IGE STORY TIME.

IYANU AND THE SONG OF THE RIVER

A West African Folktale

Part One – The Orphan and the River’s Whisper

Long ago, in a small fishing village by the great River Osun, there lived a young girl named Iyanu. She had lost her parents when she was no bigger than a calabash gourd, and the world seemed to turn its back on her. With no family to feed or clothe her, she did every small task she could find — sweeping the market stalls, carrying heavy water pots for old women, peeling cassava for village feasts.

The villagers pitied her at times, but pity does not fill an empty stomach. Many days, she went to sleep with only water in her belly and hope in her heart.

One dry season, when food was scarce and the soil cracked under the sun, Iyanu’s eyes wandered to the river. She watched the fishermen bring in baskets of tilapia, catfish, and bonga. The way the scales shimmered in the light filled her with an idea.

“If I learn to fish,” she thought, “I can feed myself without begging.”

But when she went down to the river with her little reed basket, the fishermen burst into laughter.

“Ehn, Iyanu! You? Fish? You will scare them away with your clumsy hands!”
“Go back to peeling cassava, little orphan — the river is no place for you!”

Their words were sharp like thorns, but Iyanu remembered something her late mother once told her:

“The baobab tree does not hurry to grow, but it becomes the tallest in the savannah.”

She ignored their jeers. Every morning, before the c**k crowed, she walked to the riverbank, her bare feet kissing the wet sand. At first, her basket came back empty. Then, little by little, the river began to reward her patience — a small fish here, a bigger one there.

Soon, she discovered a secret: while the fishermen gathered at the wide mouth of the river, noisy and proud, the smaller creeks off to the side teemed with fish. The quiet places gave her more than the crowded ones.

By the next moon, she was catching enough fish to sell at the market. She dried them in the sun, and the smell of her perfectly smoked tilapia began to travel through the stalls. People who once ignored her now came asking for “Iyanu’s fish.”

And so, the river began to sing her name.

PEACERO.

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