The House Where We Grew up

September 06, 2017

If while growing up, you and your family moved from one place to another (say you lived in 2 or more places) and you were to make a choice to go to back to your “childhood home” which of the places you lived in will you choose?

Home is where the wrapper on the balcony is

I used the ample time provided by the national four day holiday to return to my childhood home where I spent the first fourteen years of my life(my family moved out in 2004). I grew up in the 19^th house on a street called Osemene close in Mafoluku, Lagos. The street was one of those closely knit places where everyone knew everyone; It wasn’t uncommon for older folks on the street to report you to your parents if you displayed any unruly behavior because ultimately everyone was your “mommy and daddy”, walking up the street from school or church you’ll often be stopped by uncles, aunties and mommies and daddies who will inquire about your welfare at school and remark about how fast you’d grown telling you it just “yesterday” you were a baby and they had carried you in their arms, the roads were not tarred and every evening the streets were painted with the sounds of children playing on the streets, everyone was respectful of each other irrespective of differences in tribe and religion.

Despite this sense of familiarity with everyone there was also a silent apprehension, for example, admonitions not to eat in anyone’s house (with the possible exception of parties and celebrations) for fear of food poisoning and initiation into the occultist kingdom of uttermost witchcraft :), sleepovers were nonexistent, and anyone who was radically different was viewed with great suspicion. It was the nineties after all and superstitions abounded.

He has been there right from the time when five naira could put a smile on your face

Going back there felt like going back in time because nothing much had changed. The streets were still not tarred, the mallam who sold confectioneries at the beginning of the street since I was a child still had his stall there, most of the people who lived there during my childhood days had moved out but the outer appearance of the houses looked the same, old cars lined the side of the streets and finally I arrived at the house where I grew up.

The airport isn't far from here so the sound and sight of airplanes is an hourly affair

I love this house so much and I’ve even written about it in my first book. For you see this house is more than a building, it is childhood tears and nightmares, unbridled laughter, simple living, late night stories, books and comics, early morning family devotions, the chinking of keys suggesting someone was about to open the door, games with tires, football and rubber bands, asthma attacks, amazing meals, bangers during the Christmas period, pain, joy, life and a man who has returned to offer gratitude for the days spent here and to solemnly promise that time won’t steal way the child inside him.

Gotta love Nigerian parents :)

Unlike how it was in the nineties, there are no children playing in the open space in front of the house but the house seems happy to live by evocations of playful pasts. She hugs me with her aged hands when I walk in and in the time I spend walking around the house, she whispers memories and questions to me “Do you remember when you sneaked downstairs after you were told not to and got caught by your parents?” “Oh do you remember the Ikeja bomb blast?” “Do you still read as much as you used to?” “What cartoons are you into right now?”

When it’s time to leave she walks me to her gate and asks me when she’ll feel the tap of my happy feet running around the house again. I’ll be back, I let her know, and it’ll be an endless stream of the best of the early years all over again.