How often do we value and use the gifts nature has bestowed on us?
How often do we go searching for what can be found in our yards?
How often do we seek outside, what is already within us?
Quite often if you ask me. Quite often we seek satisfaction from outside, we cherish what comes from outside. We forget that which is within, and by us. We take its’ closeness for granted.
If only we knew.
There’s this short coconut tree by my abode beautifully blessed with abundant fruits almost all seasons.
Back in Cape Coast Ghana, 2015 where i volunteered for the Salesians during my Masters degree internship. Fr. Piotr took us all on a day field trip to Kakum, Elmina Castle, Brena beach and Hans croc cottage. The beach was were we all bought lunch. Unknown to them I had about 5 Cedis left not enough to buy any meal, and I told them I wasn’t hungry. I lied.
I wasn’t hungry that afternoon, I was famished. Then I saw a boy wheeling a cart filled with coconuts. I asked how much, he said 1.5Cedis. I negotiated to buy 4 for 5Cedis, he agreed.
I had watched movies where Jackie Chan and other actors had used coconut water as drip water for wounded friends. Crazy right, i thought, if they can use it for drip, certainly i can drink it too.
So I told myself that day, this should sustain me for lunch till we got back to the community house at night. It did sustain me.
So imagine my excitement coming back home in 2016 to discover i was equally blessed with the young green coconut fruits just by my residence. Alas, it had been there all the while, i mean for 16 years, and i did not know it contained such goodness.
Prior to now, for one reason or the other, I always forget the blessings of coconut water by my abode. Also because I don’t know how to cut off the top to reveal a tiny hole I can insert a straw in. So I made a deal with our farm keeper.
Every day, he did cut down 4 coconuts for me. Two for me and two for my daughter 😍
Got a similar experience we can learn from? Please share 😀
Food for thought: There is a Yoruba proverb that says “Ohun ti o n wa ni sokoto, o wa ni apo sokoto e” meaning “what you are looking for in Sokoto (an extremely far north-west state in Nigeria), can be found in your sokoto (trouser).
Lifehack shares some benefits of coconut water here.
MJ Speaks 