Libyans consider the Chadians heathens because they worship Chadian gods whom their ancestors have venerated for centuries. Though Islam is widespread in Chad, it is not the harsh, doctrinaire type of Islam followed in Libya, but a more syncretic version, anathema to Libyan extremist Muslims who tolerate only their own type of Islam: austere, inflexible, imperialistic, arrogant.

Chadians speak a hundred distinct languages and are divided into as many ethnic groups, each with its own customs.  The size of the country and the diversity of its landscapes contributes to this division: high mountain ranges, vast deserts in the north, and navigable rivers (Logone, Shari) in the south watering lush landscapes with tropical vegetation where rice and cotton are grown.  These farmers and camel drivers have a surprisingly rich folklore.  Fables, fairy tales, and songs have been recorded in many of the Chadian languages.

The attentive reader will recognize in “Famine” the tale of Hansel and Gretel, who were sent away to the forest to starve because their parents could no longer feed them.  African tales are about real problems, but they often seem riddles to us.  Does the father have the right to rule?  No, he forfeited it by his inability to provide for his children.  How can he provide for a nation?  Thus many African tales discuss by implication political problems, which in turn are caused by economic problems. 

The moral of the first tale, “Mandoko,” is the Swahili proverb: “Love the one who loves you, don’t love the one who does not love you.”  The lion was perhaps the spirit of Mandoko’s own mother, who came back for one night to find her daughter a husband.

Mandoko

Mandoko was an orphan girl, so she had a hard life.  Mandoko had lost her mother.  Her stepmother let her go hungry, so that she had to go to the riverbank to find frogs for food.  It was the dry season, so the frogs had dug themselves deep into the sand to stay cool and moist until the first rains.  Mandoko had brought her stepmother’s ladle, which was ideally suited for the purpose of digging up sleepy frogs from the sand.