Any child raised in a typical Nigerian environment must have tried some silly superstitious things while growing up. We were made to believe a lot of unreasonable things and we were so childish to believe these things.
You can't take superstitions away from Nigerians and no matter how smart kids were, they have ways of telling stories that would make you believe those terrible lies told by our elders. Every Nigerian kid before 2010 had one superstition they believe so much and we easily promote these superstitions among our friends. It's funny how we grew up to start understanding that those superstitions were formed just to prevent us from doing some things but technology has made superstition an ineffective way of preventing kids from doing some terrible things. Children today will dig out things from the internet and can tell what's true or not.
I have some silly experiences with superstitions and they still make me laugh badly.
I love swimming as a kid and you can't make me miss my swimming session on Fridays. It was my first year in junior school and I always visit a big river close to my house with my friends and we play a lot there till evening.
We play games in the water, compete and do all sorts of things. We were getting out of the water one of those days when I started a joke about peeing in the river and my friend also said the same thing.
We were speaking so loud about it and a man at the river bank scolded us for what were discussing. He said people who pee in the river always experience the wrath of the river mermaid on their wedding day, he said it usually rains heavily on that day and it will hinder the success of the party.
His words scared me and it got me worried because I always peed in the river whenever I went there.
I remembered asking my mother about it and she also said the same thing about peeing in the river. Confessing my sins will attract punishment because she didn't know about my river adventures.
Whenever it rained during any wedding party in the community, I do tell myself that either the husband or wife once pee in the river and it scared me when the rain was very heavy.
Luckily for me, we were told to write one prayer request many months later during a special church program and the only thing that came to my mind was the rainfall on my wedding day. I wrote it out and dropped it in a box just like every other person.
When it was time for the prayers to be treated, it was a small church so the pastor picked the papers one after the other and called out the prayers so we all prayed together.
I felt sad when he started because I didn't know he will call out the prayers, I would have written what I did. He finally got to my request and as he was reading, he stopped.
I read it without speaking into the microphone and burst into laughter. He made a joke and told whoever wrote it to come to the altar for prayers.
I felt bad everyone will know about my sins, but I couldn't resist the urge to go out because I wanted to be free from the mermaid's wrath.
I went out and the pastor asked me why I wrote the prayer point, I had to confess about peeing in the river and everyone began laughing. He prayed for me and didn't reveal it was a superstition but after I was punished at home for going to the river without mom's consent, she asked if I know that some people use that same water I pee in for other good things.
She told me stories of how they drank from the rivers when she was a child. She assured me it won't rain if I don't fix my wedding during the rainy season, I realized the mermaid's wrath was a lie and I felt silly. People teased me in church for a long time and I hated them for that.
I went to the river after but didn't pee again because I understood the risk of doing that.
I hope you enjoyed reading, you can also share your jokes at the ongoing Comedy Open Mic contest.
HERE is the link to the contest, I am looking forward to seeing your entries.