Sometimes we look back at some of the rabbits and childhood traits we exhibited and just laugh at our foolishness, or should I say ignorance?
As I begin to ponder on some of the things I did as a child, one of the characters for which I always got me into trouble, I remember, one of the things I enjoyed most was playing football.
I am the first amongst five children in my family, and I grew up to see my dad as a lover of the soccer game. My mom used to tell me how when I was younger, my dad would carry me as a baby while he was going to watch football.
I was only about 4 years old when we moved from the area where I was born to a more spacious area, and this was a complete change of environment and the norm I was used to growing up. I had to start a new school and the likes of other things that followed, of which one of them was the fact that I could no longer play football with my mates.
The new house was fenced; it had an iron protector to a varander before you enter the house. This made my playing outside reduced due to the fact everyone stayed in their flats once we got back from wherever we went, like the old house where I could just open the door and join the kids around to play football. There was no fence, no iron protectors, and the like.
I got into primary school and began to make new friends with whom I played the game, and for the fact that we were kids and had little or no money outright, we would pluck the orange fruits from a nearby tree and use them for our game during our break hour.
Oneday as we were preparing to pluck the orange, not knowing that the owner didn't go out, we suddenly heard a voice say, You people are the once, and before the statement would be completed, we all took to our heels and ran back to school, not knowing that the owner of the orange had seen some of us, which made it very easy when he came to the school to report.
We all got a taste of the cane popularly called Dr Bulala by our teacher. As time passed, I saved up money from the money I was given to school and got myself a small plastic ball, which in no time got turned. i saved up yet again and got a ball popularly called earth or fly-fly.
When I got into junior secondary school after my primary six exams, the school I was taken to was closed to the church where my dad pastored. I enjoyed the school because on Wednesday we had the last period before closing hour dedicated to sports, and our physical and health education teacher would take us to a nearby field where we played games.
I would normally sneak out of the house to a football field in my area to play football, leaving my younger sister and kid brother all alone by themselves. I would always beg them not to tell, but as usual, when dad and mom came back and asked us some questions, I always ended up being caught, which always resulted in some flagging as well.
There was a time my parents got a message saying that I should stop playing football for a period of time in order to avoid having an injury that could make me loose my legs, but I didn't heed. One day my dad just paid a surprise visit to my school just to see if I was obedient to that message, and to his greatest surprise, I was sweating seriously from playing football. The result of that was that I didn't go to school the next, and I was properly fluged for not heeding the message.
I finally reduced my interest in football when my dad sat me down one day and said I would have to choose if I wanted to continue with school or play football after he sighted examples of successful footballers who had an education. This made me have to rethink pursuing my education. I still play football even to this date, but the passion is no longer there as it was when I was much younger.
This is my entry for the hive naija weekly prompt.