MY YELLOWEST MEMORIES

I like to fix memories of my past into packets of colour – yellow for happy and sunny, blue for bored, red for angry or nervous, green for ill and black for depressed. It’s a lot easier to appreciate those memories when I paint them and tuck into corners of my mind.

Yellow was my happy moments; the period I was carefree, gullible and when I didn’t have an idea what a migraine was. Yellow was between age six to ten; losing my front teeth, getting my first pair of jeans trousers and finally getting the freedom to decide on my own what I wear to church.

I remember days spent in the garden in front of the house growing beans and tomatoes (those were the only things that agreed to sprout after we poured the seeds on the hungry soil without actually burying them) with my best friends Kemi and Chiamaka. We watched our seeds grow and were proud to offer a few bean stalks to our mothers to cook for us which I’m sure they ended up throwing away behind our backs. I remember listening to songs from Everly Brothers – songs like ‘Take a message to Mary’, ‘Ebony Eyes’ and ‘She’s a Bird Dog’ were my favourites at the time. I remember picking almond fruits from beneath the trees with my friends; we called them ‘ebelebo’ back then. After eating the fleshy part, we would march to Kemi’s house where she would sneak inside to find out if her father was around. Once the confirmation was made that he was out, we would use the vice in the garage to crush the seeds in order to get the nuts out. It was much easier than my fragile arms hammering away on the stubborn seeds with a stone that would start to scatter after the first contact.

I remember hopping on one leg while playing ‘King’ on the corridor, darting in and out of ‘Game Box’ and playing ‘Skiskiskilolo’ which entailed hiding a bundle of sticks in the most ridiculous place ever so that the last person to find the sticks took the next turn in hiding them. I remember cooking eba and ogbono soup in the garden with ground hibiscus flowers and sand. By the way, did you know that crushing hibiscus flowers make them yucky and sticky? Bet you didn’t know. I remember pretending to be a teacher with a long cane flogging my students very often and with much aggression. My students, of course were the flowers at the front of my house. My parents always looked dismayed when they returned home to find their well trimmed flowers looking like a swarm of locusts had dealt with them. I remember sucking the sugary nectar from the flower stalks of ixora plants and eating the ripe black seeds. I wonder now why poison didn’t finish me then with the strange things I ate.
Rewind back three to four years earlier - primary school.

As an incentive to make us come top three positions in class, my parents decided that they would reward our efforts with ‘special presents’. The first position was to get...um...I think it was a cold bottle of coke, a whole loaf of bread (yes, sad to think that all those years, bread was actually our heaven on earth...sigh...such a waste!) and a tin of sardine. The second was everything minus the sardine and the third was just coke. So, with such an incentive, who would not want to come first three? I must add that if you are reading this and we were in the same class in primary school, I apologise for stealing your joy but now you understand why it was really important for me to maintain my spot.

The days for collecting my results were usually the longest. I wouldn’t be able to sleep and during breakfast when my father gave side comments I would pretend not to hear just so the tension would ease out of me. My mother was a teacher in the same school so it made matters even worse because I didn’t want any of my parents to hear about my results before me just in case of any disappointment.
The assembly that usually started as early as eight would delay till almost twelve. Now, I wonder if it were not a deliberate attempt by the teachers to punish me even more...then finally...the dreaded bell that would cause my throat to dry up. Standing in line with the others, my knees would actually be knocking together until the headmistress announced my class and...
After collecting my report card, waiting for my daddy was an agony because the excitement bubbling in my stomach would cause me to run all the way home on broomstick legs waving the card in the air. My father would return early from work just so he can see our cards. At the time, my immediate younger sister and I were the only ones who knew what to expect; the third child was a toddler then. My mother would prepare us a special meal to celebrate and if while we were eating, we heard the familiar honk of my father’s car we would run out with dirty fingers jumping and chanting into the air, “daddy, daddy, I came first!”
With a huge smile plastered on his face, my father would lead us into the sitting room where he would announce that we were to be given our special gifts and then we would proceed to the dance we enjoyed. Flapping our hands like birds and nodding our heads while walking around the room in a single line with my father in front and the two of us behind, we would sing an improvised song I am too embarrassed to write down.

Sigh...if only today’s children knew what they are missing.

PS: if you are my mum or dad reading this, my phone is not available at the moment...try again later.