Qocaa fi Mudannooshee is another book from the Tshehai Loves Learning series. I have looked more recently and the website still does not support purchasing which is unfortunate as they are nice afaan Oromoo books.
This is a story about how Turtle got it’s shell. In this world all the forest animals would gather for a monthly party. Turtle hid in her hole and slept through her party. While she was sleeping for so long her shell grew. He friends didn’t like that she had hid from them but soon after a flood came and all the animals took refuge in her cave. She used the shell to block water from entering the hole and everyone was cool after that.
The vocabulary used here wasn’t particularly surprising. The only thing that jumped out at me was the use of –is as a way of connecting ideas between sentences. More than one starts with qocaanis which is kind of like saying “and also the Turtle” but at the start of the sentence. You also see this with questions where people ask “and also you?” with atis? Also when you answer a question with the same answer you could say anis to mean “and also me.”
Overall a good book that makes me miss the relative ease that these could be bought five years ago in Ethiopia compared to the more difficult time when you are living out of country. There are other children’s book that are easier to purchase online in foreign countries but not quite the variety as this entire series once had. I hope that the company, which still has an operating website, can make these titles like Qocaa fi Mudannooshee available in the future for other learners of afaan Oromoo as a foreign language as well as for children in other parts of the world.