Binta's Brave Day

Binta lived in a village where mangoes were sweetest in April and the old well never went dry — until it did.

One hot Tuesday, Mama pulled the rope and the bucket came up empty. "Ewo!" Mama cried. The women gathered. The festival was in seven days, and without water there would be no cooking, no dancing, no welcome for the elders returning home.

Binta was small, but she was observant. She noticed the goats crowding near the baobab hill, and the strange, quiet trickle she heard when everyone else had stopped listening.

"I will go and see," she said.

She packed: a bottle, a scarf, and her brother Musa's whistle. Up the hill, she found the problem — a great pile of fallen branches and dry leaves had blocked the stream that fed the well. And trapped beneath it, bleating softly, was old Papa's goat, Kudus!

Binta blew the whistle — pee-pee PEeee! — and lifted branches one by one. Villagers heard and came running. Together they cleared the stream. Water giggled, then rushed, then sang all the way down to the well.

That festival, Binta wore a blue dress and was given the first calabash of water to pour. "Bravery is not about being big," the elder said. "It is about looking closer."

With engaging call-and-response refrains and notes for parents on water conservation in the Sahel.