Adages with Animals: Division 3 Performs African Folktales

"Zomo the Rabbit" adapted and performed by Division 3 students

By Division I Media & Journalism reporter Esme

Recently, the Division 3 Humanities class performed a selection of African folktales for the entire Meridian Community, along with visitors from Neighborhood School up the road. The students used a variety of masks and props to tell the stories. In many of the stories, the main characters were animals, as you can tell from the titles: “Frog and His Two Wives,” “The Wise Man and the Fool,” “The Cat’s Many Husbands,” “Zomo the Rabbit,” “The Man Who Could Transform Himself,” and “How the Stories Came to Earth.” Some of the stories had a moral, or would explain how something came to be. One of the morals was from “Zomo the Rabbit,” that you should know how to be brave, clever, and cautious. Another story that had a moral was “The Wise Man and the Fool,” which taught that even if people seem foolish, you do not know what they are capable of, and you should not treat them with less respect.

The students had about two weeks to prepare the performances. They had to write their own original scripts based on the folktales, and they also had to make all of the masks and props. Nadia, one of the students who performed as the title character in “Zomo the Rabbit,” said, “At first I was really nervous, but in the end it turned out to be really fun.”