A Legendary Shrew

I went to Kantaly and Fatou Sowe retold the “Binta is scared of mice” story, now a year and half old and quite a bit different from how I remember it. Fatou was reminded of the story because the kids were pulling down their lower eyelids to “scare” me and one thought of another thing that scares me: mice! I specified: mice alone will not scare me, but if a mouse is eating a frog…

Then Fatou needed to tell the story, because the women from Kantaly had never heard it.

Here is the latest version of the story: There was a mouse in Binta’s house, behind the trunks, and she thought it was a snake. She ran outside screaming, “Neene, Neene! There’s a snake in my house! I’m scared!” So Neene went inside and Binta said, “Look, the snake is eating a mouse,” no, wait, she said, “the snake is eating a frog.” And Neene said, “That’s not a snake, Binta, that’s a mouse.”

The end.

Seriously?! Who confuses a mouse with a snake?? Future volunteers are going to hear that story and think, “Wow. That Binta Jallow sure was dumb.”

Hanging out with the Kantaly kids