

Many weeks passed, and then one day the man and his wife heard a loud noise near their hut. The lion was roaring. They went outside but the lion wasn’t there but a big elephant tusk was lying on the ground.

“This is wonderful,” said the wife. “Let’s take it inside before anybody else sees it.”

Now the man had a wicked brother. He was rich but he was cruel and everyone hated him. He heard about the elephant tusk.

I want that tusk! he thought, I’ll kill my brother and take it from him. Later that night when it was dark he went to his brother’s house but the puff adder was lying on the path, waiting for him. It bit the wicked brother and he died.

In that country, when a wealthy man died his brother took all of his wealth. So, the wicked man’s vows and sheep belonged to the man and his wife. On the same day, the eagle was flying high in the sky, he looked down and saw a crowd of elders walking down the road and they had something bright and shiny in their hands.

They had money and jewels. The eagle flew down and took the money and jewels.

On the same day, the donkey was in a forest not far away. He had a heavy bag on his back; the bag was full of Mother Theresa’s dollars.

The donkey’s master was beating him. “Go faster! You stupid, lazy animal!” he shouted, “or I’ll kill you.”

The donkey wanted to punish his master. So he ran away with the dollars and came to the hut. “Take the dollars.” He said. “They are yours.”

The old man and his wife were now rich. “The animals have been good to us.” They said to one another.

They waited and waited, weeks passed, then months and then years, but the man and the dog, never came back.

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