Koffi Mbairamadji

We are all related. We have things in common. Live in peace with each other. We are all related. You get a lot of morals with stories. I advise you to read stories. We mostly use animals in Africa in our stories. Our ancestors use animals to tell stories. You can easily keep those stories in mind. Once you see animals in the stories you recall the moral lessons when you see them. Now you can keep the book and read it. You can remember the animals and it’s the easiest way to recall the stories. All the stories are traditional and expanded on them.

Koffi Mbairamadji

My name is Koffi Mbairamadji. Boys are called Koffi if you are born on Friday. Mbairamadji means God. The two names are mine. In our tribe we don’t have our parents’ name. They give you two names. None are from my father. We don’t have parents’ names like you here.

I was born in Chad, in the southern part of Chad. It is in the heart of Africa and divided in two parts. The southern part of Chad is Savannah. It is kind of a light forest with grasses, with lions and tigers. A lot of animals you see on TV.

I was born in Moundou, a small town. We have a lot of industries there, in the southern part of the country. It is unique over there. There is a lot of malaria there. We have two lakes by the city and one river. The river goes all the way to Lake Chad and that is where I was born. We have a forest by the town, so when you are a kid you can go there to eat and hunt birds.

The high school was a junior high school. Then I went to a commercial technical senior high school. When I graduated I moved to the capitol city in N'Djamena. I started my life by myself. I attended the college and commercial engineering. I learned theology, so in 1990 I was working as a librarian and bookseller in my church, through the Mennonite Church, working in Chad. They send young people to the United States [from] Africa on an exchange program.

I was sent to the States in 1991. They sent me to Colorado Springs, Colorado. In Colorado I used to work with children at the church. I’d tell African stories. When I went back to Africa I decided to write storybooks and send back to my friends in Colorado Springs. That is the genesis of this book, African Savannah Stories.

In the cities like Moundou, they are Christian. The northern part of the country, in the north, are people of Islam. There is another Islam from that area. It is hard to live with them. They want you to be like them and practice their Islam. We live in peace with everyone.

There are over 200 languages in Chad. I speak Ngambay. It is difficult to speak other languages from other tribes. They speak Ngambay and speak three or four languages. Most everybody speaks Ngambay.

The house I grew up in is like any house. Most of the houses are built with brick and iron on the roof and most everyone live there. It is a big family and we find a place to live for everybody who needs a place to stay. In my city and town it is hard to find homeless people. You share with everybody. No fancy things like heat or utilities to make a house. It’s hard to understand that somewhere there is homeless people who sleep on the street. In Chad it is hard to understand that. Sometimes you build two or three or four empty rooms so someone can come and stay.