Week 7 Essay: New Favorite

Week 7 Essay: New Favorite

Week 6 and 7 stories were in the Asia and African section. I really enjoyed these two weeks and it might be my new favorite unit opposed to week 1 and 2. For week 6, I read The Monkey King and for week 7 I read West African Folktales. The Monkey King was my favorite between the two. There is just something about that story that I thought made it an excellent read. Week 7 I read West African Folktales. This section included many stories about Anansi, the trickster spider. I loved most of the stories in the section. They were short and sweet, and also easy to understand. I thought it was neat how some of the stories told were about how the origin of something else came to be, for example, the crying kids, and how the tortoise got its shell. Anansi himself is a pretty interesting character. Throughout the stories he is a clever person and tends to trick most people, but he is also greedy and selfish. Most of the time his selfishness leads to him not getting what he wants in the end.

My favorite story was “Anansi and Nothing”. The word play with the “nothing” and the character named Nothing was clever. It reminded me of when Odysseus tricked the Cyclops into thinking his name was Nothing. The story is one of the best that displays Anansi’s jealously and selfishness. First he tricks his rich friend into changing cloths with him when they were searching for wives in a neighboring city. This led to Anansi getting the most beautiful wives even though he was really poor, and Nothing getting no one except a woman who felt bad for him. When they went back home it was Nothing who had all the riches and Anansi with nothing. All of Anansi’s wives went over to Nothings house and Anansi grew very jealous and killed his friend to have everything to himself.

I wouldn’t say that I have a “least” favorite story out of them all, but there were some that just were not as entertaining for me to read. They were still fine stories however. I am glad that I read the 2 stories that I chose for these 2 weeks. They are both among one of the best so far. I think that the notes provided alongside some of the stories are great. They help give me some insight on what I will be reading next about. This unit I feel that I acquired some new storytelling techniques. From both weeks there were a vast amount of stories to read which, I think, indirectly helped my creativeness. I learned a lot about Anansi and some other African tales. My expectations were met and I want to thank Mrs. Gibbs for her recommendations on the stories this week. 

A bronze Maman outside of Ottawa, Canada by: John Talbot

(could represent Anansi)

More info on Anansi: Wikipedia

Storytelling for Week 7: A Needle In a Haystack

A Needle In a Haystack

Oklahoma is known for it its vast landscape, oil, and farmland. Most of the state is rural, besides some of the few cities. The town of Bixby, Oklahoma is one of these rural areas. It has roughly 21,000 people living there to date. 

On the outskirts of town a very poor man lives in a cabin by himself. His name is Anansi. Anansi was a middle age man who always found himself in trouble throughout his life. He could not hold a steady job and eventually lost almost everything. One day, while walking back toward his cabin, he saw a flyer taped on a telephone pole. There was a competition going on the next month and the grand prize was 1 million dollars! Anansi decided to attend the event and see if he could win the contest.

When the day arrived for the competition, Anansi showed up outside at the field where it was being held. About 2000 other people showed up as well. Before the grand prize competition that was shown on the flyer, there were many other smaller trivia and obstacles each contestant had to overcome. Anansi was a witty person and capable of many tricks, so the tasks were not hard for him to complete at all. He later found himself in the top two slots left for completing the competition. The crowd gathered, and Anansi and the other finalist gathered to wait for the host to announce the final competition for 1 million dollars. Then the host came out and wished the two finalist good luck. The final challenge was to find the needle in the haystack. Whoever found the needle first was the winner. The host then revealed two separate haystacks the size of normal SUV’s with the needle somewhere inside. The one on the left was the other finalist, and the other one on the right was Anansi’s. The whistle blew and the search was on for the needle. The other contestant flew into the pile of hay franticly looking for the needle. Anansi stood without moving. Since there were no apparent rules for this competition, Anansi came up with a clever plan to beat his competitor and find the needle in the haystack first. He knew that without this plan it could take him 4 hours or more to complete.  Anansi rushed home and got his vacuum and brought it back to the haystack. He lived close so it only took him a total of 20 minutes. The other finalist was still searching throughout the hay for the needle. Anansi’s plan was to just vacuum up the hay with the nozzle. When the needle would enter the pipe of the vacuum it would get lodged into the filter and then Anansi just had to check periodically if he vacuumed it up yet or not. He started to do this and in another 20 minutes he was able to find the needle. He presented it to the host and he concluded the winner. Anansi won the 1 million dollars! The host presented him the check and congratulated him.

The next day Anansi went to the bank to open a checking account and deposit all of his money. The teller said to open an account there would be a $20.00 fee. Anansi thought to himself and decided not to waste money just to save it.  He left the bank and went back home. When he got back home, Anansi hid all of his money underneath his mattress where he felt great about having possession of it. He started to get paranoid however, and began to think that maybe the bank was a good idea after all. Anansi rushed back to the bank empty–handed to tell the bank worker that he wanted to open an account. He realized that he forgot the money that he wanted to deposit and went back home. Upon arriving, he checked his mattress to get the money, but the money was gone! Someone had stolen it.  Anansi became poor again without the bank account and the money. 

A Needle In a Haystack

By Vijayanarashimha

Authors Note: 

This week I read the West African Folktales which included many stories of Anansi the trickster spider. In most of his stories Anansi outwits his acquaintances to get the better advantage. This always comes back to haunt him and in the end he is left worse than before. I did not base my story directly from the sample. Instead I made up my own story with a twist! My story is set in present day time in Oklahoma. 

Reading Diary for Week 7: Anansi Stories

Anansi's Stories

Part 1:

• All stories told by made became Anansi Stories. 
• Anansi was an incredibly clever spider. He used his wits to trick a tiger, snake, and bees to all go to Nyankupon's house. When they all reached Nyankupon kept his promise. 
• Anansi and Nothing's story is really clever. The world play on nothing is great just like from The Odyssey. The story is about Anansi and a rich man named Nothing. 
• They went of into a neighboring town and went to look for wives. Along the way Anansi tricked nothing into trading cloths with him. Upon doing so Anansi was now dressed in beautiful cloths and found all of the best looking wives. Nothing had rags on and couldn't find anyone except for 1 woman. In the end, the two went back home and the roles reversed because it was really Nothing who was rich and Anansi who had "nothing"
• In the end Anansi killed Nothing and his wife mourned for him. She would make yams and give them to children crying. So this is were we get in today's society that he is crying for "Nothing". 
• The next story shows how selfish Anansi is. He got gifted a magic pot that supplied him food from Thunder, but instead of feeding his family he just wanted to feed himself which eventually got him beat up. 
• What I like most about these Anansi Stories is that each story shows how selfish or clever Anansi is, Also the stories all pertain to something else in the real world like the crying children, or the white ants 

Part 2:

• The story of how to tortoise got their shells is quite interesting as well. 
• The tortoise as a very fast creature at first, but one day he was asked to retrieve some palm wine (which is alcohol. Before returning back form where he came he couldn't bring all of the palm wine so he drank it.
• It made him slow, so when he got back to the gates they were closed and no one could find him. He eventually died and by the time the other found him the weight from his load formed into a hard shell. Side Note: What I've noticed about most of these stories is that most of then explain how something was made or came to be. Also most of these thing come from a negative event. I find that interesting that nothing has came from something good yet. I will keep that theme in mind when I am writing my story for Wednesday. 
• In the Hunter and the tortoise story, the tortoise taught the hunter a lesson. It was a basic listening lesson. The hunter was so amazed by the tortoises singing that want to show him to the rest of the town.The tortoise said that he only sang for him. Eventually the hunter was beheaded for "lying" about the talking/singing tortoise. The hunter brought that on himself
• After reading the elephant and the wren story, once again it is shown how selfish Anansi is. It is ridiculous he ended up loosing his elephant because he didn't was to share it with his family.