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Children have a tender heart, they tend to believe anything they are told without any iota of doubt. Many of us have heard a lot of stories that are all lies. I too was not left out, I remember while I was young I heard lots of stories that I later realized they are all lies when I became an adult.
Let me give you a little glimpse of my childhood days. I was brought up in an area where everybody minds their business. I was the firstborn of the family and I don't really have little children to play with except my younger ones. I had this innocent heart that I virtually believes whatever anyone tells me easily. The only time I had to play a lot is when I'm in school because I don't have neighbors to play with except my siblings.
Back then in school, I was in primary four then, there is this girl in my class who is much older than every one of us. We all noticed she already started developing breasts while the rest of us haven't. I thought I was the only one that noticed until after a few weeks when other girls started talking about it. Just during break time we all gathered and went to approach her to tell us the secret of how she grew breast earlier. *Guess what she told us?
She said the secret is by putting "Kuluso" (i.e. antlion) on her breast, Kuluso (i.e. antlion) is an insect that lives inside the soil. Imagine such a funny response. We all believed her and we started searching everywhere trying to find the insect named Kuluso. Luckily for us, we got one and we were all happy that our breasts will start growing once we do what she asked us to do. Come and see how we were all fighting over the poor insect. Everyone wanted to use it first and this cause a big fight. The question is whether was i able to use it
No, I couldn't use it. It was as if luck was against me that day. Before it get to my turn the insect escaped and that end the story. I was not happy at all. I cried throughout the day. On getting home, I told my mum, she laughed and laughed and told me it was all lies.
Another childhood lies I believed while young was when my mum called me one faithful Sunday morning and said Doyin, you know you are a girl, I responded yes ma. She continued: if a man touches you, you will become pregnant. I was so scared that I was avoiding any slight touch from any man just to avoid getting pregnant. Mum painted the picture as if getting pregnant is a form of communicable disease that is gotten through mere physical touch. I later understand better when I was in senior secondary school after our teacher thought us reproduction.
Lastly, I remembered when I was in secondary school. We had a teacher who teaches us phonetics, His name is Mr. Sam. Whenever he teaches us he usually twists his mouth to pronounce words just to sound in an American way. We all are happy not knowing that those pronunciations were wrong.
During the end-of-the-year program in school, He groomed us and said we will be reading a newspaper during the program and it must be in phonetics. We are so happy that we are speaking in American accent not knowing we were blowing and pronouncing wrong sounds. The funniest part was that during the presentation the parents are not aware that our pronunciations were wrong they were all clapping and cheering us believing that their children can speak American accent correctly.
I got to change my school afterward only to discover all we are thought about phonetics were all lies. I couldn't speak boldly during phonetics class so that my classmate won't make jest of me. But yet I was happy I was able to realize earlier enough before I publicly embarrassed myself thinking I'm speaking correct American accent.