Childhood Memories

I remember my childhood with nostalgia, I wish those days were here again but I can distinctly remember my wishing as a child to hurry up grow and become an adult. How did I start wishing I was a child again? On Sunday I was sitting with friends and all of a sudden the topic of conversation turned to how the children of nowadays are missing out on so many important things.

One friend complained about how every year she was harassed by her children's class teachers just before Christmas to buy decorations for their classrooms. She says she has repeatedly refused to do so despite her child's pleas insisting that the fun in Xmas is to allow the children make their own baubles. Of course we all began to reminisce about the hand made decorations we used to make the chains of rings we would have all so carefully coloured, the awards for the best decorated classroom. Even if we used store bought decorations it was just an add on to those we had so carefully created. I even remember that we were taught to make crayons using dyes, wax and the stalks of the paw paw plant.

The cries about the loss of skill in making paper crafts was next. How many of you remember the hats, aeroplanes, boats and of course sports cars which were traded with the utmost care? How many of you who remember these crafts are still able to reproduce them for your children or nieces and nephews (not the aeroplane o that one is simple).

Another point raised was the loss of our native folklore,the absence of older persons in the home who would after a hard days work under a full moon or less (with NEPA at work as usual) especially during the holidays when there was no hurry to be up the next morning gather all the children from near by homes and spin magical tales about wonderful forests the tortoise and his antics, warriors who did marvellous things to win the hand of the fairest maiden in the land, the singing and morals at the end of the story. I still remember my mums many tales about the cunning tortoise and how we would each try to weave our own tales as only children can do never being able to match the sweetness of my mums story telling. Nowadays dvds, African magic and the ubiquitous satellite dish and TV box have taken over an aspect of our culture.

How many of you remember the May days outings, the inter school debates, quizzes? The studying for common entrance, the daily mental sums, the Samco (orange or chocolate drinks) served during break times. Only the other day I was watching a maths show on National TV for children in primary 4 to 6, and I was appalled at the mistakes they made. They missed questions that for their ages should have been a piece of cake, they didn't know what a third of a dozen was! I cant remember all the questions but I remember that those silly mistakes if they were made during the mental sums sessions would have earned you plenty strokes of the cane!

I still remember my father threatening to send us to a public school near the house if we did not pass common entrance in flying colours, he would repeatedly tell us that he would send us to xyz grammar school as he has no intention of going to the ministry of education to beg anyone to take us into the federal government colleges if we did not make the cut off marks. Thankfully we passed the cut off marks. These days many children do not even write the exams after all their fathers know everyone there is to know. I remember one of my cousins who had passed brilliantly (way above the cut off mark) and did not have admission anywhere but one of his friends who had scored woefully already had his uniforms sewn for school. That was after our time sha! (tings don de spoilthen).

It was interesting being a child you would come back from school at 2 or 4 depending on if you had after school lessons which was only for primaries 4 to 6(now its Basic 4 to 6!). Nowadays even toddlers are kept in school till 4pm or 6pm on the pretext that they are going to school! After lunch we were supposed to have a siesta which we sometimes observed by pretending we were fast asleep, after that out went our homework books which were assiduously inspected by an older person. Woe betide you if you left your homework in school or lied that you did not have any.

Then at 5pm or was it 6pm, one of the only tv stations came on air. It was either NTA2 channel5 or NTA channel 10 and then your choice of programmes was – We'll tell you a story, Voltron- defender of the universe, Speed racer, Tom and Jerry or some other children's programme which would take us to 7pm when you were expected to be in bed. Programmes like the Jefferson's or Different Strokes or Behind the Clouds which started at 8pm where for the parents, of course we made a few unsuccessful attempts to sneak into the sitting room and watch it. You could only watch it your parents decided to be kind for one Night though the exception was Village Headmaster and Second Chance a la Madam Kofo.

These days children have a pick of gazillions of channels to watch without any parental supervision, TV has taken the place of the parents in many homes, a TV is the first thing turned on during the day and the last thing turned off at night. It has become a baby sitter, child minder, pacifier, you name it!



There are millions of childhood memories some before my being conscious of events but which have been repeated so many times they have been included in my personal stock. One I remember clearly and I smile when I do and can only hope I have changed, Ill relate it- Someone had bought meat pies for everyone in the house and because there was not enough to go round it was divided into pieces that were thought to be equal.

At home there was a tradition that the person who served got to pick the last piece and we were also taught to pick the piece in front of you. Well I got the job of sharer and I decided that I wont be left with the smallest piece, so as a very clever child I decided to turn the plate away so that the person picking would pick the piece in front of him/her which would not be the 'largest piece' to my greed trained eye. Of course there were complaints but I promptly told the whiner to pick the piece in front of him and turned smartly away to serve the next person.

I had thought I was successful and had almost started quietly jubilating when all the adults present pounced on me: 'Haba! Tomi how can you be so greedy, that was a very greedy thing to do, you thought you were being clever abi? etc. etc. by the time they were through with me tears and mucus were running down my face and into my nose, the piece of meat pie I had acquired with so much cunning no longer looked appealing any longer. Of course I refused to eat it but my people who were trying to curb my greed insisted I eat it and I can tell you that it was the worst tasting meat pie I have ever eaten, that is not to say that meat pie is no longer a favourite snack of mine but I can assure you that greed is not one of my vices any longer. A radical cure for a greedy child don't you think!

I have many more memories but I think I have shared enough for today. Sorry I haven't written anything about my work but all I can say is that I have not been able to spur myself on in that regard. On a final note I wish you all a pleasant week of going down memory lane especially right back to when we were kids!