GOING GREEN CLAN

GOING GREEN CLAN.

I am Okoro. I am here to bring you my world and my existence. My Dad is Nkwu- the palm tree. You may not be familiar with palms, but you can ask those your earthly friends in Africa-Nigeria. My Mum once told me, I was about being weaned, when Dad took her to this foreign planet. Now, we are citizens. Fully-son-of-the-soil. Dad died when I was just twelve. Mum said “He turned into a palm tree”. She pointed towards a Palm tree gallantly standing at the centre of our compound; next to our green hut. As a boy of seventeen, I do recall, she cried on one stormy day, by the tree. Then afterwards, praised it. “That is Him”. She said, caressing the tree. While I watched in amazement. Dad a tree? How could this be? I had been working-walking in the moonlight, speaking in shadows. Thinking about the honey comb-eyes. I believed when morning comes, I would understand what Mum is really saying.

         That palm tree-Nkwu-my Dad is our chief source of economic strength. A shelter and surely a support. Mum makes oil from Dad, while I tap palm wine. She cooks with it; cracks the kernels, sell the hard-back. Processes the oil extracted from the kernels, which we market, and as well, use it for our ointment. Our livestock eats the fronds-leaves. I had imagined the really unimaginable. Dad keeping us satisfied. My Dad turned into a palm tree-Nkwu. “But Dad, we should be together, keeping each other satisfied”. The palm like a listening Giraffe, bent; its hands beating in the empty waves. I could remember hearing the silent whispers, but I never really understood. By seventeen, I had asked Mum, “Nothing from Dad ever goes to waste, why? The palm tree gives us wine, oil, kernels. We make fibres and use them as fuels. Its fronds we use in making our brooms”. “Dad is kind, but…”My back received Mum’s gentle tap. “Son, watch my back.” Are turning into a palm Mum?” “No, but this is our life. Living is to give. We are nature and nature is WE. If we leave nature, we surely gonna shrink. We have to be nature, to sustain nature”. I just sat, mouth gasped open watching her. Like a gullible congregation at the mercy of their pastor’s sermon.

         “All the compounds here have different trees. While one could be Iroko, another could be Mango, another Kola and its friend, African-star apple tree. Numerous” mum roared with eyes carelessly bulging from its sockets. O heavens help me, here I go again. Here I go like a fool listening to unknown lectures. I am really falling from this precipice. Like a fool, I am falling again. “Dad, I never took you for granted. How would I live if you didn’t love me?” I involuntarily released some drops from my pupils. Really, I had never saw Mum sick, not even from a slight headache. For me, I never believed sickness exist. No. not here; that must be some folk-lore told from that your complicated earth. Well, am not much good in writing or explaining this. But am not gonna give up. So tell all those innocent lads in your earth, I have a place for them. If you see them, shake their little hands and offer them my invitations of a new world. I hope they come soonest.

         “Long time ago, the now green land was bare, futile and uninhabitable. There were stories of earth quakes, great floods, tsunamis and other natural disasters. Ravaging the land, destroying our crops. Our people cried for help; and they got it. So a day came, Mother Nature swept through the land, destroying every unnatural occupants. The land was thrown into panic. We saw her stood like Everest, her hairs swept through the skies. The elders begged and asked for pardon. Merciful and gracious, SHE got much pity and forgave them. A covenant was made and she became the greatest extoled god. The elders offered themselves as trees. Those trees stood on every compound in the community. Trapping harmful gases and providing shade and fresh air over the land. Our people learnt from our troubles. As Mum would always say, “First fooled is not fool, but second fooled is just a proper fool.

         We have three clans in this community. The Mmiri-clan are custodians of the water. Saddled with the task of making sure, our waters are never contaminated, we only fish when they recommend, except on occasions for high demand of fishes. The seas, the rivers, streams, lakes and ponds are worshiped. On the third day of every seventh month of the year, sacrifices are offered, and we renew the covenant- never to fish indiscriminately on the waters; to catch fishes deemed proper. Never to contaminate sea, or rivers. When we sail the seas, in our little boats, we are pretty sure of safety. And when we fish, we know what to fish, when to fish and we get them as needed. Our waters are healing fluids.

         My own clan, the Nkwu-clan. The forests are our highest pearl. We have the sole responsibility of serving the trees. You dare not cut a tree except under supervision. Those living-standing trunks are our fathers; our gods and our future. Our economic strength; our gold. Here, we have no other responsibility but tending our fathers. Every morning, I in the company of my kin, and other worshippers, comb the forest of palms to greet our fathers. Care for them before returning home. I am pretty sure I do not need telling you the importance of our fathers here. Mother Nature had once warned that if our fathers here seize to exist, we shall inhale some strange-poisonous gases from your earth and die off. Not only that, Mother Nature threatened releasing an imprisoned ball of fire on us, to scorch and burn us out. I Okoro, cannot risk that. As my Mum would always say, when a bird learns how to fly without perching, the hunter learns to aim without missing.

         ANU-clan shoulders the responsibility of serving and caring for animals. Making sure, their perpetual existence here is guaranteed. Most of us here are religiously vegetarians. Some do eat meat. No hunting here. They constantly serve the animals. Each morning, water is poured in Calabashes and littered in our forests and bushes. From this, they salvage their thirst.

         A great rock sits at our village square. Here we worship the greatest god-ANI- god of the Mother Land. As our ancestors would always say, “ANI made the trees; both the fishes and the animals evolved from it. The elders of the three clans assembles here, on the ninth month of each year. This is a month of harvest, to offer praises and beg for our continuity. Mum told me “The great goddess laid the stone here as an altar. When out people first made covenant with her. ANI-god of the mother land is a glowing- smooth rock. Extremely large, we do see this pearl from every nook of our community. From here, all the laws for the protection of our clans are enacted. We never force any into obedience, but when you break the law, the consequences comes naturally. ANI rock is believed to be the boundary between us and other worlds. No one from our planet has ever been there. To live here, you must live like we do. Visitors are not only rare, they seldom visit. For there are conditions here, before one is granted asylum. Since I was a child, I had never set my eyes on any. In fact, here is exclusively for us. Our community is one of stability. A stability that comes from a foundation of knowing that we all have a part to play; that we all have our jobs to do, if we are to inspire success. Here, we are never unstable like that nations ruled by an ever-changing rosters of monarchs who never pay heed to their source and sustenance. Those who are hostile to helpless animals; and brutal to the environment that feeds them. Like dogs biting their very tails. For sooner than expected, nature may strike with its whip of retribution.

         Our ancestors made a rule-a way of life. In an alphabetical order. Thus, we must follow suit. If we desire to live a more rewarding and comfortable life. We call these rules ‘GOING GREEN PACT’. It was inscribed indelibly on a large scroll spread over the balcony of ANI-god of the mother land. By adopting going green lifestyle, we are able to avoid wastage of natural resources, and wanton degradation of her elements. I recommend them to your earth.

A=Avoid wastage.

B=Bring for recycling

C=Care through donating.

D=Desist from pollution

E=Environmental care inherent in you.

F=Fuel/fossil free.

G=Gift nature green

H=Have a role to play in saving the community.

I=Initiate programme and schemes to serve the community.

J=Join to salvage the challenge.

K=Kill unfavorable lifestyle, affecting the community.

L=Love green habits.

M=Manage to avoid wastage.

N=New strategies to curb our land woes.

O=Off to help out.

P=Plant a tree.

Q=Quit deforestation.

R=Ready to serve your environment.

S=Stop excessive smoking/smokes

T=Tell about green habits to friends and all.

U=Undertaking for recovery.

V=Very good to donate.

W=Win the challenges for Mother Nature.

X=X-factor to making our environment more habitable.

Y=Yearn to help out.

Z=Zealous for the earth’s welfare.

         We only need to keep religiously to these rules. And whenever we get visitors here, we send them as green ambassadors. For we also care about your earth.

         While Mum stood beside Dad, as that of groom and bride, the sweet environment and powerful economic growth never had a down-turn. I am Okoro, the palm-Nkwu. When I turn a hundred and fifty years. I will  eventually leave my son a palm. I can’t wait, singing and waving to the Mother Nature, in company of Dad and Mum and other compatriots to the directives of the choir master-the wind. My offspring is living, a life you are now craving to have in your world. And if you really desire it, come to our going green community. Or, preferably learn to build yours over there.