The Boy Who Never Listened.

The boy who never listened and I went to the same school. He never sat still and he was always in trouble. At home, he was the same. He had short attention span. He played hard and learning was hard for him. He was restless and inattentive. Learning was difficult and no school was ready to tolerate his eccentricity. He changed school many times. Due to his hyperactiveness, he was tagged  “the boy who never listen”.

The ‘boy who never listen’ cut across as someone in a trance. He was not organised and sleeping was not important to him. The pressure of rearing  such a difficult child put a strain on his parents’ marriage and they separated when he was 8, his mother bore the burden alone. He had poor social interaction with his peers and  adults around him. He had problems with discipline and this was a significant problem in his life. (more…)

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How to Raise a Non-Materialistic Child in a Materialistic World.

My mother got me a doll when I was about 6. The doll was made out of plastic and had a little bath and shower. It had a little wire for water to pass through.  It was an amazing little gift and a little possession of mine. My doll had a miniature world with everything it needed. I cannot remember what happened to my doll, I had it for a while and it just disappeared. I cannot remember having any industrially manufactured toy after my little doll disappeared.

As I grew, I made do with whatever I could find around. Dressing up games were achieved using old clothes. Most of the play I engaged in were centred around role playing. I found solace in using old cassette as building blocks,  empty milk tins and cans with a thin thread were used as a transmitter for communication. With a little help from my peers and sometimes from my siblings, I learnt to make kites from newspaper and strands of brooms. Hide and seek was one of the favourites and I was great at it.

 

We sang and danced and made up songs for many occasions. We picked fruits and tried new tastes. We wandered around a lot under the guardian of an older child. I experimented with gardening and harvesting. Tree climbing was a game I was I disliked for I was not good at climbing and I got mocked by many of my friends. We did up-scotch under the hot sun. We learnt to make parachutes out of polyethene bags and tested their durability on windy days. Dark clouds were great signs for me, there was nothing relaxing than a cold shower of heavy pouring rain. We drew on the ground and had competitions on hopscotch games. The boys had their games and so were the girls. Most of which generated out of pure curiosity. (more…)

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The night before I lost my mother

The night before my mother died was nothing out of the ordinary. She chose to cook that night, we were all asleep before the food was ready, but, she woke us all up. I remember the last meal she made for us, it was seasoned rice locally called “concoction”. As we ate, she started a conversation with me about my cousin whom she felt was pregnant. I listened half-asleep. It was a very dark night and the breeze seized, it was hot and humid.

My mother was extremely quiet the following morning. She had a distant look I couldn’t explain. I had an appointment to see a friend that morning. My friend was still in university and she had sent me an errand to her sister. I sneaked out of the house, not because I didn’t want my mother to know where I was going. No. I sneaked out because I wore her favourite shoes and I knew she was going to wear those shoes to work. I told her out of sight that I was going to my friend’s and she said “Okay bye ” so weakly. That was the last time I saw my mother alive.

By the time I returned home, my mother had left for work. I remember visiting another friend of mine who promised job opportunity. I was fresh out of university and I was ready to start a new life. As I sat at the reception, waiting for my friend to come out, I remember thinking of home. The visit to my friend’s office was fruitless because he didn’t have the time to see me throughout my stay. He had workloads as high as a mountain.

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