Long ago there was drought everywhere. The birds were lucky because they could find food in the clouds.
A tortoise was very hungry as it came out of the water looking for food.
The tortoise went to its friend the eagle. "Can you please give me some food?" The tortoise asked the eagle.
The eagle said, "I do not have food here. But I can find some in the clouds where all the birds are gathering together for a huge party. come along with us, up there.
However the tortoise was sad on hearing that. "You birds have wings to fly. I do not have any. How do I get to the clouds?"
The eagle thought that for sometime and then went to the other birds. He talked to the other birds and asked each one of them to give a feather to the tortoise. The tortoise could build all the feathers together into a wing and fly like a bird.
Soon the tortoise had lovely wings made of all the feathers from the different birds.
The birds looked at the tortoise. "Now what should we call him?"
The tortoise smiled at the birds. "I have feathers from all of you so I will be called Kulu, which means all of you."
The birds happily agreed to it and the tortoise learned to fly with his new wings.
Soon the tortoise went to the clouds along with the birds.
That was a lavish party set up there and every single food was available there.
The tortoise looked at all of it and realized that he had done right in coming here. The people who were about to serve lunch took out the first dish.
"Whom is all this food for?" The tortoise slyly asked the people who were to serve the food.
"This is for Kulu," the people replied by which they meant that the food was for all of them.
The tortoise shrugged. "I am Kulu so I will eat all of it."
By the time the other birds had come to eat their food they found that the tortoise had eaten all of it. They were shocked by this. Sometime later they were angry too.
They decided that they had enough of the tortoise and they all asked the tortoise for their feathers back. Each one of the birds went to the tortoise and asked for their feather back.
The tortoise gave back all the feathers to every single bird and soon he was left with none.
After eating to his heart's content, the tortoise laid down in the clouds to sleep.
When he woke up he found that none of the birds were there.
He was frightened and did not know how to get back home because had no wings to fly back.
Finally the parrot decided to help the tortoise.
The tortoise wanted his wife who was on earth to keep all soft things outside their house so that when the tortoise jumped from the clouds he would learn on the soft things and would not hurt himself.
The parrot went to Earth and reversed the message. The parrot told the tortoise's wife to keep all the hard things outside the house so that the tortoise could jump.
The tortoise's wife did as she was asked.
The tortoise then jumped from the clouds and when he landed on all the hard things outside his shell was broken into bits.
Unhappily the tortoise took all the broken pieces of a shell so that he could put it together as a whole.
That is the reason the shell of the tortoise is uneven and looks like it has been stitched together even today.
Adapted from African folk tales
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