Gobbing the Grubs

The following is a read aloud story for May 2005. This is one of a series of stories especially written for Awana Clubs, home-schoolers, Sunday school classes, VBS, mission conferences, or just the fun of reading about children in a wild land called: “The Amazon Rain Forest”. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others who have children and would like to get these stories. Use them for the glory of God! The Asheninca people, one of the many great Amazon Rain Forest tribes, have lived for centuries in a world of superstition and fear. The following months of stories, as I catch up, will be based around the actual observations I made while living in Ridge Village, on the Breu River, with the Asheninca people. Mo-SEE-ro, is an actual 10-year-old girl whom I watched and she has become the main character in this series of stories.

The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
(Missionary/cultural observer with the Amazon tribes for many years)
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, Florida

She raced down the ridge trail, her dirty little robe bobbing and swaying as her little legs carried her to the banks of the Breu River. The School Boat was coming!! Mosiro could hear the loud bang-bang of the motor and she could hear the children shouting and laughing on the open boat, but she was not going to school on that boat! In fact, at the moment, she was running away from it. She dove in thick grass and reeds and lay there breathing deeply with her heart throbbing in her throat…at least it felt like that was what was happening. The boat paused at the little trail that lead up the ridge to her village and people were shouting “Mosiro! Mosiro!”, but she lay low and quiet. The boat chugged on down the river to the Brasilian community of Breu where there was a school for children.
Poor Mosiro. She’d never been to school in her life. It was scary. And she didn’t speak that strange tongue all the local people spoke…Portuguese. But the school officials had visited her village and insisted she must join the other children who lived on the Breu and go to school every day on the School Boat. Her own people just laughed about it, they’d never been to school before either! They really didn’t care if she went or not. She was an Asheninca and she spoke Asheninca…and why in the world would an Asheninca child ever need to go to school? They just agreed with the school official to make him happy, but they weren’t forcing any of their children to go to school.
But that afternoon the school official was back…he talked and talked. The People understood about a tenth of what he was saying. “Little Mike”, the village leader, knew a bit more Portuguese and suddenly he just made this great declaration loud and boldly, “MOSIRO IS GOING TO SCHOOL!!” And everyone just stared and Mosiro felt like the death sentence had been passed on her! But the chief had spoken. He was trying to be nice to the school official.
The next morning Mosiro, quivering with fright, was accompanied by Little Mike, who was also her grandfather, to the river’s edge and then put on the School Boat. There she sat with the boys and girls all giggling and making fun of her “quitarensi” (key-tah-REN-see), the robes that all Asheninca wear. Tears welled in her eyes. She just looked down at the boat floor as they rounded bend after bend and finally arrived at the school.
“Class, we have a brand new student this morning!” The teacher was all smiles, “Mo…mo..oh, how DO you pronounce that name? Oh, well, class, it is just an Indian name, we will call her ‘Maria’!! Maria, you are welcome to our class!” Mosiro sat behind her desk and hadn’t a clue what this woman was talking about. But she didn’t like the kids staring at her and she didn’t like anything at all about this school. She blew her nose loudly and wiped the fluid on her quitarensi sleeve! That got everyone’s attention! Then she belched loudly and laid her head down on the desk to try and sleep as the children giggled and the teacher droned on and on in that language she could not understand.
Lunch break! Everyone lined up for crackers and a cup of milk. Mosiro watched the children getting their snack, but she didn’t care much for crackers and she’d never drank milk before. Suddenly she remembered the little packet on a string around her neck and hidden under her robe. Her moa. (mow-AH) Reaching down inside the robe she brought out the leaf packet and opened it before the eyes of several very curious girls. Then there were loud screams and shouts! The moa are fat white grub worms with brown heads and black beady eyes! She had about six in her packet and carried them around for snacks. All the children came around her to see the moa. They were wriggling and trying to crawl. She took one in her fingers and held it up. The teacher had come to see what was causing the commotion and just stood there with big round eyes and her mouth quivering in a big O. Mosiro suddenly enjoyed the attention. Maybe that was why she slowly put the moa between her teeth with a big smile on her face. Everyone gasped. And then she bit down and a greenish fluid came down her bottom lip…which she quickly licked away. She chewed her moa with such great pleasure. Kids were screaming and gagging and the teacher nearly fainted dead away.
The school official told Little Mike that Mosiro did not need to come to school anymore.
Do you like school? I’m sure that you do! I remember when I was a little boy and in school that I was so shy that all I would do was cry if the teacher even looked at me! But, teachers really aren’t all that scary, are they? They are wonderful people who love children and want to teach children many, many interesting things. Jesus was a teacher. He was the Great Teacher. The best. He is God, so what he taught was Truth and from God. Jesus wants to teach the Asheninca people, and little girls like Mosiro, all about his Father God. But Jesus needs people who will learn the Asheninca tongue and teach the children in a language that is their language and they understand. How would you like to do that? I think Jesus would even eat a moa with Mosiro. What do you think? Pray with us as we begin a school in Ridge Village soon that will teach the Asheninca boys and girls in their own language and have moas for snacks. Well, maybe.