BRENHOMA

There once lived a happy family in the small village of Brenhoma, The Mr Okon's family. Mr Okon had a wife and six children. As said earlier, the family was a happy one. The reason for their constant happiness could be traced to their selfless love for each other and the fact that they believed in nature and worshipped her with all their lives.

Mr Okon was a farmer who worked intensively on his farm with the aid of his wife and children. He had lived all his life on the farm. Though he wasn't an illiterate, he had a formal education, he decided to stay committed to his farm because he believed that the land needed to be worked on if the community was to survive. It was impossible to find Mr Okon in his house in the early hours of the day. He was always in his farm doing one thing or the other.

The whole village of Brenhoma worshipped mother nature and it was seen in their yearly festival, the yam festival. In this festival, the priestesses go round the village sprinkling the ritual yam and uttering these words "The year has come round, great Mother nature. Never can we thank you for your deeds and blessings for us. Tano Kofi and all the seventy seven gods of Brenhoma. Come now and eat from your hands and bless your people. Let all who are ill get well. Let all who are barren bear children. Let all who are impotent find remedy. Don't let them go blind or paralysed. We all beseech happiness. Let us have it".

This was always the doings at the great Odwira festival. This year's own came and by that time, Mr Okon's last son was just six years old and he was standing beside his mother to behold all these procedures that come during the festival.

When they got home, he asked his mother why they had to sacrifice yams to the gods and why the people listen so passionately to the prayers being said and why they all shouted "May it be so to us" at the end of the prayers. Before I answer you, let me tell you briefly about mother nature:

Everything we see around us, right from the moment we step outside our home is part of nature. The trees, animals, landscape, flowers, trees, breeze, sunlight, everything that makes our surroundings so beautiful and mesmerizing are part of nature. Nature does not arise spontaneously but needs years and years to bloom and blossom.

According to researchers, nature we see today has developed in 4.5 billion years. Initially, the earth was not sustainable for any kind of living thing. The atmosphere had no to very little oxygen, and the same was the case with water. The land made of molten magma and the atmosphere was toxic to survive. Slowly, the earth cooled down, and life started blooming on it. It began to rain, and nature, as we see today, was formed. This nature then gifted the earth with living creatures like animals, birds, and finally, humans.

It is the Mother Nature who never harms us but always nurtures us. By providing us fruits and vegetables, it nurtures our body. By providing us water hydrates our body, and by providing oxygen, it cleanses our body. It is usually seen that people who live close to nature, especially the villagers live a somewhat happy life as compared to the people living amidst the high hovering skyscrapers. Nature provides our ears sweet sound of birds, rejuvenates us with fresh air, breeze fills our soul with joy, and inspires to flow like the river. Nature provides the raw material for economic development as well.

Unfortunately, humans today are polluting nature in such a way that the healing pace has fallen slowly. The use of plastic, emission of CO2, production of industrial waste, increased use of chemicals, deforestation, poaching, and oil spillage in water bodies are serious concerns today. These are not only polluting nature and are also degrading the quality of the environment needed for the survival of not only animals and birds but also humans.

Nature has inspired not only poets and writers but also the common man. All the great poets and writers like William Wordsworth have always given the nature a significant space in their writings and musings. Nature has the power to take us to the place of peace and imagination to free the emotions that been locked inside us. If those emotions and feelings get freed, then there is immense power in them to bring on the changes that are unexpected. Many people are currently working and getting linked with the nature conservation organizations to preserve and enhance the nature and beauty around us.

By taking small steps like planting trees, using biodegradable materials, stopping water pollution, animal conversation, and keeping our surroundings clean, we can help Mother Nature to breathe again and rejuvenate in the same way it helps us.

Wow! Jimmy, Okon's youngest son said in awe as her mom told him about mother nature. "I can now see why the people of Brenhoma talk about it so much and even decide to worship her" he added.

If not for anything else, the people of Brenhoma were known for one thing, the worship of mother nature. It was as their main religion because no church nor mosque was built in the village. They lived happily because there was no religious differences to cause anyone to think that he or she is different from the other people.

Jimmy was so excited to learn about mother nature and even promised himself that he will tell others about the mother nature and the need to sustain it and protect it against all odds.

After the festival, the whole village went back to their different huts jubilating and discussing about how eye-catching was the event. A lot of families spend the whole week staying at home with their family members. They saw it as an opportunity to share love and enjoy with their loved ones. Mr Okon was not an exception. He spent the while week of the Odwira festival with his wife and children. Every morning, after they have breakfast, he would sit everyone around the table and tell them some farytale stories and the history of their land. The stories were best enjoyed by Jimmy because he had an undying passion for mother nature after his mom had told him about her. 

Finally, the one week of holiday and merry making was over and everywhere in the village, people were seen working tiredlessly on their farms. They believed that if the next Odwira festival was to be celebrated with abundance, they needed to work hard, not hard but extremely hard. That year, the rain cane earlier than expected and for them, that was a sign of an abundant harvest. They worked extremely hard to make sure that they planted as much seed as they could.

Six years later, Jimmy was in college. The school was outside their village and he saw that as a great opportunity to tell his friends about mother nature and the need to sustain it. He had always dreamt about this.

So one day during break time, he gathered some of his friends. He started by asking them whether any of them had heard about mother nature before. He was so shocked to learn that none of them knew about it. Ok let me tell you about it

"Nature refers to the interaction between the physical world and the life within it like animals, birds, trees, plants, and humans. It also includes non-living things like landscape, water, and others.

Mother Nature has always nourished us. It is our duty to keep our surroundings clean and plant trees, use biodegradable materials, stop water pollution, and animal conversation to help the Mother Nature to breathe again and rejuvenate in the same way it helps us.

Many government and non-government organizations are working worldwide as well as within different countries to preserve and conserve nature. For Example, Conserve, Environmentalist Foundation of India, Vindhyan Ecology and Natural History Foundation, Earth System Governance Project (ESGP), Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), etc"

"That's how far we can go today" he said as he concluded. I will tell you people more a about mother nature as time goes on.

THE END