A few years ago Nkolo's tribe was almost moribund. The Great Drought was wiping out any vestige of food, and thus, the tribe's members.
The Nwintow, or small farmers, were one of the most numerous tribes in Africa for centuries. However, even their ingenious farming techniques were not enough to cope with the devastation brought on by the Great Drought.
And this is where Mpho Nkolo comes in. This little 10-year-old boy watched his people die every day in his mother's arms and cries. Even at his young age, he understood the context and what he could do to change it.
At another dawn when only the hungry hyenas could be heard stalking the next Nwintow corpse, Nkolo decided to escape.
In his fresh mind there was already a radical idea.
He was a boy of frail frame in the vast African savannah, but with enough cunning to both avoid its dangers and know how to find in it what was needed.
Amidst the flaming remnants of drought, herds of elephants and an occasional vigilant leopard, Nkolo followed a specific route.
His mind was on the hunt for a group of giraffes.
Nkolo had already noticed that in the midst of this drought, the giraffes were smiling. He always saw them in the morning, at noon and night running or "dancing" around some acacia trees to feed.
In fact, giraffes seemed to be the only creatures in the entire savannah that instead of perishing, seemed to thrive.
Thus, Nkolo presumed that the acacia trees were the salvation from extinction and the giraffes the vehicle to reach them.
After hours of chasing, Nkolo still had the energy to rush up to the youngest giraffe of the group he had been watching. He was afraid, for any false move meant getting trampled to death by those giants.
He struggled with all his might, trying to control the young giraffe with a whip he had taken from his tribe. Again and again he struck the animal, seeking its dominance.
The adult giraffes also took part in this agitated moment and, enraged with the intruder, they did not stop trying to strike their necks against Nkolo.
A bunch of angry giraffes and a cloud of dust seemed to be the last thing Nkolo would ever see in his short life, despite all his efforts.
Suddenly, just as he was about to let go of the giraffe's neck, he heard angry voices in warlike tones. They had arrived.
The resources that Nkolo thought would not bear fruit in the drought of his strategy, ended up growing and shining.
His Nwintow cousins, to whom Nkolo had told his plan, arrived on the scene subduing the rest of the giraffes with all manner of rudimentary weapons. Undoubtedly, it was the charcoal marks left by Nkolo on his route to the giraffes that made it possible for his cousins to execute the counterattack.
Then, among the intense and warm colors of the sunset, which bathed the hopeless savannah, appeared before the hungry Nwintow what they never imagined to see: the giraffe riders.
Even the tribal shamans did not anticipate such a scene.
Although there was fear at first, most of the Nwintow were soon overcome with excitement and went to greet their young riders.
The tribe could not believe the whole plan worked out by Mpho Nkolo. They called him "the wise boy", "the one blessed by God", "great brain", etc.
The wisest of the tribe believed that Nkolo's plan would not work, but then he proved that it was possible to eat from the acacia and other surrounding trees while riding on the subdued giraffes.
After several years without seeing a smile on the faces of the Nwintow, Nkolo noticed how his large family danced and joked with each other knowing that they would eat again thanks to him.
Unfortunately, not everyone was happy about this.
Mponeng, the Nwintow leader at the time, was envious to see how Nkolo's plan surpassed any he had tried to feed his people.
He could not accept that his extensive lineage of Nwintow chiefs would suddenly disappear because of a child.
As envy and resentment grew in Mponeng's heart, he sought help from the shamans. They advised him on something as simple as devastating.
Mponeng got ready one night, and as instructed by the shamans, rushed to take control of the giraffes with a group of men equally wary of Nkolo.
The plan was to make the giraffes eat of all surrounding food and then destroy the very trees from which they had eaten.
Executed and almost completed this plan near dawn, Mponeng and his men found themselves congratulating each other.
To complete the plan, they set the giraffes free, and went like a stampede of elephants to where "the wise boy" was sleeping.
"Look at your plan, giraffe boy", look what you have done," Mponeng repeatedly said to a still dozing Nkolo who was taken by the collar of his tent to a place where a chaos of wounded and dead trees could be seen.
The Nwintow leader wasted no time and let everyone in the tribe know how little Nkolo's plan had been a hoax.
"This brat's plan left us with absolutely nothing," Mponeng sentenced, sending Nkolo and his cousins away.
But before these were thrown out, I was there when Nkolo said before all, the credulous and incredulous, the following:
"The giraffes were subdued. If they escaped to eat and destroy, it was because of others, and not because of us, who brought the food home again."
"We are the giraffe riders," sang Nkolo and his kind in their expulsion, including me, which soon turned into migration.
This is how, people of sister tribes, it is explained all that we are experiencing in southern Africa now.
Mponeng has taken it upon himself in recent months to continue to act badly to further tarnish the image of the giraffe riders, but don't be fooled.
Before you finish me off for something I have not done, think that Mponeng and his people are fewer and fewer, while the riders are more. They're death; we're life.
So, do you choose to die or to live? Take your whips and let us conquer life riding yellow giants.
Story inspired by prompt #47 Unlikely Hero
I'd like to say this story somehow pleased me, and at the same time, it did not. Something within me pushes me to go differently about its context, about Nkolo. I hope I can figure it out.
