What Does Happiness Mean To You?
There was something about my childhood that I often ponder: how happy I was. I didn’t know how this worked, food wasn’t in abundance and I didn’t have the luxury my children have today but I had a very happy and fulfilled childhood. I didn’t have a variety to choose from. Basic food, clothing, free air, paid water, lousy and nosy neighbours were all part of my happiness. The yearly trips to the countryside to see my grandmother and my cousins constituted my childhood happiness.
Quite often I listened to the dreams of adults around me, but they were quick to celebrate their little achievements and work harder to achieve more basic goals. I saw my mother break down many times over her struggle to make ends meet and I was part of the many hungry faces around but I never experienced the emotion associated with overwhelming sadness.
(more…)
I lived in one of the slums of Lagos mainland. My house could be classified as what the local called “Face me, I face you” style of building, however, mine was a bit different from the norm. At the edge of the corridor was the gutter, part of which was covered with wooden planks and the rest left open. The sight was not pretty, but, we got used to it.
Ours were plights of rooms, lined up unevenly. Inbetween the rolls of rooms was an unsteady path which spread across the entire length of our corridor. Looking up, you could see the sky which I felt was a great advantage. The path only divided the rooms and their chronological arrangement.