Gogo and special bird

In Swaziland, every family has a secret. Old people will sometimes tell their children about it but this is hardly the case. One way of telling children not to reveal a secret is by telling them a story. Gogo Manana tells us this one.

Kwesukasukele, a time there was an old lady who used to live in a village , far away from the city. The old lady (gogo) had a special bird which used to give her emasi (sour milk) whenever she needed some and this was the old lady's secret about her special bird.

She would wake up early in the morning and weed her fields and when the sun got hot, she would leave her fields and go home because she would be hot and hungry. On reaching home she would put her hoe away, wash her hands and thereafter she would take her special clay pot and go to her special hut where she kept her bird.

Gogo would shout to her bird and say "my bird, my bird give me emasi," and the bird would do just that. For a long time that was the old lady's secret. the grandchildren never understood how they always managed to have emasi because in their homestaed they never had cows.

One fateful day, Sifiso, one of her gransons, came home early from school and the old lady was still in her fields. sifiso stayed at home and the old lady came back from her fields and she would start her daily routine, thinking that she was all alone.

Sifiso heard gogo shouting "my bird, my bird give me emasi," and decided to peep through the door of the hut to see what gogo was up to. From that day, Sifiso knew where the sour milk comes from.


Sifiso also kept this a secret and never told anyone. days, weeks and months passed by and gogo was still feeding her grandsons with sour milk. One day gogo received news that her younger sister was sick and she had to go and see her. Gogo's sister lived about 20 kilometers away from the homestead and so when she left, she made sure that there was enough sour milk for her grandsons when they came back from school.

Sifiso had two other brothers and their names were Mandla and Phinda, and when the two came back from school, they finished all the emasi which gogo had left for all the children. When Sifiso came home, he was angry that there was no sour milk and so he asked his brothers what he was going to eat. They arrogantly showed him a pot of plain porridge and said that is what he will have for lunch.

Sifiso knew that when gogo left, she had given them work to do and since his was to sweep the yard, he thought to himself and said i know where to get the sour milk from.Mandla and Phinda's job was to get firewood and water, respectively.

They both left to atend to their duties and Sifiso went to his gogo special bird and shouted "my bird my bird give me sour milk," and the bird did just that. The problem was that Sifiso did not hear gogo tell the bird to stop and so it continued making emasi until it could do so no more.

"That's enough," Sifiso shouted but the bird couldn't stop. Suddenly, the bird died and Sifiso placed it where he had found it and pretended as though all he ate was plain porridge.

When gogo came back it was dark and she noticed there was emasi all over the yard. She then knew what had happened. She found the bird dead and knew that her family and her would starve for the rest of their lives. And that was the case, thanks to not keeping a family secret.