Bad news

Martin was a small bird, a house martin.  He had just arrived back in Africa from Europe.  He flew there every year with his family.  It had been a long journey back to his homeland and he was tired, hungry and very thirsty. He was also afraid.  Things he had seen and heard in the north worried him.

At the waterhole he met a friend from the big bird tribe, Mr Oxpecker.  Their homeland stretched from the huge edge of the plateau in the north to the volcanic mountains in the south, with a river rising in the centre of these mountains and flowing north through the streams and lush valleys towards the plateau before turning east to the sea.  It was a beautiful country of rich red earth, green shrubs and trees, yellow savannah scorched by the hot sun and clear waterholes around which the animal and bird tribes met. 

Most tribes lived in peace with each other and only feared man.  They lived together and watched out for those tribes that took their food by killing.  Even they took just what they needed to survive.  They did not pose a real threat to the other tribes – unlike man.

This story follows Martin's attempts to rouse the other animals and birds of his country to find peaceful ways of preventing man from destroying their homeland. Through democratic processes he tries to get them to elect a group of five representatives that will solve their problems.  However, some prefer to choose alternative ways to get results.  Find out whether they succeed, or if man changes their beautiful landscape, for better or worse.