It is always laughable and amazingly surprising when grown-ups recall a number of dimwit acts they engaged in during their childhood days. In fact everyone! Including you [who is currently taking a read] obviously have a number of laughable moments to shed in this light as well.
One such instant we shall zoom into comes whilst being a young student in a typical Ghanaian society. With an unfolding youthful exuberance, it is general knowledge that children seem to be strongly attached to their peers and would almost always want to hang around with them to do things they have equal interests in. Although this is nothing surprising, one dangerous outing students cherish most comes when they have any opportunity whatsoever to find themselves outside their school premises during school hours.
More specifically, the joy felt by most students when they are sacked to go home for owing school fees is so special to them that celebrations must take place. Though not going down well with school administrators of Grace Baptist School, the rationale behind these sacks was to fast remind parents and guardians that their ward’s deadline for fee payments were due. Being close friends Kamus, Felix, Kelvin, and I had to face this at certain points in our early schooling days. So surprising enough, the smallish Kelvin, who never owed school fees usually found his own weird ways of partaking in almost all our off-class expeditions whilst a number of us were sacked.
As a secret to teachers, the usual victims of this sack never plied routes back home immediately. The plan then was to make sure the day runs out as quickly as possible so that returning home from school during the normal closing times would neither indicate to parents nor guardians that something undesired had actually happened since morning. This insane practice granted us the chance to engage in whatever activity we desired. As we pretend to be going home, we sectioned ourselves into groups – each consisting of friends with similar interests. Whilst other groups quickly rushed to showcase their gaming prowess at various game centers, others followed friends – who knew very well their parents have already left for work, to either watch the latest movies or to engage in other activities they desired.
Kamus, Felix, Kelvin, and myself were not left out as we usually took routes to basically explore. Of course, this friend (Kelvin) who has not been sacked for non-payment of school fees still finds ways to join us outside the school premises and decides to take the group to his house. En-route to Kelvin’s house, the serenity of the environment which was sited within an educational institution got all our noises magnified very loudly as we playfully wandered in the bushes around.
However, aside the plays we enjoyed, one enlightening aspect was one we grasped in developing our love for the arts. Kelvin’s house was more like a library but having both of his parents being teachers was enough to justify this.
The magnanimity of those books were just striking to us at that young age. We were only left in owe as to how someone could dare finish reading any of those. In this situation, we could only randomly pick up some books from the shelf to merely flip through the pages in search of beautiful paintings. Obviously, there was no way we could have understood explanations given in renowned novels like J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’, Charles Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’ as well as Wilhelm & Jacob Grim’s ‘Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs’. The pictures we found catchy in these books were our only solace as we usually tried to replicate those drawings on plain pieces of papers we found around. This particular engagement was something we always cherished. Remember, all these were done at the expense of going back home to report to our guardians weve been sacked. Weird!
And of course, being quite closer to our school just as Kelvin’s, Felix’s house was our next destination during the “fees-sack” period. The spacious yard which laid in front of Felix’s house was enough to make our footballing masterclass and juggles so evident. Felix, who’s footballing talent was comparable to the pacey and skillful Brazilian legend, Robinho. This special trait gave Felix the upper hand to serve as a neutral player in instances we had an additional companion to make the group odd in number. Kamus, who was not that skillful was simply a goal poacher. He had no patience for what he classified as “unnecessary skills”. Hahaha! His strategic positioning as a striker was no different from the efficient German forward, Thomas Müller.
For Kelvin, he had no real talent in football. His only joy in football always came in rough tackles. He loved to just stop anyone coming up against him even if it meant he had to cause a foul. I must admit, it was difficult for anyone to have aggressive Kelvin on his team. Around this small field of ours were muddy swamps and short walls (leading to other houses), which slowed the fluidity of our gaming sensation. But certainly, this spiced up our joys. Whenever it finally dawned on us to disperse to our homes, Felix always successfully moved into the kitchen to find something for the group to eat. Personally, I always enjoyed this feast.
From Kelvin’s house to Felix’s house our strolling options were sufficient and these formed relevant parts of our enjoying moments whilst growing up. Though the cause of our strolls were borne out of undesired circumstances, we can all say that these engagements of ours contributed positively in imbibing into us a strong foundation towards being bibliophiles and sports lovers. Taking our minds back to recount these moments as childhood friends, we have now been convinced that,
” When the going gets tough…” as Joseph P. Kennedy said, “… the tough gets going “.
Indeed, when finding education in class got tough, finding it in Kelvin’s house got going. Similarly, when finding joy with mates in class got tough, finding it in Felix’s house got going.
Friends, certainly, we shall face good days and bad days. Having bad days in our lives is, as humans, inevitable. However, it is up to us to either accept those difficulties, failures and disappointments as cons or to turn those around towards positivity.
Motivated by the saying,
“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results”,
let’s try to create positivity around the undesired situations we face in our daily endeavors. In that case, we shall be doing a lot of good to ourselves. Dear! Stay hopeful and continue to stick to the rightful deeds because they shall surely yield desired results at last.
Peace!
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Great work
Thank you, Kamal