STORY INTo#2 – “MAMA KOKO AND THE TALKING CLAY POT”.—
MAMA KOKO AND THE TALKING CLAY POT
In the quiet village of Ogbese, where the mornings smelled of palm oil and woodsmoke, everyone knew Mama Koko.
She was small like a calabash, round like a full moon, and warm like fresh akara. Her laughter rolled across the village square like a drumbeat — deep, proud, unforgettable.Most of all, she was known for her clay pots.People swore her pots never leaked. Hunters carried them on long journeys; market women trusted them with their pepper soups; children used them for play and came back with not even a crack.Mama Koko always said the secret was simple:
> “Clay listens if you listen first.”
But on one harmattan morning, as she sat beneath the old mango tree shaping a fresh pot, something strange happened.
The clay whispered.
Soft. Breathless. Like a child trying not to wake an elder.
“Make me a pot with ears, Mama Koko,” the voice said.
“I want to hear the world.”
Mama Koko froze. A lizard scampered across her toe, but she didn’t move.
She touched the clay again.
And the clay whispered again.
Mama Koko looked around — nobody. No trickster children. No mischievous spirits she could see.
“Ah!” she hissed. “Who is talking in my hands?”The clay pulsed warmly.
“It is I. The one who sleeps under the river. I am tired of silence. Give me ears.”
Mama Koko was a brave woman, but even brave women shake when a lump of river mud speaks to them.
Still, she nodded slowly. She was a potter. Potters obey clay.
So she shaped the pot with long, curved handles that looked exactly like ears.
She polished it, sang to it, fired it in her kiln, and when it emerged…
The pot trembled.
It listened.
Every sound in the village — footsteps, gossip, goat bleats, laughter — the pot drank them in as if they were palm wine.
Mama Koko didn’t know trouble had begun.
—
THE POT THAT HEARD TOO MUCH
At first, the pot was harmless.
It giggled whenever children ran past. It hummed with the sound of pestles pounding yam. It shivered when drums played in the evening.
But one night, while Mama Koko slept, the pot listened to a quarrel between two brothers next door — a quarrel full of secrets, accusations, and shame.
The next morning, as Mama Koko fetched water, the pot spoke loudly:
“Kehinde said he hid the broken stool and blamed Taiwo!”
The whole compound froze.
The brothers stared at each other, stunned.
Their mother dropped her broom.
Mama Koko gasped. “Ah! Keep quiet! Clay child with long ears — must you say everything you hear?”
But the pot wasn’t done.
It whispered to a group of women:
“Mama Funmi, last night you said Mama Risi’s soup tastes like wet socks.”
Chaos.
Arguments.
Denials.
Embarrassment everywhere.
Mama Koko realized something terrible:
A pot that listens is good.
A pot that repeats is dangerous.—
THE JOURNEY TO THE RIVER
Desperate to stop the pot from exposing the whole village, Mama Koko carried it to the river at dawn.
“Clay child,” she said gently, “why are you doing this?”
The pot glowed faintly.
“I was born in silence. Buried in mud. Ignored for ages. Now that I can hear, I want the world to hear too.”
Mama Koko shook her head.
“Not everything we hear must be spoken. Wisdom is knowing which words are safe.”
The pot trembled. “Teach me.”
So Mama Koko did the only thing she knew: she dipped her hand in river water, rubbed the pot’s ears, and whispered a blessing taught by potters long ago — a blessing to give clay discernment.
When the wind blew, the pot went still.
It listened again — but this time, it stayed quiet.
It held the sounds gently, like secrets kept in a grandmother’s chest.
Mama Koko smiled. “Good. Now you are a pot not just with ears, but with sense.”
—
And So…
The pot returned to Ogbese with Mama Koko and became the village’s most trusted companion.
It heard everything — rain coming, babies crying, hearts breaking — but it only spoke when its words healed.
And to this day, the elders say:
> “A tongue is easy to make.
But a tongue with wisdom — ah, that one is harder than clay.”
—
If you want, I can also:
✨ Turn this into a children’s picture book script
✨ Rewrite it shorter for Instagram or Facebook
✨ Create part 2 — “The Pot That Learned to Sing”
✨ Write another folktale in a different style
- Just tell me!
