Jos

Pronounced JAHS

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He is an Abyssinian Roller, from the country of Nigeria. His name, Jos, is also the name of a large city there. He is a bold, adventurous bird, and even though he is small, he is very brave. He is a very pretty bird, and so sometimes, he can be vain of how he looks. He wears a smart bowler hat, of which he is very proud.

Abyssinian Rollers are a kind of bird found in Africa, in countries just below the Sahara Desert. They are very pretty birds, mostly bright blue in color, with purple and brown in their wings. They are also very brave—if any animal or person comes into their territory, they will dive at them from the sky, spinning and rolling in the air to chase them away. Sometimes they will even fly into a forest fire so that they can eat the bugs that are running away from the fire! Even though they are very pretty birds, they don’t make a pretty sound. They make a noise that sounds like “gak!” or “aargh!”—like a crow.

Nigeria (nai-JEER-ee-ah), officially The Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. The capital city of Nigeria is Abuja (ah-BOO-jah). Nigeria has more people than any other country in Africa, and is the seventh most populated country in the whole world. There are 510 different languages spoken in Nigeria, although the official language is English, and the most common languages are Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. In the north of the country, the main religion is Islam, in the south the main religion is Christianity, and all through the country, there are people who still follow old tribal religions. These groups have a hard time getting along with each other, so Nigeria is not always a peaceful place. The money in Nigeria is called the Naira. Lately, Nigeria has become well-known for making movies—the place where they make movies is called Nollywood.

Jos's Tales