Alhassan and Fati.
Alhassan: Is food nearly ready. I have a hard day in the field and I am hungry.
Fati: Food will be late. I only started a short while ago.
Alhassan: What! What have you been doing. Have you been sick?
Fati: No. We needed more wood and it took me a long time. It took me all day.
Alhassan: All day! How much wood did you get. Enough for a month?
Fati: No. Enough for three days.
Alhassan: Three days! Ah, Fati. You are getting old and slow. I remember when we were first married you could get a month of wood in half a day, and now you are telling me you took all day for three days wood. Poor old Fati.
Fati: I am not that old! I still move fast. But we have to go a long way for the wood now. When we were married the wood was here, near the village, but now it is way over there.
Alhassan: Wood cannot move. God did not make the trees with legs. Are you saying they are running away from us.
Fati: Of course not. But the trees that were near the village are gone, dead.
Alhassan: But I see trees. Look, there is one, there is another.
Fati: Yes but you know as well as I do that those are for fruit. Look, if I took wood from that Shea Butter tree the chief would tell us all off. Show me one that is near that I can take wood from.
Alhassan: There is one.
Fati: Yes but that is one! I must collect a bundle to cook your dinner, I cannot do that from one!
Alhassan: Huh. I still think it is old age that makes you slow. Trees do not move.
Fati: Look, when you were a child, what was this village like.
Alhassan: Ahhh. We had fun as children. There were bushes over there that we used to hide in. If our Father was going to beat us we would run to those bushes. But now there is Alhassans hut and beyond that there is Alhaj’s. Hmm, now that I think about it, there were more trees when I was young. And when we got married. And now they are over there.
Fati: Yes, And we are walking further and further every year to get the wood. And it takes more time. By the time our daughter Fati junior is our age she will have to go two days to get the wood.
Alhassan: No. her husband will not let her go that far. It is too dangerous.
Fati: Then the men will have to collect the wood.
Alhassan: Hah. That day will never come. God will never let the trees disappear.
Fati: But I have heard the radio say that all trees are part of Gods creation, and that we should care for the trees.
Alhassan: Yes. And you, Fati are the one cutting the trees, so you should be the one caring for them.
Fati: But, I am cutting them to cook your dinner.
Alhassan: hah, that is no excuse. If you do not take care you will soon be cutting the sacred groves. You must take more care cutting.
Fati: But how can I get wood and yet take care of the trees? That is impossible isn’t it.
Alhassan: I am not sure. We will ask the chief or the extension agent.
Fati + Alhassan: How can we look after the trees and get wood for our fire at the same time?