Why Mosquitoes Buzz

Have you ever wondered why mosquitoes buzz? You may be familiar with the award-winning children's book based on a West African folk tale called "Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears". (Or you may not be... no matter.) Grades 1, 2, and 3 were up to put on a play this year. Julie and I perused the books in the school office and found a musical written for children. Its title? "Why Mosquitoes Buzz"

The story is cute and short: a mosquito came to an iguana and told a largely exaggerated story about a farmer growing yams almost as big as the mosquito. The iguana, annoyed, put sticks in his ear and stomped off, grumbling. He passed by a python who thought he was planning mischief, so the python goes into a rabbit hole to hide. The rabbit is scared off and races out, startles a crow who sounds an alarm, frightening a monkey who carelessly leaps through trees and accidently breaks a branch, killing a baby owl. The mother owl is heartbroken and does not wake up the sun. A large council of animals convenes a trial, step-by-step discovering the chain of events leading back to the mosquito.

Face painting was huge! Children who
didn't get their faces painted were a
little sad...

Gr 1 boy, sporting his insect

Gr 2 boy, showing off his
bird face painting

This play is just narration and song - something Julie and I saw as a big bonus. We didn't want all the chaos and confusion that seem to come with big programs. There were 9 "characters" so each grade had 3 children pantomime the story during the narration. Gr 3 and 2 each had a class song, and the other 3 songs were sung by all the children. We purchased a CD that had tracks with children's voices to help us learn the songs as well as performance tracks with just the accompaniment. The teacher's book even had suggestions for actions for each song. Julie choreographed a dance for girls belonging to the dance class offered on Saturdays to our students.

The play went very well, though not without its, ah, bumps. 3 school moms were amazingly wonderful in making and setting up the decorations. One tricky part of getting the church ready to be a jungle was finding some way to hang a backdrop we borrowed from a dance center. A school dad came in and put it up for us. Costumes were interesting to figure out. We asked students to wear jeans, and plain t-shirt (different classes had different colors), and a mask (different animals per class). 3rd graders were elephants, 2nd graders were birds, and 1st graders were insects. As an alternative to making/purchasing a mask, we contacted someone to come and do face-painting. Over 40 children signed up! Two ladies began painting just before 3 and didn't finish until 5:15. The play was supposed to start at 5... It was a small blessing that the face painting went long because one of the main characters didn't show until 5:17. All of the kids looked really cool. Some had simple  masks, others went all out! Another hitch we ran into was our narrator. I had asked Kenny Phoenix, a youth from church, to narrate. He is habitually late to most things, so I knew I was taking a risk. Unfortunately, his phone went on the fritz this week, so I had no contact with him until it was too late. So guess who got to be the narrator? You have one guess...

A few birds and insects, milling about after the play

The teachers who put the play together - Julie Boggs,
Veronica Abraham, Nicole Rosenbaum