I have mail!

I dont know where my love for letters came from, but I do remember writing letters to my parents when we were at our grandparents for the summer holidays. Granny would gather us all together and ensure we wrote our parents detailing our experiences at Ilesa. Of course only the highlights got in (none of our misdemeanours were mentioned like the time we went swimming in grandads fishpond and we got caught:), we generally related activities that would make them think we were on our best behaviour, im sure they knew we were naughty sometimes but we were not going to write that down.

Our letters got sent with the bread vans that where going to deliver bread to Lagos. My grandfather had a bakery and he had a distribution system that extended right into Lagos, so the delivery men took with them our letters and brought back small parcels from Lagos. That is my first recollection of any postal system.

My next adventures with letter writing came when I was in secondary school, my twin and I were away from each other for the first time in our lives and also away from home too. My mum had us stocked to the hilt with stamps, envelopes and writing pads. Those were the days when there was no email so we made good with the postal system. Letters were delivered twice a week and when you had a letter you received it after supper in the schools dining hall. I remember the wait for letters from my twin, grandmother, cousins and parents with eager expectation and the barely suppressed delight when you had not one but two or more letters. I received a letter from my twin almost all the time so her letter was a constant letter and the others were lovely additions.

I would read the letters in bits savouring the words as if they were delicious bites of cake to gnaw at slowly lest they dissappeared without one having appreciated the morsels. Even after reading them I would reread them again and again until I got the next batch. And when for some unexplainable reason there was a drought of letters they were my sustenance for some time. Letters relieved the homesick feelings I had, they made me escape from the world of harsh seniors and cold meals for a while (that did not last more than 5minutes). It was interesting to read from home and all those who wrote me had a way of pulling you into the letters and make you believe you were standing right besides them when they wrote the letters.

After my first year in university there was a strike and I spent almost all my time writing letters to friends I had made in the first year. If you write letters you received letters, so my father became a mailman of sorts bringing home my numerous letters. I still have those letters and they helped me relieve the burden of those stay at home months. Only a few weeks ago one of my friends said she still went over one of such letters I wrote during my time at home. Im sure some of the people I wrote to would have been amazed to receive a letter from me, but it was a hobby I liked and one I put to good use!

What made me write about this. I live in a town where letters are delivered to your doorsteps and even though I know I dont have mail ( who would write me? and anyway there is email now) I still look eagerly through the stash of letters hoping against all hope that just one of those letters is for me. Even when I get bills, I excitedly open it just because I have the opportunity to read something addressed to me. I have written and posted letters and also made friends with the mailman at the local post office. Its a strange one this fascination of mine with mail but Ill still keep looking forward to the days when I have mail!