How Hippos Entered the Water

I keep bumping up against traditional culture here. I would love to dive into it and learn more but, wisely, the old stories are shielded carefully from us Muzungo - which by the way translates roughly into white person walking in circles. Pretty accurate description of me so I don't mind it much...

Luckily, sometimes I get a bit of a story here or there. I told our safari friend Hassan about the Sudanese boy who told me that he was given a special relationship with Hippos when he was a boy. This he credits to being able to cross the river out of Sudan when many of his fellow refugees were killed by the hippos in the river. Hassan told me of a man he knew who could cross the Nile on a cow hide and of another who could swim like a fish in the whitewaters at the source of the Nile so long as he didn't marry or get a girlfriend. Then he told me this about Hippos...

A long time ago the animals lived together and they could talk like us humans. At that time the Hippos were the most beautiful animal in the world with beautiful colourful fur. But then, like today, Hippos were greedy and ate a lot.
A long dry season came to the land and the grasses started to wilt and die. The animals held a meeting and decided that they would only eat during the daytime to give the grass time to cool off at night. Every morning when they woke up though, they discovered that the grass had been eaten. Everyone knew that the hippo was doing it but the hippos said, "No, I did not eat the grass!" The Elephants asked, the Giraffes asked, even the Warthogs asked and still the Hippo said, "NO!"
The animals came up with a plan. That night they set a small section of the grass on fire when everyone was asleep. They knew that the hippo would be burnt in the morning and they would have caught him. Well that fire got big and sure enough it caught the hippo - all his beautiful fur lit up and he ran from the fire in a mad panic.
When the hippo got to the water the crocodiles and the fish yelled to him, "Stop! We don't want your kind here!" The hippo was on fire and he begged and pleaded as all his beautiful fur burnt off. Finally he promised, "If you let me in I will protect you and never, ever eat anything in the water." The water animals agreed and let him in.
That is how the hippo entered the water and why it never eats anything in the water - but watch out if you try and cross when they are around.

I asked Hassan about these stories that come from Africa that seem so hard to believe and he told me, "There are many things that make people think in Africa, in fact, if you believe things here they just may happen."

I am going to eat right away but I hope to tell you about Acholi resiliency after the "boofay"

"Listen, do you know how the hippo entered the water?"