Eco-friendly Birthday 🌲 🌳

Check out this beautiful African culture

Welcome to my blog friend. Before you take off reading this post, it’s important that you understand the purpose of this writeup.

I celebrated my birthday recently, some of my friends appreciated how the celebration went, while some friends couldn’t link the dots because of cultural differences; there was no cakes 🍰 🎂, now killing of animals like chicken, no drinking of wines and alcohol 🍺. In fact, no party was organized, rather the celebrant was found inside the forest just because of their culture.

What was the reason? Does it mean that Max doesn’t have little fund to sponsor his birthday; at least call some friends and host them on his birthday, what was he doing inside the bush on his birthday?

Just keep reading so that you may at the end judge the scenario and decide if I was right or wrong on my birthday celebration method.

So this post will enlighten you on why my birthday was celebrated in unusual way.

Birthday celebration starts the day a child is born. Such date is also preserved although the person’s lifetime as a memorial.

Depending on culture, beliefs, religion, etc. birthday is a well known celebration around the world; especially in developed and developing countries.

Igbo culture in respect to birthday

There are some cultures of my people that I uphold and respect much since I came of age to decide on what is right for me.

As a child, I used to visit some of my friend’s birthday celebration. Those celebrations used to be fun because we usually over feed ourselves with food, drinks and proteins.

But it wasn’t so in my family. My father in those days continued spoiling shows for me and my siblings; he was a killjoy. He never sponsored any of our birthdays 🎂 by organizing a party for us, buying of cakes. He never for once slaughtered any animal in those times.

But there’s one particular thing he does; he used to provide seedlings 🌱 or trees on each birthday for the celebrant ( his children). The tree or trees would be sown by the celebrant for a remembrance on his or her new age.

I asked my father the reasons behind not killing animals like others during our birthdays, and for not celebrating it like others do. Dad told me that it wasn’t so from the beginning; our people doesn’t kill animals nor celebrate birthdays like we see today.

When a child is born, my culture and tradition demands that after 8 days or after the external abdominal cord is falling out, the father of the child would plant a tree and bury the cord near the tree as a memorial to the child’s birth.

So shall the family continue to plant 🪴 trees on every of the child’s birthday until he or she comes to the age of reasoning and responsibility. Henceforth, the person may continue to plant memorial trees on his birthdays.

This transition has prompted eco preservation in west Africa for decades. When I came of age, I cherished this tradition that my forefathers has preserved which is eco friendly.

Instead of slaughtering animals on birthdays, winning and dining, we prefer to be somewhere planting economic trees and tending to others on birthdays.

On my day of celebration

My birthday is 2nd of October, and this past birthday was so amazing because it was so satisfying to me and to my family.

I have this farm land that i leased few years back, the contract has not ended. In this farm, I noticed that other farmers has been using this piece of land for plantation, and on it survived some plantain trees from those previous farmers.

Something sad about those plantain trees is that they never survived the severe hot and dry seasons, they doesn’t produce fruit. They dry up on each drought season and then brings up suckers during rainy season; but the suckers never produces until they’re cut up by drought again. This ugly life circle ⭕️ continued with those plantain trees

My Birthday, good opportunity to make the earth better

Birthday is a time to think on what to do for your loved ones, and on mine, I decided to buy my children’s favorite meal. But most importantly, I decided to save those plants inside the forest that doesn’t survive drought. Thanks to our tradition that demands planting trees on birthdays.

I went on to transplant them from those hot and lonely forests to my house garden so that I can take care of them. On my birthday, I went to a poultry farm; not to buy a chicken for slaughter, I rather went for chicken manure as you can see from the picture above.

I also went to the forest and carefully dugout the poor plants and conveyed them to my home garden.

I brought all of them home so that I can utilize my irrigation system to care for them during the upcoming dry season.

I called my friend @David_BCH who helped me to dig holes for those plants. I was supposed to pay him with Bitcoin Cash as we’ve agreed long time ago, but being my birthday, he decided to render help free of charge. But considering his effort and strength vested on those rocky holes, I also decided to enumerate him. But please don’t let him know about the enumeration yet 🤫

This soil type is too hard for roots to penetrate, therefore, I decided to support the ground with some chicken manure and some compost that I prepared.

With all the support and soil treatment that I’ve added, I hope that those plants will enjoy their stay with us.

For some of my friends that have known how I dislike wastage, I still maintains that. I try as much as possible to utilize everything around me for good. I do pack all the refuses together, then separate organic and non organic materials apart. I use plastics for molding other useful things through recycling.

I then allow other organic wastes to decompose and form manure for my gardening and farming activities.

In conclusion

My culture and tradition plays huge role on this article. Birthday in my land is not a time to kill animals and plants; it’s a time to save lives, and it’s a time to heal the earth by going green.

I’m at my late 30s, so imagine how many trees that my birthdays has made available on earth. Some of those trees are economic trees that produces fruits for the family and for the community. And some of the trees do outlive their planters; meaning that they’ll still be boasting economy for the living after their planters are far gone.

I want appreciate my family for love shown to me on my birthday. When I say ‘my family’ I mean both my biological family and you! Yes, you’re so dear to me, and we belong to one global family of the earth.

Next time around, I’ll surprise you with the performance of my house gardening. I lost everything last year to drought, but never would such happen again because of how Bitcoin Cash and it’s community has helped me to secure an irrigation system that can sustain my garden and my community during dry seasons.

Thanks for reading, and remain awesome.