Aya and Luca plant a forest in the desert 🌴

Aya and Luca found a handful of tree seeds in a jar in their kitchen.

“What should we do with them?” asked Luca.

Aya looked at the cracked earth outside stretching to the horizon.

“Let’s plant them!”

They dug little holes and buried the seeds.

An old man passing by chuckled.

“You children are funny.”

“Why?” asked Aya.

“There hasn’t been enough rain for years. Those seeds will never grow.”

The children simply kept planting.

Then came a woman carrying a heavy water pot from a distant well.

She stopped to watch.

“There used to be a forest here,” she said sadly. “Now it’s hopeless.”

Other children gathered to watch. Soon one knelt beside Aya and planted a seed. Then another.

Before long, they were searching their houses and the village marketplace for more seeds.

The next day, Aya, Luca and their friends returned with buckets of water.

The old man was sitting beneath the only remaining tree.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to water the seeds?”

“Of course!” replied Aya. “Who else will?”

The old man laughed and shook his head.

But the following morning, he arrived carrying his own bucket.

The woman came the day after that.

Years later, villagers spoke proudly of how they had restored the forest.

The soil held water again, birds returned and the stream that had run dry flowed once more.

No one remembered who planted the first seed.