Watermelon Babies

The following is a read aloud story for October 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. I have just returned from the Breu River that forms the border between Peru and Brasil. We sat for hours with our Asheninca friends in Ridge Village. The next few stories are based on the observations we made as we dipped into bowls of food together.
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

Noena (No-EH-nah) dug her toes into the cool wet sand. Oh, it felt so good on this very hot day! She squinted a half second at that bright round ooria (sun). What makes it burn so hot? Why can’t we throw water on it and make it sizzle like we do our campfires? She returned to the river sand and dug her toes in even deeper. Her little dirty brown robe was getting wet at the fringes. But who cares? It was a carefree day. A day when all of her people had come to the beach to camp. They had quickly made little stick shelters and gotten broad palm leaves to make a roof. Everyone sat in the shade of his feeble little sun-protecter…except Noena. Noena was 10-years-old and tired of constantly carrying babies on her side…she wanted to be free and to feel the cool river water running over her feet.
She wandered farther and farther from the shelters and the chattering of The People. She wished she had brought her “pouarentsi” to smoke. All little Asheninca boys and girls smoked pipes. Her uncle had made hers and the stem came out of the side of the pipe, but it worked great and she always carried a bit of tobacco to put in the bowl and light with a twig from the fire. She wandered aimlessly until suddenly she realized she was right in the middle of a sea of watermelons. Dozens and dozens of watermelons. They were laying in the hot sun and some were rotting. More watermelons than The People could ever eat. Who had planted them all when the waters went down some months ago?
Noena ran in amongst the big elongated green and white striped fruit. She tripped over a vine and crashed down on a rind! Some people had just come walking through and smashed open a melon and ate the juicy red insides and threw away the rest. The little girl lay sprawled in the sand with the vine wrapped around her foot. And she was looking right at the most beautiful little watermelon she’d ever seen. A baby! Noena grabbed the melon baby and put it in her shoulder strap where she carried actual Asheninca babies. It fit perfectly. She patted the hard green head with affection. My baby. And so it was that Noena continued her wandering chattering constantly to sooth the feelings of her watermelon baby. Don’t cry little baby! Don’t suck your fingers! I’ll get you a pouarentsi to smoke!
Thus being completely consumed with motherhood and caring so tenderly for her little green melon baby…she did not see the boys coming! Boys will be boys. These boys, all in brown robes like little monks, came racing down the sandy beach and in one quick second they knocked Noena down and stole her baby! She screamed in terror! My baby! My baby! But the boys were laughing and tumbling and throwing her baby melon back and forth. Oh, what if her baby fell and smashed to pieces? She shouted and protested and ran after them…which was, after all, exactly what the boys had wanted her to do. These little “melonnappers” raced down to a shelter and before Noena could catch up they had put her melon baby in a whole stack of other watermelons. They all looked the same. The mischieveous boys raced on to other conquests, and Noena stared at the stack of melon babies. Which was hers? Oh, my baby! Oh, my baby! But the melon baby would not answer. It did not cry. It did not respond. Carefully she examined them all, but she had not left any scratch or mark on her baby. It was impossible to tell which was the baby. Poor Noena. Finally, she decided to just choose one…adopt it…and, yet, how could it ever be the same? Her little feet headed once again for the cool river sand.
Did you ever think that Indian children do not have toys? Or dolls. Or computer games. They have to invent their own toys and it seems God has given them great imaginations. Many little Asheninca children play with knives. Toddlers stumbling about carrying a sharp knife. Their parents don’t seem to think it is any danger at all. Missionaries about have heart failure! God has made all of us with wonderful imaginations. Have you ever thanked God for your imagination? That’s the wonderful ability to play games in your mind. You can imagine you are a princess! Or a great warrior going to battle. A stick can become a sword. A piece of board a rifle. And a watermelon a doll. Children the world over play. Have you ever thanked God for being able to play? He is a fun God and made us to have fun and play.