Green Tidings
About 18 years ago, two years before my father passed on. He bought garden equipments and invited me to work with him in the family backyard garden. He wanted me to work in the garden almost everyday. The duties differed daily. And I hated each day in that garden.
We grew tomatoes, potatoes, onions and spinach. On the side there was a good line up of mango,, peach, guava and popo trees. He also had a mini sugar cane line up which I had to make sure that dead chaff is removed all the time and mixed with soil to make compost. If you have been near a fresh sugar cane plantation, you will know that the touch of those fresh leaves can send you on scratching spree all night, even after a good bath. Man, I hated to trim those trees and watering them. I had to Cary a bucket to water each tree, more than 20 trees each time. That meant I had to Cary a 20L bucket 20 times. When that is done and I’m ready to go and play, I had to water the vegetables, and then sometimes harvest a bit from them.
I remember the other day he came back from fishing very early and sent me to the garden to get him ripe tomatoes and onions. If he sent me there, I knew that I will have to chop them for him, and then go water the rest of the garden. My lil bro was young then, that meant most of the time I had to deal with the garden and mini Orchard.
All this time I though this man hated me. I though he did not want me to be a child and enjoy childhood games. Even though he allowed me to go play with other teens, play soccer, make cars from some tense wires and hangers, I still felt he was not cool to let me do that. All my friends did not have a veritable garden in their back yards. If they had trees, their elder brothers were responsible for that. So I sometimes felt like my dad wanted to make farmer out of me. I don’t know how it would have turned out.
18 years later, today to be precise, I went on my back yard and harvested fresh spinach from my own garden. Soon I will harvest green paper, Onions and Lettuce. Ok. Did he succeed in making me a farmer? Maybe not, or maybe yeah. And damn, it feels good writing this post! Has he not physically taught me how to grow spinach, I’d not understand the lessons he was trying to teach me.
Now I look back and I see things other kids did not have. They had rich fathers, but they did not have the attention and time I got from my dad. Looking back, he is my hero.
There were times I did not understand why I had to keep watering a plant if I’m not gonna eat it. The took time. And we did not have any form of fertilizers except for dead leaves from the trees around the yard. I remember checking on the potatoes every week to see if they are loading up well underground. It felt like they took a century to grow. I did not have the patience for this.
The other day he called me from the kitchen, “Given!”, he shouted.
“Pap”, I responded.
“Tana la”(come here).
I ran to the kitchen where he was busy washing some fresh tomatoes and spring onions.
“Tana ni mazambala la xirhapeni” (bring some potatoes from the garden), he said.
I ran to the garden, plugged out two potato plants. My eyes dealt dropped. “Papa, I ma kulu ngopfu. Mi lava ma ngani?”.. I was so exited to see them big potatoes that I had grown by myself.
I did not get a response. So I went on and dug them potatoes, washed them and handed to him. He said to and play. I was so exited that day.
LESSONS WHICH MY FATHER TOUGHT ME WITHOUT WORDS
1. You don’t have to understand the entire process, be ready to learn from any experience
2. Do what you don’t want now or for a while so that you can do what you want for life.
3. Be patient, good things come to those who wait.
4. Have a good understanding of time. Building good success does not happen overnight. If you gonna build wealth, be ready to watch it grow. But you have to put the work by yourself.
5. Don’t allow your products to get dry, they will die. If you want to maintain growth, keep learning, associate with the right people, keep developing yourself or you will dry out and be irrelevant.
6. Don’t allow your lack of understanding of the process delude you from the goal.
7. Don’t allow chaff to pile up. Weed always suck and choke the life out of good plants. The people around you make you or kill you. Be careful whom you allow in your life. Some things look good to allow to grow together with you, but they are dangerous to your destiny.
