Photo Credit: Pixabay and Pexel
Scrolling through WhatsApp status from my contacts on a day like this, when we celebrate Children's Day in Nigeria, took me deep into memories of my childhood and how much has really changed within such a short time.
I remembered how we used to practice for march past competitions, how our parents would allow us to go to the stadium for the celebration. Any money we saved after Easter would be for May 27th. We were always looking forward to that day, how we would walk miles away in groups and march into the stadium, how we would spend almost all our money buying ice cream and everything else our money could buy. It was a good chance to see our friends from other schools, especially those in boarding school, and catch up with them.
I remembered the day my school came third in the march past competition. We sang victory songs from the stadium to our different houses and we were so proud. It was a big deal winning at a time like that as a school. The joy and those moments are priceless.
May 27th was always everything that mattered to us. May 27th and October 1st are days that meant so much to us Nigerian children, because they were days of total freedom without your parents and teachers - just you and your friends.
We would exchange letters and reply quickly to our admirers and bosom friends. We bought footballs and games to play at home from the stadium. We always came home late and happy. There were days we marched in the rain and it was fun. How beautiful it was to represent your school in the march past! And when you were not representing, you were always waiting for when your school would be called so you could cheer them up and tease your friends who were taking part. It was our everything.
There were plenty of side shows during Children's Day, from different kinds of games that needed you to pay a little money to take part, and lots of fun events. The stadium was always packed, and once you lost sight of your group of friends, you had lost them. It will take divine help to see them again. There were no mobile phones for children then. The stadium was always a place we visited twice in a year, so we could not fully understand the whole place. Having to visit when it was always filled with children made it even harder to understand.
I remembered my dad's black and white television, and he would always play Igbo songs on his radio cassette, the same ones my brother Chisom got interested in oliver de coque and osadebe songs because they were my fathers most played songs. How can I forget how we used to peep through our neighbors' windows just to watch Isakaba and other Nigerian movies? And we will watch till it is night and leaving behind our chores for the day and how mother will beat us. Who remembered how we would turn the TV antenna pole to get better signal for NTA channel to watch Super Eagles matches? The firewood fetching, the hide and seek games, the moonlight stories and plays, the monkey post football games and canter games, the Sweh, among others, and the love letters that you would hide and write and read and kept it at the button part of our box to hide them from our parents. It was all fun.
I guess we are all adults now and these memories bring so much laughter to us, because we were truly children and we lived as children with less crime and more innocence. There are still some among our age group who had ugly and painful childhoods due to some mistake made out of ignorance. Do not worry, you can still make sure a child close to you is properly guided to avoid similar mistakes and live better. That way you are making up for the wrongs of your childhood.
Childhood never ends for me because there are still parts of our childhood we carried into adulthood, and because of that we are all still children.
Happy Children's Day to all Nigerians
