We used to free, playing on the streets,kicking empty cans all the way to school and back.
We were free to visit the stream,coming back home with eyes so red you can’t deny where you’ve been ( you really didn’t need to anyway)
We used to be free to eat,drink in the neighbours friends house coming back home with big round tommies and shirts stained with oil due to the struggle for meat.
It was actually allowed to remove our sandals and walk bare feet, swinging them in rhythm of songs learnt from the village square last night.
Parents yes, but the society was the standard model and watch dog. Kids getting spanked by total strangers when due and still complimented for not sparing the rod when the news filtered back home.
Teachers were idolized as mini gods due to the importance society placed on them- a noble profession with “rewards in heaven”. Life for us as kids was super fun.
We built castles with mud,using our legs as designs. Creativity and natural instincts buzzing in our heads.
The girls quickly learnt singing and clapping while gathered around in circles,cooking with empty cans and pawpaw leaves while the boys,armed with catapults,ventured beyond the boundary of the stream in search of that elusive old wise tortoise grandpa always talked about so they could be as wise as him.
They actually did venture because the fear of evil men to kidnap them wasn’t a part of the society. But all that faded away.
We now grow up in houses with fences so tall they reach out to the moon, our freedom the society wickedly took from us. The society you adults have created. We now live with the monsters you created.
We play yes, but with toys and TV game consoles more than with the kids next door, oh yes, we see them just as they leave for school that's all in dark tinted windows.
We eat yes, but from cans and packs,beautifully sealed nylon wraps picked from the kitchen shelf cos mummy has to beat the traffic at 5:30am, and yet we dare not eat or dine even with our best friend in school because we don’t know the source of the water in their houses.
We feed on 2 minute meals, microwaved meals from last week and meals from the delivery man more than from mummy's kitchen.
The closest I have been with my cousins is looking at their pictures on Facebook( the ones I know or heard of ) cos they all bad people who do not like us.
While I struggle to make a sentence with my own mother tongue,teachers trying so hard to make me speak and sound like the half baked humans I see on DSTV, they say I will be accepted easily when I sound like them, why can’t I sound like you mum? If you don’t like the way you sound who else will?
Boys growing up on their own filled with Internet curriculum and modelling their lives to the edited content of celebrities on E channel because Daddy is busy meeting deadlines and targets set by the corporate world, a vicious circle that keeps him away like forever but to which he says pays the bills and allows me the luxuries I enjoy.
Luxuries? Seriously? You mean being caged as soon as school ends is now luxury? That used to be when the fun was just about to start.
And so I get to spend so much of my developmental time with nannies sorry I mean uncles and aunties who are too busy on social media to notice me and when they do, explore my purity and violate my innocence , setting me on a dangerous path.
Cooking is now an odd ugly task meant for the chef while I dwell on the society short cuts: 2 minute noodles and coco pops. The joy of splashing and goofing around in the stream washing clothes now long as I only toss them into the washer and wait for that cling sound to signify it's done.
You might argue that they have made life easier but also, it has taken away an essential part of learning and altered the natural balance of life teachings as we grow up.
We now juggle between British and American curriculum expressed as Montessori for the elite while the poor languish in so called public schools at the mercy of unpaid teachers struggling to find motivation but surrounded by frustration hence the then noble profession now a shadow of itself.
Education should never be categorized based on it either being private or public; opportunities in life aren’t! No kid was born to come face this societal divide, we innocent.
In case you adults have not noticed; our innocence is a different kind of beautiful that most of you only dream about.
When next you sit on the decision making alters and tables,remember we have the right to be protected and provided for but most importantly we have the right to be free, free from the mental walls and societal barriers you adults have created.
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