It was a night in 1995, the place was mum's kitchen that detached from the main house. The one that housed the family hens and cocks, who wandered in the open till it was dusk when they returned.
The Butterfly double-burner stove stood idly in one corner of the other kitchen, the kitchen that had cement flooring. Its see-through kerosene tank was as dry as the firewood that made crackling sounds as they fought in vain to withstand the fierce fire. Dinner was being prepared again on the three-legged clay pot that doubled as a burner. This was the night we kids would populate the kitchen, itching to help unwrap the seasoning cube or pound the crayfish. Just anything that we can put in our mouths uncooked.
This kitchen held the things that were not fancy enough to go to the main house, like the heap of palm kennel waiting to be cracked. So I reached for the small basalt stone with edges that smoothed out from years of use, and dragged its bigger counterpart. It was time to crack some, and eat while dinner cooked. Kpai!, the sound went and I scampered to stop the fruit from flying in uni-directions with the rest of the shell pieces.
My grandma's reaction to the sound is one I will remember for a long time. Granny had come to stay with us that period. "Nne," as we called her began to admonish me and my siblings on how damaging the sound of kennel cracking was at the time.
One of the hens in the coob was trying to hatch her eggs. According to grandma, the sound was going to cause her to lay kennels instead of chicks. As curious as I was as a kid, I didn't want to experience that. So I stopped.
I never got to ask my grandma if that was really true or if she exaggerated, or simply lied to scare us kids. It only became ridiculous as I grew up and began to take Science classes. Just like it got ridiculous when I thought about the claim that a needle dropped on a locomotive train's track was enough to topple the train when it crossed over it. Yeah, that was my dad. Ahaha.
The Task
What ridiculous lie were you told as a kid? Would you share it for a chance to win some STEEM? Yeah, Sankofa is spicing up its regular contest a little bit. Let's go nostalgic. Let's share those embarrassing and ridiculous things we believed.
Retell your experience in the most entertaining way.
Share your story as a new blog post and use the "sankofa" tag to make it easy for us to populate. Additionally, drop the link to your post as comment on this announcement post. That easy.
Prize
We are going to give away 10 STEEM for the best stories. 5 STEEM for the first winner, and 3 and 2 STEEM respectively for the 2nd and 3rd winners.
What are you waiting for? Send your tales coming. If you resteem this announcement post, it'll help spread the word, and more engagement means more fun.
