"The Earth is our Mother. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth. This we know. We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves."
These are the famous words reportedly spoken by Chief Seattle and it has to be one of my favourite quotes about our duty as the inhabitants of the Earth, as human beings, to preserve and take care of what we have before it is already gone.
Pachamama, our beloved Rusinga school environmental organisation has done immense work towards the conservation of our planet; running plant-a-tree campaigns, featuring on national radio stations, educating our school and family members about the urgency with which we need to act, and of course we cannot forget the time and effort we put into our little tree nursery...
Unfortunately over time, Pachamama has evaporated, and no lie, our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations along with it...
Today the world is in a worse state than I personally could ever have imagined. A friend of mine once asked me..."there is so much bad stuff in the world...what big difference could we make? We're just a group of teenagers in Africa." At the time...those words struck home and honestly they drained the Earth juice from my veins for a really long time...What was the point? No one was listening to hundreds of experienced scientists from all over the world...what on earth made us think anyone would ever listen to us...??
Then after reading DO HARD THINGS by Alex Harris and Bret Harris (or at least part of it), I realised that if the end comes, and the world is blown up to shreds...it's far better to say..."You know what, at least I tried to do something about it". And if, by some miracle we do manage to save the planet...I'd be glad to be one of the heroes and heroines whom the future generations remember...=)
Enough about me and my boring epiphanies...the point is...it's not about me anymore...it's not about my family or my group of friends...it's much much MUCH MUCH BIGGER than that...
Like it or not, it's our generation that will have to deal with the floods and storms and famine and tornadoes and hurricanes and diseases and poverty and so much more...It's our generation that will have to tell our kids..."There used to be elephants and rhinos and dolphins and whales..."
I think it's time we begin to take responsibility for our actions...there is huge mess that needs to be cleaned up, and WE are the only ones who can do it...
It's not going to be easy...far from that...but you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have...
