Photo by wadaa alaumry on Pexels
By Pius Onyebujor
Once upon a time, my village was green.
My grandma said her mother lived in the village in the Hulla Plain in those days. The whole village was filled with trees and bushes so thick it was pleasant to go for a walk in the afternoon. There were different animals, and there used to be a long river that ran through the village.
Today we pick shells from what used to be the bottom of this great ‘river’.
I remember when I first saw the sky break open and water pour out in what I was told was rain.
I shared a tent with my parents and two sisters. We burned charcoal in the middle to warm up from the cold night.
I thought of the many wells in my village as grandma’s voice filled through the tent. Most people got their water from there, but the wells were getting drier every passing month and it has been months since the last rain.
Grandmother’s stories also made me mad. How could this have happened? How could such a green place turn into this brown waste? I wish I could reach into her memory and bring back some of that beautiful greenery and life so that everyone doesn’t need to wonder where they would get water from.
Grandmother said we got too greedy and lusted after everything. “We burnt the skies and blackened the water. We took something beautiful and made it sad to look at.”
I wish we could have been more caring, and more thoughtful in our approach to Mother Earth.
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At Shades of Us, we stand for Climate Action and believe everyone is responsible for taking care of the planet that provides us with the sustenance we need.
