African exams
In Ba Nana, in the centre of Africa, there’s a small open-air school, (dwg 1) they use an elephant ear as a blackboard, and bananas stuck in iron wire as an abacus. Exams were supposed to take place that morning. The teacher hadn’t arrived yet, and, while they were waiting, the kids spread into the surrounding forest, some climbing palm trees, some swinging on lianas, others playing football with coconuts. (dwg 2a) In the meantime, an ostrich slowly got close to the teacher’s table, and devoured paper by paper (dwg 3), the books with the exam topics; the only one to survive the mess was the grammar book, because not even the ostrich could possibly digest it. Imagine the teacher’s fury when he saw the large bird with that crop, looking like it had eaten a globe! (dwg 4) On the other hand the students were all happy (dwg 5) because they hoped that this way the exams would be cancelled; but their joy only lasted a short moment, because the teacher, getting on the table, announced: -The exams will still take place. If the bad bird took away our books, we are only left with the book of Nature. The kids, hearing about this grand book, looked at each other, astonished: -Another book- they thought –now that school’s over! I urge you – the teacher continued – to be careful with the questions, to answer to the point, and to leave the lizards and butterflies alone. In that moment, a hippopotamus and a crocodile emerged from a river by the school; at their sight a frightened giraffe escaped. (dwg 6) What are – asked the teacher – the sizes of the bodies? The height of the giraffe, the width of the hippo, and the length of the crocodile. (dwg 7) Good job! Now answer this other question: -How many candies would it take to fill the hippo’s mouth? Nobody knew the answer, but at a certain point Patatis got up and said: in order to fill the hippo’s mouth (c), we need 715364 candies. How did you do that? I multiplied the hippo’s circumference (A) to the length of its tail (B), and I got the number of candies. If somebody doesn’t believe it, get the proof. (dwg 7a) After a while, a lion came by. The teacher asked: -do you know how poets call it? The kids all together: -forests’ blonde emperor. (dwg 8) Boasted by these words, the lion roared proudly, making all the forest tremble. (dwg 9) A large coconut fell on the teacher’s head from the top of a palm tree. (dwg 10) There was a general laugh. The teacher got angry, took the coconut, and threatened to flunk everyone. The kids ran away through the hedge surrounding the school, everybody made it by; even the animals, but with all the books it had in its crop, the ostrich didn’t make it by. (dwg 11)
