But that's MY Tree!!!

I would like to say that the workers did their job and are not to be blamed.

Recently, tree pruning has been going on in my street. I came down at about half past 4 (if I remember correctly) to see a large mango tree, almost as big as a two story house, being cut by workers. My three younger siblings and I found it fascinating to watch a worker use a chain saw, place it on a branch, and watch the branch fall, where other workers were waiting to take it away.

Soon, as I had to go out, I went to take a bath. As I came out, fully dressed, I met my older sister who was running up the stairs, yelling, asking if I had allowed the workers to cut our tree. I had not.

Our golden fruit tree was perhaps four sizes smaller but large in width; it didn't reach the first story of our house. I ran down in hopes of stopping the workers from cutting any more of our tree.

I found a flower standing outside my house. I felt anger seeing so much gone that I turned to the first worker I saw and demanded why he cut it. However, he pointed us to a Chinese man handling the bucket (where a worker stands inside and is lifted to reach the trees). We went to him, demanding again to know what was going on and asking for his name. He gave it to us and explained that it was their job to do it, and that we had to tell him if we didn't want our tree cut. But we answered that we didn't know he was going to cut our tree. He said that he saw us looking at him cutting the mango tree, but we answered that the mango tree was a lot bigger than ours and that he should have told us that he was going to cut our tree. This went round and round, his arguments and ours. He had also said that the patch just outside every household in our street was the governments, and not ours. I felt angry at this.

Soon, we left them alone for a while, and we took pictures of the truck, the license plate number, and tried to catch the Chinese man's face. We went back inside to talk about what to do. We went back to them and asked who was in charge of the whole project and asked for the man in charge. He didn't want to give it. Only until my sister told him that if he didn't tell us, the only person we could blame was him, did he give us the name and number. And the same argument of us seeing him cut the other trees down came up again and we told him again that he should have asked us first. He then said that e couldn't possibly expect him to ask every single one in the street owning a tree if he could prune it. And we answered yes, they jolly well should. And he said that he couldn't because it would take time. At this, I got angry and told my sister in a loud voice; “This is the GOVERNMENT we're talking about ok, the GOVERNMENT.” The Chinese man got the point. My sister calmly told the Chinese man, and me, that it wasn't his fault, it was the people in charge.

Is this the Government? They people who say they're good? They come and cut our tree?! There's an old saying; 'To see a man's character, you must see how he treats the people below him.'
Our tree is not a man, but 'since it is on the government's land, it's theirs'?!

So, we took this information to our father who came down to talk to the same man. The Chinese man told my dad the same thing he told us, and also said that our tree was blocking the road. I know FOR A FACT that it wasn't because a while back a neighbor cut that part off without our consent, not even telling us that they wanted to do it. My dad told him this, and also pointed to him, lower down our street, that there were trees, same hight as ours, blocking the road! But he answered that the owners of those plants told him not to cut it. And, like us, my dad told him that he should communicate with us about cutting down our tree. My dad walked off to call the person the Chinese man gave us, and I stayed there and said he had to look at it from our point of view; 'because it's the government's, they can cut it down, which means that if the government wanted to cut down our house, they could?' That, was referring to en block.

In the end, they left, and the person my dad called came down, but he was worse than the Chinese man. He didn't want to have anything to do with it, and left, despite the fact that it was his job.. My dad told me to take a picture of his plate, which I did standing in front of his car as he was about to drive off.

Is this the Government?

They talk about saving our trees, yet they cut ours down without our consent.

Teresa Ess