As an anthropology researcher (participant observation again), I lived among Limba-speaking people in Sierra Leone with Africa in a remote 30-hut hilltop village.
While I was there, I heard them telling many stories. These always began, "A story for you," or, if to me especially, “A story for you, Yenkeni” (“Yenkeni” was the Limba name they’d given me; apparently it meant “a beautiful woman—I was young then …!!)
Every narrator tells a story differently, so I have too—my telling is directly based on a story Inwss told by the gifted storyteller Karanke Dena, the village smith, but this one is as elaborated by me. Originally in Limba, this is a version in English.
Enjoy—the only thing you need to know in advance is that in West Africa, a small piece of kola nut is a symbol of welcome to a visitor.
Kola nuts
A story for you Yenkeni, a story of a search
I have thought in my inner self, one I heard from the old people too; it is both.
So - mboro yina, a story for you.
The One-Who-Then-Dwelled-Up-Above
(His name was Kanu Masala, or another if you wish, for who is to say where the true truth lies?) Well,Well what he did was that he looked down on the earth and he saw that all the creatures there were chaotic, disorganized, and unarranged. Everyone lived just for themselves. They were just running around like silly ants getting in each other's way.