ANANSE AND THE GLUEMAN

Once in a town called Kanamentie lived Ananse in a hut. Inhabitants were mostly farmers who grow foodstuffs such as Yam, Cassava, Plantain etc. as well as Fruits. He lived in a hut because he was too lazy to build his own house. Whilst others rose early to their farms to work for food but Ananse would sleep and not want to be disturbed. It was time for cultivation and farmers were busily planting their seeds for the rainy season and hoped for a bountiful harvest.  Meanwhile Ananse always postponed the day he would cultivate his farm. Unfortunately, there was a long drought which left the land dry and crops stunted to grow. The people were worried because enough crops would not be produced for food. Brother Ananse laughed at them thinking he was wise not to grow crops. Luckily there was a long period of rain which made the crops grow nicely. After two months of rain the crops were nicely ready for harvest. But Ananse had nothing to harvest and he had to think of a way to survive, so he had a plan. He decided to steal the crops of other people little by little. So he began with the first farm, then the second, then the third he gathered as many as he could. The next day, the people saw that their crops have been harvested, who could have done this? One asked. Whoever it was they would catch him. They made a scarecrow and painted him with a lot of glue and placed it in the middle of one of the farms. The next night, as usual Ananse set off to steal more crops. As he was gathering crops he saw the scarecrow and became scared but after hard thought he decided to get rid of it. In his first attempt he decided to hit it down but oooohhhhh, his hand was stuck. He tried with his other hand and it got stuck too. “Let me go” he tried to let go with his leg, then his belly, then his head and ohhhh his whole body was stuck. He remained in that state till morning even though he tried to get free but it was useless. In the morning the people were eager to go to their farms to find the lazy thief. They gathered at the chief’s palace and they all moved to the farm and to their surprise it was Ananse stuck to glue man. Ananse closed his eyes in shame as he could not as his friends and neighbours. He was disgraced to the nearby towns and banished from his town because of laziness and greediness.