Hi guys, How are you all doing. I’ve been busy busy busy 😁! It’s been a very busy couple of weeks. What might be taking your time young lady you might ask? Everything, the kids, the magazine, just busy living. I’ve been working on a couple of posts but it’s been a drag lately to even sit down and write. However, I’ve missed you guys so much I thought I’d drop this.
School’s out for a week, yayyyy, a little rest is welcome, only thing is – there really is no rest at all is there! Like a lot of you, I find I’m on duty 24/7, in service of our little humans. Whilst waiting for one of them to finish his tuition today, I took the other to the nearby park to while away time. On our way back, he was riding away happily on his scooter, glancing back every now and again to make sure I was close by. Looking at him, I couldn’t help but think about how different their childhood is from mine.
A quick peek at yesterday
I grew up in Ilorin (a city in western Nigeria), I know I’ve mentioned it here a couple of times. It was a wonderful upbringing. Ilorin was (probably still is) a peaceful, friendly city. It was a small community of like minds, and we were all connected in one way or the other. We either met up in school, church or lesson. We had birthday parties too (Brown girl in the ring’ anyone!). It was really nice.
Almost every family had a neighbour with a terror dog 😁. Ours was Buster, darling old Buster kept us on our toes a lot, and on days we were bored, we actually sought him out for a good chase. There was a Buster on almost every street, we walked freely from house to house then. From the quiet streets of GRA to Tanke, taking a quick bow to greet parents in passing cars. Oh yes, you knew almost every car driving on the road and you had to be on your best behaviour too because even though we didn’t have mobile phones then, the report will get home, sometimes before you 😂😂😂. The street was always watching, those where the times the village raised a child 😀.
There were so many things that made growing up in Ilorin fun! Most homes had very large gardens with different fruit trees, mangoes and guava trees were top on the list, then we had cashew trees, orange trees and many others. Most of us were expert tree climbers, we would climb to get the fruit of our choice or just for fun (against our parents’ wishes). The cashew trees were always the easiest to climb! Even though a lot of us didn’t really like cashews, we would still climb and cashew juice leaves stains on clothes so it was met with a lot of disapproval from parents. We would play games outside – country game, suwe, ten-ten, filling the bottle or indoors – Ludo, Whot, Beauty pageants. There was never a dull moment!
I could go on and on, I’m having some major nostalgia writing this, but a full post on Ilorin will be a post for another day. Music and dancing was also a big part of our lives then. My sisters had music books and I would spend more time learning lyrics than studying. You know the music from the 90s and early noughties are simply the best right?!
Dawn of the Millenium
I think things started getting different from the late noughties. The world was no longer as safe as it was when we were kids. The normally wide-open gates on every street were now always closed, kids were not strolling with little or no supervision as we did growing up. We didn’t know practically every family on every street as we used to nor did we know most of the cars on the road again. A lot of us had left Ilorin, so many left to study abroad. Others went to Universities outside Ilorin and never really returned and the few times they did, they kept to themselves. That was it, We all walked away from our sweet innocence into the unknown, we left all of it behind. Chapel primary school, St Josephs School, Chapel secondary school, AbdulAzeez Primary School, Olumawu primary School. USS, FGCI, St Anthony…
Most of us are mums and dads now bringing up our kids very differently from the way we grew up. We’ve evolved, that’s the way life works. Things never remain the same, it always changes and humans are built to adapt to these changes. Our kids don’t climb trees to get their fruits like some of us did, we wash and cut them nicely for them, they can’t ride their bikes unsupervised as we did, (remember how we learned to ride a bike 😁 no stabilisers then) most of them don’t have the crowded house filled with cousins and friends strolling in and out as we did. Heck, they don’t do a lot of the things we did, but it is what it is. I’m sure when they have kids things will be even more different and they’ll have their own stories of how things have changed.
Cheers to Tomorrow
Whilst we can never go back to yesterday, we have now, we have tomorrow. What memories are you making now? Make memories that count because most of the time, that’s what we are left with. Try to enjoy every minute of every day because we never can get it back, once it’s gone, it’s gone. Be happy, be kind, make lasting memories.
Please feel free to share your fondest memories of your childhood, let’s reminisce together😘.
Aunty Lulu.
I’m sure my kids are tired of all my stories of growing up in Ilorin! I took my oldest a couple of years ago and we drove around town and the old neighborhoods:) it was truly a nice way to grow up!
Loool, have you ever taken them to Ilorin? I’ll like to take the boys someday, like you, I’m always gushing about how fun it was growing up there.
Aww… Lulu.. read this a big grin filled with nostalgia.
I’m still in Ilorin but it’s a whole different ball game entirely.
Growing up in Ilorin was FUN… Tanke Junction was a hub.. .
Thank you for taking us down memory lane..
I can imagine how different it will be for you! I’ll definitely check on you next time I’m around. What’s the biggest change for you so far?
Hmmm, Bimbo. Read this with a big smile on my face throughout. Our childhood in Ilorin was fun, packed with so many adventures. I think about how so different our growing up is from that of our children. They can never understand the kind of freedom we had as you described it. We played on the streets without fear and with very little supervision. Yet we all knew our boundaries. We understood what “it takes a whole village to raise a child ” meant so we didnt misbehave. We knew someone else’s parent might notice and discipline us. As you rightly said, we keep on evolving. It is what it is.
Bimbo I still remember our Modelak days too. Good old days.
Thank you for taking us down memory lane dear.
Modelak days were fun days, do you know anything about Mr Ake now? I can never forget him. Great memories…
Beautiful write up I remember the good old days when we had no worries. I attended the great USS and the beautiful memories still lingers……..
Thank God for great memories, thank you so much for reading.
Hey sis, you made my day with this post.
I read this with joy in my heart very nostalgic, even though I grew up in Lagos the experiences are similar. What about the hazards of climbing the tree and falling down I remember asking my distant cousin to help me climb a coconut tree, the fall was so scary I thought I had killed somebody when he sprang up like a rubber band bouncing from a stretch, let’s just say my gratitude for his survival trumped the desire to eat the coconut
Wow! Beautiful piece Bimbo. Toyosi sent me this link today when I told her how different Ilorin is now from the Ilorin I grew up in. I miss that beautiful childhood we had, reading this makes me feel really nostalgic.
Thank you so much Bunmi, don’t we talk miss those beautiful carefree days, I have fond memories of GRA staff quarters because of you…