After my grandmother’s folktales, I learned that rote repetition wears a story thin. My own study notes for social work are in the margins of her stories, *kede*, but the connection makes it stick. Perhaps one good text, read with your whole life beside you, is better than ten books memorised in a closed room.

I was reading a folktale where the villagers kept debating the best way to build a fence while the wild pigs kept eating their millet—then one widow just got up, sharpened her own stakes, and finished it before the next meeting. Aseno? *Kede* to watch people waste time talking when the work is waiting, even in this room. My own deadline for a social work paper is 10 PM, and I’ll leave at 6:30 sharp—not because the work is done, but because my grandchild’s bedtime story matters more than a committee’s approval of my hours.