This story is about a young woman who turned into a Dugong. She and her mother lived in Kerdeu in Ngerielb, a hamlet in Koror and they were very poor; way back then in Palau it was very taboo for an unmarried woman to become pregnant or have a child out of wedlock but somehow the young woman fell pregnant. Her mother was so sad upon learning about her daughter's pregnancy because they were already very poor as it is, and so she reminded her daughter that she had to take very good care of her health and pregnancy because there would be no one to take care of them or help them if they ever got sick. So the young woman obeyed her mother's advice and had a healthy pregnancy and delivery; she gave birth to a baby girl. After she gave birth her mother warned her not to eat "keam" (Tahitian Chestnut) because it was not good for a woman who had just given birth as it causes bloating but "keam" was one of her favorites. Still, she obeyed her mother's advice until one day when her mother went out to the taro patches to get taro for their family and her daughter just could not contain her cravings anymore and so she figured that she would just eat one and her mother won't know about it. She took a "keam" and she cut it in half and as she started to eat it she was startled by her mother, and upon seeing her mother she immediately put her down he daughter and just walked out of the house leaving both her mother and her daughter. The mother then picked up the baby and started to follow her daughter trying to call her name and trying to get her to stop and go back home but the daughter just kept on going not stopping, and when she reached the dock she jumped straight into the water. Her mother stood at the dock cradling the baby and saying to her daughter, "My daughter, you never listened to what I said, and now you're leaving. Do you not have pity on us?" When the daughter surfaced she had turned into a Dugong and so the mother said her final words to her, " You won't listen to what I say and now you're leaving so now you will be bought for a dollar which will be a marriage payment to a wife's family." Way back then Palauans used to hunt Dugongs not only because they were good food but because their vertebrae were used to be made into a bracelet for the children of the royal family. So when you hunt a Dugong and talk about killing them in their face they would cry and shed tears and so Palauan back they believed that Dugongs were human once that is why they feel emotions and shed tears.

The moral of the story is that we should always listen to our parents because they know what they're talking about, they have been in our shoes at some point in their lives. They remind and teach us because they care about us and they love us so they don't want us to get hurt or get in trouble. Most of the time when we want something so much we are blinded by our wants and desires that we don't realize that we could hurt ourselves as well as others.