A Story of Water Shortage

15/4/2016

There was a terrible crisis in the animal community. The animals noticed that the clouds were starting to disappear, and the rivers were running dry. Every community reacted to the water shortage in a different way..

The tapirs lay listless at the bottom of the river complaining. “Oh, the world is ending!” they would cry, burying their long snouts in the river bed, feeling depressed and utterly helpless.

The monkeys, however, seized the opportunity while they still had water. With a #YOLO attitude, they used as much water as they could, splashing in the rivers, using whatever water left to have as much fun as possible.

The hornbills were the complete opposite. Obsessed with where their water would come from in the future, they used their huge beaks to scoop water from the nearby rivers, storing each beak-ful in nearby tree trunks.

The water rats always thought that water came from dams. They started working overtime, without even looking up, building ever taller and ever wider dams that would store as much water as possible.

And finally, there were the elephants that had all the water they could ever want. They spent their days reclining and misting themselves in cool water. For they had spent generations building water wheels, extracted water from rare minerals, and even seeded clouds to make it rain. A shortage of water was definitely not their problem.

What do you think each animal can do to help with the water shortage? Read part 2 to find out!

– Above is a story from the Moolahsophy programme where children engage in forum theatre to learn about what they can do about real community problems they may face.

4 Comments

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alam

6/11/2016 04:45:11 pm

If I were a hornbill I would fly up to the elephants’ lair and store water in the tree trunks there. As the elephants would depend on my efforts for better leaves, I’d be welcome there.

if I were a tapir I’d sell the tears of my fellow tapirs to the elephants for desalination.

if I were a monkey I’d trade daily banana runs for the elephants expertise in developing a closed-circuit water amusement park for my family. I’d then charge admission to non-family members and use the proceeds to open a school for the community.

if I were a water-rat, I’d simply end the tyranny. I’d convince my friends to use all their resources into diverting the mountain streams away from the elephants to our own habitats. Then sell rights to the elephants to retrofit our dams with hydroelectric generators to pump some of the water back up to the mountain.

Michael Ovadia

6/11/2016 04:46:04 pm

We have to humble ourselves at the feet of the mighty elephants and learn their wisdom. For they need the other animals too!

YC Ng

6/11/2016 04:46:21 pm

I think all these animals live within us. When facing crisis, which animal we allow to emerge is entirely up to us. The question is, how we should go about training to be like elephant ahead of crisis in future.

jason link

6/11/2016 04:46:52 pm

hurr. I’ll start with the movers and shakers, the elephants. I’ll get the elephants to do their thang la haha.

If they were not so generous to do it for “Free” for the sake of the animal kingdom.. then I’ll probably go talk to the ones with more sense – the hornbills. I’ll tell them why be passive and just store water, and convince them to play an active role and go “Create” water instead, because the water they store up will dry up one day too. If they ask me how, I will tell them all they need to do is to collect fruits like bananas, strawberries as quickly as they can, and whats more, instead of having to collect the water, I can have the water to “come to them” ( via rain! ) 😉

I’ll then go engage the YOLO monkeys. I’ll play on their adventurous/carefree nature and give them a fun exciting challenge to collect fruits and see who can collect the most. Their reward? the winners will have access to play in their own PRIVATE POOL ( the dams ! ) 😉 who would’nt want that right heh heh.

I’ll poke the tapirs and tell them there is hope, all they have to do is to go do the same as the hornbills and monkeys and leave the rest to me.

As you have probably caught on, the fruits is the reward for the elephants la, to seed more rain so everyone will get to enjoy it. Of course, the water rats have been building the dams anyway so i dont need to disturb them. Just let them do their thing. Maybe let them enjoy abit of fruits the rest picked up haha.

everyone is happier!