Jobu the terrible

Today I’m going to tell you all a story the old-fashioned way. I’ll be jajja, telling stories around the fireplace, and you will be my grandchildren, listening with eyes widened and ears open. Now, listen!

Once upon a time, in a faraway land many many moons away, there was a place called yunavisiti, where all the young men and women of the land went to gather wisdom and knowledge. For four years the most revered elders of the land taught them all the skills they would need to handle life as adults.

When the four years were over, the young men and women would be handed a bow, a spear and a sheaf of arrows. They had one mission: to find and tame a terrible type of animal called Jobu that roamed the land, destroying youth everywhere.

This type of animal called Jobu was truly elusive. It moved silently in the night and no one knew its exact shape or form. The few who were lucky to capture it were put under a terrible oath, never to reveal how they had captured Jobu or what it even looked like, else they would lose their lives.

Once they had taken this oath, jobu allowed them to become successful and important people in their society. For those who failed to capture Jobu, all the skills they had learnt in the yunavisiti went to waste as they joined their mothers and fathers in tilling the land, just as their ancestors had done for generations before them.

Others decided to become thieves and terrorised their fellow villagemates. The young men ended up becoming slaves to enguli and the young women would give birth to hordes of miserable children.

My children, I hear this terrible animal jobu still prowls the land, looking for whom it will devour next.

The elders in the yunavisiti still teach the young ones in the hope that one day, they will raise a fearless leader who will mobilise the young men and women of the land to kill jobu once and for all and bring back hope to the land.
And there ends my story!