In the back of the fridge: a place we hid our wet clothes to get dry as kids #3255
If you grew up with a fridge that hummed like a generator at the back, you already understand this story.
Our mother had one rule that we all feared and the rule was that if you wear wet uniform to school, I will beat you.
So you can imagine what happened when it rained.
During the rainy season, it rained every evening and I would come back from playing football in that rain like a confused duck. My uniform was soaked. My socks were brown with mud. My single school uniform is wet
And my mother would say go and wash it.
I washed it at 7pm and by 7:30pm, where will it dry?
We did not have a dryer.
We did not have sun.
We did not have two uniforms but we had a fridge.
At the back of every old fridge in the 90s and early 2000s, there is that black coil, that radiator that is always hot. That place that burns your finger if you mistakenly touch it. That place where cockroaches go for meeting.
My elder brother discovered it as the scientist of the house.
He will say, David, if you spread your wet boxers behind the fridge, by morning it will dry. I thought he was lying. But that night, I had no choice.
I squeezed my uniform with all my strength. I folded it small like groundnut and slipped it behind our LG fridge. I placed my socks on top of the compressor like an offering.
That night, I slept with fear.
Fear that my mother would find it.
Fear that the cloth would burn.
Fear that NEPA would take light and the fridge would stop bringing heat.
By 5am, I woke up before the wall clock alarm and I ran to the back of the fridge.
My uniform was dry, warm and smelling small of heat and rubber, but dry. It had lines like someone ironed it with hand.
I wore it to school that day like a champion.
From that day, the back of our fridge became our secret dryer.
Sometimes the fridge would spoil because we blocked the ventilation with too many clothes. My father would say, who kept clothes behind fridge again and nobody would answer rather we would all look up.
Though a lot has changed today but nothing beats the intelligence of that child who had only one option and found a way.
That hot, dusty, dangerous space behind our old fridge taught me my first lesson in life
-if you don't have what you need, use what you have.
We didn't have much, but we had sense. We didn't have comfort, but we had survival.
Now that I am grown, I realize we were not just drying clothes. We were learning how to survive as Nigerians.
I am sure every African child has a version of this story.