When you are only eight years old, it is a hard task to
endlessly gather papyrus rushes and collect thick, heavy mud from the banks of the Nile
River everyday before dawn. Memhop would rather be playing with friends and having
adventures, and as he looks across the great slow flowing green river, and makes an
innocent wish for an adventure. Memhop wishes that he will never again have to carry the
heavily laden baskets back and forth in the hot sun, and he can at least have one
adventure that he will remember for the rest of his life. Memhop does not realize he has
an eavesdropper in the shape of a huge, sharp toothed crocodile that is hiding in the tall
reeds listening to every word he is saying. It is too late for Memhop when the crocodile
approaches him, asking Memhop to keep a promise to him, and he will see to it that his
wish comes true. But it is not a promise that Memhop can keep. For he is asked to sneak
into the precious water gardens of the Pharoah and take the magic Blue Lotus Bud that
grows before the eyes of the jealous guards, bringing it back to the crocodile by noon the
next day, and if he doesn't keep his promise, Memhop and his family will be eaten for
lunch by the crocodile.
COMMENTARY:
Honor, commitment, the keeping of one's word and the
reality that all that is wished for is not necessarily what is really wanted, nor what
people seem to be, they really are!
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