That’s not how we did it in our time said my grandmother, everyone paused and I asked her; you did it in your time? she said yes and I further question her how they did it in their time. My siblings and niblings were playing SWEH when my grandmother popped in with corrections. SWEH is a local game played by children in the typical rural villages in Nigeria by drawing lines in rectangular form to make blocks on the ground. It can be play between two individuals or groups. The end point is to get a winner who emerged by owing most of the rectangle’s blocks made with lines on the ground by avoiding mistakes such as not stepping on the lines and drawing dice kind of draw correctly. There are different ways of playing it, it can play with one leg or both depending on the method adopted by the both teams.
We had adopted one line pattern by matching the both legs on the fifth rectangle block, that’s when my grandmother interrupted to correct us that we shouldn’t have matched the both legs on the fifth rectangular block instead it should be on the sixth. So, we wanted to know more about how games like this and many others were all done during their time. So, my grandma replied we should all meet at the moonlight for the story.
Everyone has gathered under the orange tree in the compound with children bed for moments like that. We didn’t use mat, because my mother has been afraid of us being bitten by insects so she paid for children’s bed made from baboo tree. We had a tree under which we gather in the compound for moonlight times like this, it could be reading, and family conversations, one children’s bed can accommodate up to three children. The elders have their seats too and it has a unique design and it is been called Dabere chewe in Igbo language which literally translates relax and think.
As we gathered, she began to tell us about all that they did when they were at our age and as we marveled at the stories and the memories I began to imagine if I was in their generation where women have no access to education and how my niece that were twins would have been killed by now and how I will not be able to even play football and climb trees as a girl child. I was so grateful that things have really changed with time for good and I praised in my mind the amazing people who brought about these changes and I began to wonder how intelligent my grandmother was then and if she have had the great fortune to be educated, how she will so excel in her field. I took pity on her and I went further to question her about how she feels now as an elderly woman without these experiences and seeing us the younger ones having these privileges and how aging has been for her, she acknowledged my brilliant questions and emphasis on my inquisitiveness and the advantages of having such strong personality and encouraged me to continue to seek clarity in areas I seem confused at. So, she took us deeper than we had thought that night about how all that we do now reminds her of her younger self. She said, when you get older, you no longer have the energy as you use to, you lose entirely control over how your body functions as sicknesses that comes with old age begin to attack you up and down, you will loose some of your close friends and some that may still be alive are rarely available and all that you are left with is your deeds when you were young and the memories of all that has happened in your life for every young person and children you see brings back a specific memory, and the memory could be a happy one if you lived well in your youth or childhood or a sad one which comes in a tormenting way and can affect your old life, many of my friends that are still strong and alive today had a very good childhood memory and the happiness in remembering all this memories elongates their live and increases their live span because it brings so much happiness to them, while those who didn’t live so well or have a bad memory of their childhood are sick while majority have died due to memory torment. She further admonish us to live a good life and a fulfilled one, be good children she said because you wont be children forever and when you get old, your remaining days on earth will be determine by the kind of life you lived while you were young. For you become young again when you are old. The story left everyone of us in a sober mood and we went to bed reflecting on the stories and our time with our grandma that night.
