WHERE DID MY CHILDHOOD GO!

I had the time of my life in the block rosary while growing up, at first I was skeptical going to a place where kids hung out, praying and honouring Mary and learning all there was to learn about the Catholic Church. After a while, it became not only routine but fun and I will always treasure the memories I had in block rosary because that is where I figured myself out. I wanted to be holy, just like in all the stories I had heard about how Mary was holy. I wanted to pray and have enough belief to think that every time I prayed for sick people God was working wonders in their life because I was the one praying for them. I believed that my purity of heart and depthless faith in God had to count for something. I took pride in my knowledge of the bible and the church and I was always eager to hear Fr. Badejo preach during children mass on Sunday.  We did not mind staying out late till 9pm before we got home from block rosary because it was worth it. We were innocent, with great faith and there was nothing that could take away our dreams!

I stopped going to block rosary sometime in Junior Secondary School and I stopped praying and believing, gradually I became a realist and the only thing that kept me going sometimes was my dreams.

Life was easy then; we had no problems or thoughts of tomorrow, we only worried about the size of the eba when we got home from school for lunch, the type of sandals, water bottle and school bags we were going to get for the new term, how many five naira notes we could swindle from our uncles and neighbours, how late we could stay out playing before my mum would spank our butts. Food was the least of my concern because it was always available, money was not an issue because all I needed was N10 for Ghana buns during school break and N5 for banana chewing gum and N1 sweet, we had coke on Sunday and friend plaintian on Saturday, akpu for lunch during the weekdays and on some hated days we had eba, bread for breakfast almost all the time and whatever was available served as dinner. My dad made sure we had the best experiences for Christmas and Easter. Trips to water-park, amusement park, Mr.Biggs etc. and when school resumed we all bragged about all the gifts we got and the things we did during the holiday.

I had dreams, dreams like a mountain; I wanted to do something that would give me the chance to be as pure as Mary. I wanted to play football, but when I had to choose between that and education I picked education, I wanted to travel and see the world, meet new people, explore food that has been unheard of, dance the Masai dance and do the things I figured I would love. I hated music, I dint get the point of a bunch of men with school boy hair styles singing love songs to a non-existent woman. I always said to myself…chima why listen to these British bands when you can be watching a Jackie Chan movie! I loved outdoors, that’s where you could always find me after I had done my home work and had my compulsory siesta of the day. If I wasn’t playing soccer I was playing table tennis, or running around or watching the boys play snooker or arm wrestling. I was always with the boys, I didn’t know how to do girl stuff, like build sand castles, play pretend house, ten-ten and other things girls loved to do. I was always a mess at the end of the day, my mother insisted I wear skirts and they were always ripped and dirty at the end of the each day. I have to say I admire my mum’s tenacity in ensuring that I wore skirts and gown until the end of secondary school.

Christmas was the most magical periods of my life. I got new shoes, new dresses, new sunshades, new N10 notes, a bottle of coke to myself, a big plate of rice and chicken with salad plus a trip to my favourite eateries on boxing day. It didn’t get any better than that! The man who sold records at the beginning of the streets would play Boney M songs all day long, the DJ would organize Father Christmas trips with gifts for each person and my mother was especially lenient during Christmas. Those were the days of adventure and love. Batman was my favourite comic hero. I guess I loved him because he was a man who possessed great powers that were manifested better when he put on his red jump suit. I loved that he was young and took all the right decisions to protect his identity, his aged uncle and aunt and his cute girlfriend. Superman was too good looking with his styled hair and a single lock falling out of place for me to take him serious, all my friends were always trying to imitate him for reason unknown to me. I particularly remember one time when the Landlord’s last son Abayomi tried to do a daring superman move by ‘flying’ from the top of the balcony of the building straight to the ground, miraculously he did not die but he lost a few teeth, got a huge gash in his head, and his face was badly injured during the fall. We laughed at his foolishness for weeks and parents told kids his misfortune as the butt of their jokes. I guess that helped to convince him that superman only existed on TV. After that day none of us tried to be stupid, the highest we ever tried to jump from was a 10 step stair case.

My mum always tried to feed us new food we saw on TV. Sometimes it was a good experiment and sometimes it was horrible. One time she tried to make us cornflakes and she let it soak in hot water to the extent that it was so soggy I threw up right in the valley of my stomach, the rest of the food went to the landlord’s pig house. A good experiment would be when she tried to imitate the Christmas indomie meal that was shown in the Christmas indomie advert, it was such a huge success that all of us went to bed with unsatisfied stomachs that night!

I loved the pig house that my landlord kept. Those animals are the filthiest things I have ever seen in my life. Most of my eba and unfinished food went to them. We loved watching them eat the most rotten food that no living creature could swallow and when we were in a foul mood we poured hot water on them just to hear them scream in a grunt like manner.

I was a smooth fantastic liar; I could literally lie my way out of any situation without blinking. I was so scared of the cane my mum kept for each of us that even if I knew she was going to get me each time, I couldn’t resist lying. We were fearless, we believed that nothing could happen to us, we played soccer with bare feet and bruised knees and jumped fences with scraped assess. It was fun! Life was a round globe with no sharp edges.

I look back now and I realize that my parents went the extra mile to make sure that we had as much of a sheltered life as was possible. All of the things she told us to keep us away from men we later discovered were a fallacy. The innocence I had then is almost gone, my faith in God is not so strong, my black and white view of the world has been tainted with reality and I have problems now. I have to think of a job, my family, marriage, food, accommodation, make up, beauty, etc. Things that I didn’t give a thought to before now occupy my mind. It took me five years to learn how not to worry so much about the future and to live in the present, it took me two years to rebuild my faith in God and every day I learn how to have more hope for the future and cede control of my life to God.

I remember how we used to listen to TLC’s hit track scrubs on our way back from school and use it as our anthem to give no attention to boys because I didn’t think of them as sexual beings but as fungus who laid waste to my path. But that has changed because unconsciously I seek praise of men, I try to impress them and I love to have them as friends. The things I didn’t do as a child I do now, the places I couldn’t enter as a kid I lie in now and the thoughts I gave no space to I breathe in today. I have been forced to grow up faster than my peers and the sights that my eyes have seen I do not wish upon anyone. I do not regret the things I have been unable to achieve because for the first time in a long time trepidation, regret, fear and hopelessness has been replaced with faith, love, contentment, hope and an abounding peace that everything in my life is at it should be.

Sometimes I wish I could have my child hood back, I wish my mother would wrap me in the cocoon warmth of her arms when I am having a bad dream as she lets me sleep with her and my dad, I wish that she could rub soothing oils on my body when I have a fever, pray with me when am restless and watch over me like a mother hawk. I miss not having to think about the future, I miss waiting for channels TV to open cartoons at 4pm, I miss 50 kobo sprint chewing gum and N1 candy, I miss N5 Ghana buns and Mrs Okoro’s N10 rice, I miss it so bad sometimes that I cry for the greatest childhood I could have been blessed with, But that is life I guess. Change must happen; good or bad it is a constant. Decisions must be taken whether we want to or not. No matter how far I go or how great I become the memories of my childhood, all the things I saw and did to bring me to this spot where I am at 23 years of age….. I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER.