Childhood fantasies! We all had one or more which could be crazy at
times, I can visualise you nodding in agreement. I’ll like to share some
of mine with you. I grew up amidst four siblings in a large compound
that housed four families. All the couples (including our landlord and
landlady) were of the same age range. This meant they all had children
within the same peer group. It was really fun for me being a child. I always
say it every time I have the opportunity that I had a full childhood
and I’m grateful for it.
There were many children in my compound including friends from a closeby yard and children of our neighbours’ family friends. It was really fun growing up. I remember how we would all gather after watching Circus Centering every Saturday morning on NTA (Nigerian Television Authority) in those days and would start fantasizing. If you can remember Circus Centering then, there was a lot of cycle riding on taut strings. So we would start dreaming aloud telling ourselves how we wished our parents would build a special house for children in the compound and provide bicycles with two and three wheels (then we didn’t know those ‘bicycles’ are called monocycles and tricycles) for us. We would talk and imagine with each of us trying to outdo the other.
Those days when we would tell each other about our dreams for our future houses, everyone would say her/his own. Everyone said he would be very rich and his house would have many stores for different things. I told them my house would have one store full of chocomillo (can you imagine?), another one full of brand new dusting powder cans (ask me what I’d do with a room full of dusting powder), another one filled with bags of rice (that is still reasonable), one filled with tubers of yam, another filled with bags of beans (a feasting time for weevils!) and so on and so on. No wonder Paul wrote: ‘When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.’
Now when I remember those fantasies I laugh at myself. But there were some of them that were more reasonable. For instance, when you saw young ladies in those days and as a small girl you were imagining how it would be when you reach that stage and how long it would take. I don’t know if you mimicked sisis’ (young ladies’) gaits in your house as a child. Well we did it. We’d raise our heels to imply the appearance of a pair of high heeled shoes and then twist our waists as we walked. Children! Now I look back and I chuckle to myself, the girls that mimicked ladies then are now lovely damsels. Now this will make you laugh, can you think of me telling myself as a child ‘I’ll be kissing my husband when I grow up’ (lots of laughter). I also figured out how it would be, one hot night, if God could put a fan in the sky to be blowing on us, though mum told me He already gave us breeze and that was better, but I wasn’t satisfied. I still felt it would be okay if there was a fan in the sky. There was never one, anyway, and would never be.
What about ‘licking’ candies in books as if they were real, did you do that? We had a number of Ladybird books and they contained some beautiful pictures of sweets. We would lick the candies, savouring the ‘taste’, until our saliva makes the paper soft (giggles).
It was beautiful being a child. It was so wonderful passing through that stage of innocence and naivety. I can’t wait (though I have to) to have my children and eavesdrop on their fantasies, by God’s mercy I won’t miss the experience.
There were many children in my compound including friends from a closeby yard and children of our neighbours’ family friends. It was really fun growing up. I remember how we would all gather after watching Circus Centering every Saturday morning on NTA (Nigerian Television Authority) in those days and would start fantasizing. If you can remember Circus Centering then, there was a lot of cycle riding on taut strings. So we would start dreaming aloud telling ourselves how we wished our parents would build a special house for children in the compound and provide bicycles with two and three wheels (then we didn’t know those ‘bicycles’ are called monocycles and tricycles) for us. We would talk and imagine with each of us trying to outdo the other.
Those days when we would tell each other about our dreams for our future houses, everyone would say her/his own. Everyone said he would be very rich and his house would have many stores for different things. I told them my house would have one store full of chocomillo (can you imagine?), another one full of brand new dusting powder cans (ask me what I’d do with a room full of dusting powder), another one filled with bags of rice (that is still reasonable), one filled with tubers of yam, another filled with bags of beans (a feasting time for weevils!) and so on and so on. No wonder Paul wrote: ‘When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.’
Now when I remember those fantasies I laugh at myself. But there were some of them that were more reasonable. For instance, when you saw young ladies in those days and as a small girl you were imagining how it would be when you reach that stage and how long it would take. I don’t know if you mimicked sisis’ (young ladies’) gaits in your house as a child. Well we did it. We’d raise our heels to imply the appearance of a pair of high heeled shoes and then twist our waists as we walked. Children! Now I look back and I chuckle to myself, the girls that mimicked ladies then are now lovely damsels. Now this will make you laugh, can you think of me telling myself as a child ‘I’ll be kissing my husband when I grow up’ (lots of laughter). I also figured out how it would be, one hot night, if God could put a fan in the sky to be blowing on us, though mum told me He already gave us breeze and that was better, but I wasn’t satisfied. I still felt it would be okay if there was a fan in the sky. There was never one, anyway, and would never be.
What about ‘licking’ candies in books as if they were real, did you do that? We had a number of Ladybird books and they contained some beautiful pictures of sweets. We would lick the candies, savouring the ‘taste’, until our saliva makes the paper soft (giggles).
It was beautiful being a child. It was so wonderful passing through that stage of innocence and naivety. I can’t wait (though I have to) to have my children and eavesdrop on their fantasies, by God’s mercy I won’t miss the experience.
