PROVERBS, IDIOMS AND SAYINGS

I find proverbs, idioms and sayings good, fascinating and interesting. They always make me ponder. In Africa knowledge wasn’t usually transmitted in written form, we had stories, proverbs, idioms and sayings. The young would learn them while sitting round a fire in the evening, a way they entertained themselves and an opportunity the old and the young had to interact as well. Do we remember/ or ever heard the saying, ‘you harvest what you plant’, If you plant good, you reap good, evil you get evil, love you get love. I want to believe this is how the cycle of life is. For instance, what do we understand by, loving ones neighbor as yourself, or its negative version don’t do to others what you would not like them to do to you? When love is allowed to flourish, violence or discrimination will be unheard of, peace and harmony reigns. It’s bliss, right?

Our environment works in a similar way, you give it love and it gives love in return. I can;t help think when we last took time to think of the tree outside our homes/ neighborhoods or that leafy fence, or the grass outside our houses. When did we last take time to think of its benefits to us? Have we lost connection with nature?  Or maybe forgotten that our survival is entirely dependent on its flora and fauna, air and water? We are fed, slaked and supported by nature but we hardly put this into thought during our day to day hustles. Capitalism dates back in 16^th century England in what was known as agrarian capitalism that later developed to mercantilism through the 17^th and 18^th century, then to today’s capitalism, where public and political interests have become more individualistic rather than a collectivist (community) concern. It generally thrives on profits gotten from nature's raw materials inform of what we call goods and services (such as wood, iron, natural gases, the oil industry e.t.c). Its individualistic nature has fashioned a need to accumulate more profit creating an environment of competitors amassing significant quantities of raw materials for profit. This has resulted to over mining, over fishing, deforestation, increase in carbon emissions, negative technological advancements- such as cancerous pesticides and so on. A tendency to save for more profit also develops, leading to cuts in production costs through cheap packaging in the name of plastics resulting to environmental ruins such as the Great Pacific garbage (a heap gyre trash- pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris) in the central North Pacific Ocean, that is the size of Texas State, USA 

Data from the World Bank indicates that carbon emission rose from 34.65 million kt in 2011 to 3.863 billion kt in 2014 in urban areas, that’s 11, 000 times more since 2011. Climate change is real and its not just hitting western nations and Asia. There is change in temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, and more frequent weather-related disasters in Sub- Saharan Africa and other developing regions. In Ada foah, Ghana, communities are losing land due to increases in sea levels, creating unemployment and poverty as there livelihoods are literally going under water. The elderly, are the most affected, since they don't have the strength to migrate to other regions to seek a livelihood. It has created urban migrants of climate change and not just unemployment like we know. Forty percent of West Africa’s population leaves in coastal cities and are threatened by sea level rise. Daadab refugee camp in Kenya on the other hand hosts a tent city of climate change refugees (caused by droughts in Somalia) and not just war or persecution. Between 2010- 2012, it was estimated that 260, 000 Somalis died of famine.

Lake Turkana region in Kenya, a region with one of the most fertile soils in the country, used to experience Long rains in the months of March, April and August and short rains in the month of December. Today the area receives light showers only once in two years. In 1973 the lake extended to as far as Ethiopia but has shrank tremendously into Kenya since 2010. The world's largest permanent desert and alkaline lake is shrinking due to long spells of drought (the blockage of the Omo river by the Ethiopian government through its Hydro- dam constructions is also a contributor), leaving communities dwelling around the lake who heavily depend on it and it's the aquatic life without a livelihood. This has caused tensions between the Turkana community of Northern Kenya and the Ethiopian Merilles community. Lets remember that tens of millions of Africans rely on the threatened fishing industry for their livelihoods.

 Nature doesn’t increase or loose the speed it takes to heal and rejuvenate like we human beings do, nature has patience. We are cutting our trees, killing wildlife and exhausting our resources so fast in the name of global economic growth that grew at only 3.8 percent in 2014 and yet we have a soaring global poverty index, with more than a third of the world’s population living in poverty. The human race isn’t the only specie on this planet, we have a cycle of life and we all know about it. Climate change is causing war, immigration, poverty, disease and death.  We need to start taking care of our environment or we will extinct ourselves just like we are doing to our nature and animals. Time for action is now, let us not wait for the political class, civil society or any other group to bring this change, Start community initiatives towards a better earth or support like initiatives such as the Kikapu campaign by the Myndz community, Wangari Mathaai once said that is very important for young people not to be afraid of engaging in areas that are not common to the youth. We need to get involved in local activities, in local initiatives, in leadership positions for we can’t learn unless we are involved. And if we make mistakes it’s fine, we all make mistakes and we learn from those mistakes. We gain confidence from learning, failing and rising again. The changes we are experiencing from nature today, are human made disaster and not natural disasters. Across Africa climate change intensifies resulting to farming and drought, poverty and increasing conflicts. It's real. The Turkana of Kenya have an idiom that goes like, ‘it will never end like a lake’ (Ans. L. Turkana). Is this idiom losing its meaning?

“The environment and the economy are really both two sides of the same coin. You cannot sustain the economy if you don’t take care of the environment because we know that the resources that we use whether it is oil, energy, land … all of these are the basis in which development happens. And development is what we say generates a good economy and puts money in our pockets. If we cannot sustain the environment, we can’t not sustain ourselves.”

Wangari Mathaai.

The Kikapu Campaign: https://kikapucampaign.wordpress.com/