By Maryam Idris Bappa
Introduction
It was May 2023, and as I surfed the net for ideas on how to spend children’s day with my family, I imagined that my parents had likely not undergone this dilemma. I also realised it had been a decade since I considered myself part of Children’s Day. But, of course, I had once been a child, and I had once been celebrated. This prompted me to take a trip down memory lane to recall my childhood experiences.
The fact is that as of the early 2000s, there was no internet, to begin with. There were hardly any mobile phones in Nigeria or GSM, as it was referred to back then. So scouting the net for activities was not a practice. Moreover, it was in the mid-2000s that landlines were domestically replaced with the GSM. So any planned activity had to be offline. And the news had to travel within a certain social circle.
News of any fancy activity was restricted to fancy neighbourhood kids who had arranged visits to fancy kids’ fairs, amusement parks and the rest of the hullabaloo typical of the elite social classes in their well-laid-out residences.
As for me, living in a neighbourhood of people from different socio-economic backgrounds meant I had to mingle with what was available. The only place where Children’s Day stimulated jubilee was the Western cultured school I attended outside the neighbourhood. This is because a foreigner co-founded it. The school organised march pasts by carefully selected participants who were expected to participate in school for the parade that day. The rest of us were given leave to remain home as a public holiday.
As one of the children staying home on Children’s Day, I vividly have no recollection of any activity significant to the occasion. Both my parents were working-class citizens who were exempted from the break. Nonetheless, any day off school was never a day wasted. Aside from that, the neighbourhood I grew up in comprised families of different social classes. Some with more exposure than others. That was where my home stood.
My Home
I lived in a few places in my childhood right before teenagerhood. But where my earliest conscious and vivid memories sprouted was from the age of five, when we moved to Gyallesu, Makama Road Zaria. There we lived until I became a decade old.
As mentioned earlier, my neighbourhood, Gyallesu, was a mixed neighbourhood of different socio-economic classes of families.
My home, a semi-detached three-bedroom duplex, comprised four families of similar cultural lineage. Like many post-colonial houses, the design had all rooms opening to living and dining quarters. With an indoor kitchen opening to a backdoor. There were also boys’ quarters of tenants of different ethnic groups, many of whom were students of an FCE nearby.
There was also a businesswoman who was very fond of me. As a tiringly interrogative child, I would arrest her time immediately when she returned from a journey and eagerly listened to her travelogues while munching on her gifts. She was good company, and I would spend many times in her single bedroom.
The other rooms that housed male student tenants were off-limits on adult orders. I was allowed only polite hellos, and any long conversation had to happen in the compound, under the vast open sky. The reason, which I assume many of you will know. But that is a different topic.
I also had friends within my compound. The family we shared a wall with had a daughter roughly my age. We would play together in the mix, attend Islamiyya, and sort out our differences. She was my best friend, and we would explore the neighbourhood outside the confines of our sizeable green-gated compound.
My Neighbourhood
Outside the compound of my home was a street I was not familiar with the name of. This access road ran abreast of my house to the east and west, joining the FCE and Makama roads.
Therefore, my closest neighbours were those along the same access road, on the same and opposite lane. Most houses there were working-class families whose children attended the same school as mine. We would sometimes go together or return the same. On the opposite lane was a polygamous home, a shop, a pharmacy and other homes. The families there were a bit different from ours. Quite content to keep to themselves.
The heart of Gyallesu was the Makama road, which stood perpendicular to one end of our street and was a tarred road bustling with majorly commercial activities. Along it stood provision stores, pharmacies, tailoring shops and a community school. Naturally, children attending the school would face a certain stigma and sometimes object of whispered ridicule by the more affluent kids. But how could the bullies have understood that those kids enjoyed decent education, closer proximity and cheaper fees?
An essential presence in Gyallesu stood at the end of Makama Road. It was called the Banadeen gate, a security entrance gate to our neighbourhood. One that would be helpful in incidental unrest when the notorious Shi’a leader, also a resident of our neighbourhood, put up personal defences right at the gate. The Shiite presence would pose an internal threat constantly to the residents, yet a comfort during the external invasion. Moreover, the gate would only admit workers after clear identification, an added security point.
So, the neighbourhood contained most of the basic amenities necessary for daily activities. Moreover, security was good, and education was also an integral factor, for at its borders were the Ahmadu Bello University Kongo and the FCE.
One thing was sure. Gyallesu, in the early 2000s, was a very good neighbourhood with room for everyone. Its secure atmosphere allowed children to mingle freely within its streets. In those times, the best memories of my childhood were engraved.
The Chronicles
The choice of the word ‘Chronicle was indeed intentional. For in a child’s mind, the memories that stand out the most were those with the most adventure and mischief.
To say there were many memories of my childhood in Gyallesu is understated. But in the turbulence of these memories, as they filled my head with the sweet nectar of satisfaction, were memories that would corner a smile on my lips for one reason or another. Few among them were our play territories, Quranic learning school, extra-curricular activities and my earliest personal achievements.
- Play territories
The first thing you should know about children playing in a neighbourhood is that their guardians always set limits or boundaries. The rush, unfortunately, was on breaking them.
Beyond our approved area of play, we would speedily cycle beyond the approved speed limit considered safe by our parents. This violation did not stop at going beyond approved distances but also to dangerous places.
Remember the water hole Simba and Nala went to after being told strictly by Mufasa not to? Yes, we could take our freshly air-pumped bicycles down dangerously steep slopes to go to a river our parents were likely not aware of its existence, spending hours practising jaw-dropping dares.
Thinking of the imagined thrashing we would get if caught was not worthy of stopping us. So we went anyway.
Children will be children.
- Quranic learning school.
Mischief can be found everywhere, even in the least likely place. My compound friend and I were no exception.
Off Makama Road, we would take the road to our Islamiyya on foot, happily crunching at our remaining break funds we used to buy local delicacies and eat during lessons, which was, of course, frowned upon by teachers.
But the biggest mischief we would put up was finding a reason to race home after lessons. We ensured this by looking for trouble from one person or the other, who clownishly chased us off before my friend’s brother intervened and then threatened to report us back at home. But we would call off his bluff as we thought we also did him a favour by giving him a chance to play the hero of saving us.
We would hide any bruises gained from the ordeal from our parents to prevent further chastise.
- Extra-Curricular Activities
When I say extracurricular activities, I imagine something productive we would engage in outside school and play.
For me, this came as a collective effort by the children of my compound to engage in agricultural activities. We all painstakingly participated in planting mangoes and yams for our imagined consumption shortly. But, alas, our dream was to be short-lived as the neighbourhood goat would intervene and eat up our young sprouts, despite our attempts of barbed wire-fencing the young shoots.
This planted anger in our hearts and enacted our intentions for revenge. But, as fate would have it, the accused goat was caught in action. We took turns torturing the goat, which I would not explain. But in the end, it avoided our territory, and we never planted again.
Thinking of the incident brings satisfaction and shame to my now-adult mind. I have learned that the best memories may not always be the strongest but also the worst.
- Personal Achievements
Above age five, I was beyond being celebrated for milestones. It had to come from something I did in school, at home, or religiously. This memory was from my first attempt at fasting.
At the age of 8, my competitive nature, typical of children, pushed me into attempting 13 hours without food or water.
As a first-timer, the hailing of my siblings and peers got me through the first 10 hours before my biological clock ticked time for protest.
I fought against all pleas and threats to complete the last hour of my fast. Fortunately for me, the Adhan for breaking fast was called just as the silver cup of pap I downed after finishing a plate of Akara touched the table. My mother declared that my fast was valid against the adverse remarks of my disappointed peers.
If you are wondering why I consider this a personal achievement. It is because I think my trial is my most outstanding achievement. The fact that I had not allowed myself to be peer-pressured into my self-prophesied untimely demise was a testament to my strong will and independence.
Conclusion.
Children’s Day may be celebrated differently among different generations. But every childhood is unique per individual.
Now a mother, the childhood I envision for my children is one I hope that someday they remember and cherish the experiences and lessons gained from it.
Happy children’s day to all the children, youth, adults and aged.
Maryam Idris Bappa can be contacted via bappamaryam6@gmail.com.
