Hadithi hadithi?
A long time ago, Chicken and Eagle were best friends. They lived together and raised their children together as well. The two took turns cleaning their house and searching for food. The only difference in their lifestyles was a shaving ritual practiced by Eagle. Once a week, Eagle lined the eaglets up outside the house and trimmed the feathers on their heads. The eaglets always looked tidy, while the chicks’ feathers got more and more untamable as they grew older.
One day, Chicken’s relatives were coming to visit from out of town, and she wanted her chicks to look as neat as her friend’s children.
“Eagle, please lend me your razor so that I can shave my children’s heads,” Chicken said.
Eagle thought long and hard about her friend’s request. This was a very special razor which she had received from her mother and she cherished it very much. But since Chicken was her best friend, she decided to oblige her request.
“Here you go,” said Eagle as she handed the razor to Chicken, “please take good care of it.”
“Of course I will, thank you,” Chicken was delighted by her friend’s generosity.
The next day, Chicken left to go to the market and left her children playing at home. Eagle was out with her eaglets, and while Chicken was a little uneasy about leaving her chicks alone, she wanted to hurry back so that she could trim their feathers.
Once Chicken had left, the chicks went outside to play, but they soon grew bored and returned indoors. As they were looking for something to do to pass time, the found the razor in one of their mother’s drawers. They had never seen anything like that before; it was nice and shiny and they wanted to play with it.
The chicks took the razor outside and tossed it around, unaware of how dangerous their game was. When they couldn’t figure out how this toy was operated, they left it outside and tried to find another game to play. When their mama came back from the market, she searched for the razor amongst her belongings but could not find it.
“Children, have you seen the razor that was here?” Chicken asked.
“What’s a razor?” the chicks had never heard of such an item before.
Once Chicken explained its appearance, the chicks told her they had been playing with it outside.
“That was very unsafe! Razors are not toys; they are very sharp and can hurt someone,” Chicken ran to the back of the house to look for the razor.
She scratched all over but could not find it. Oh no! What was she going to do? She continued searching, under trees and stones, in the dirt and between the blades of grass. It soon became dark, and Eagle returned home with her eaglets.
“Hello Chicken, where is my razor?” Eagle asked after greeting her friend.
Poor Chicken, she tried to explain what had happened but Eagle was very upset. Her precious razor was lost!
“We can no longer be friends. You broke my trust and now, I will hunt you and your children until you find my razor and return it to me,” Eagle took her children and flew to the top of the tallest tree, built a nest and settled there.
To this day, you will see the chicken scratching in the dirt, searching for the lost razor. Whenever she sees the eagle, she tries to hide her chicks under her wings to protect them from being hunted by her old friend.
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This story teaches us to be careful with items entrusted to us because we never know how valuable they are to other people.