WOW-Day Fairy Tale of the Month - November 2020
The Story of Nyamgondho
Kenyan Tale
acted out at our celebrations to mark 100 years of Waldorf Education and 30 years in East Africa
A story is told about Mai, the son of Ombare - popularly known as Nyamgondho Nyombare in Luo, a western Kenyan tribe.
A long time ago Nyamgondho, a fisherman roamed the shores of the great Lake Victoria. Nyamgondho was so poor he barely had anything to eat or any clothes to wear. One day he woke up so hungry he thought he was going to die of hunger. He went to the lake and cast out his net. Upon pulling it in, he saw he had caught an ugly woman. He wanted to throw her back but she persuaded him to take her to be his wife. She promised to make him wealthy on the condition he never tells anyone where she was found.
The ugly woman was hard-working and she made him wealthy, he acquired many cattle, goats, sheep and chicken and also wives.
However he became proud and arrogant and one day he came home drunk. Each wife, who had their own house refused to let him in, even the ugly woman refused to let him in. Then Nyamgondho shouted ‘What, even you ugly woman whom I found in the lake refuse to let me in’. The ugly woman enraged shouted ‘What have you said? What was the agreement we made? Nyamgondho told her now, with all his wealth he no longer needed such an ugly wife.
Upon hearing this, the lady of the lake took all her possession and left and disappeared into the lake. And to Nyamgondho’s horror all the animals followed her back into the lake. Seeing all his possession disappearing into the lake, Nyamgondho stood sad at the shore of the great Lake Victoria, he rested his chin on his walking stick and mysteriously turned into a tree.
To this day, the footsteps of Nyamgondho's family and livestock entering the lake are still present and so is the tree to which he turned into, with his wife being considered a goddess who also performed other miraculous acts along the shores of Lake Victoria.
The tale comes from the Mbagathi Waldorf Schoolin Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is a progressive city. However, large parts of the population are fighting for survival. Finding work is difficult, and often people are struggling to pay for food, rent, and clothing. The children of Mbagathi School often come from difficult family situations. It is not uncommon to have children whose parents are separated, deceased, or suffer from AIDS. The Mbagathi Waldorf School has been constantly growing since its inauguration in 1992. Today, the school takes care of 300 girls and boys, of whom 90 are living in the school’s boarding home. The teaching staff consists mainly of Kenyan teachers, but international colleagues support their work now and again. The school has to deal with an increasing number of applications from parents who are basically not able to afford the tuition fees. Educational sponsorships are an important help for the school since 95% of the parents can only afford to pay very little in tuition, if anything at all. >> learn more about Mbagathi Waldorf School
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The collection of fairy tales and poems from all over the world was created as part of the single-day campaign Waldorf-One-World-Day, WOW-Day for short. On this day, children and young people are directly and actively committed to a better world. Besides, they organize a multiplicity of special donation actions, that connect humans on all continents with one another. The proceeds are used to support children with school time, a protective community or a warm meal. >> learn more about the WOW-Day