It was the summer holidays, and we had a month before school resumed. I definitely had no plans to stay at home for four long weeks doing absolutely nothing.
So it was a big relief when my dad asked me and my sister Danielle if we would love to visit our grandma for the holidays. We both shouted 'Yes' in unison, mom wasn't really surprised, she knew we both wanted and probably needed some time away from home.
A week later dad drove us to the village, it took us about six hours to get from the city to our grandma's village, it was a little tiresome but dad bought us a lot of snacks along the way, and also we stopped at an ice cream palace to get our favorite ice cream and rest for a while.
We got to grandma's house around 4 PM in the evening, and it was a really nice house compared to the other houses around, she had solar panels because the electricity was not stable, running water, and galvanized roofing sheets, basically. I guess dad and my uncles wanted her to be as comfortable as possible, since she stubbornly refused to move in with any of them.
She was so happy to see us, she said she'd been asking dad to bring us over for the holidays for a very long time and he finally brought us, we looked at him giving grandma his sweetest smile, and all I wanted to say was 'If only you'd asked us sooner"
She hugged and hugged and hugged us before we went with dad to bring our bags inside. Dad was going to stay the night and travel back home the next morning. Some boys living close by were helping grandma pound yam in the backyard, and she hurried them up, because she wanted us to eat before doing anything else.
'Soup will be ready soon' she said as she served me pounded yam, I had to hold the ceramic plate with both hands, because the quantity of food on it was way more than what one person should eat.
And after what seemed longer than it was, I was served very little vegetable soup to accompany the humongous mound of pounded yam I was served earlier. I quietly sat at the dinning table and began to battle my dinner, moulding, dipping and swallowing until I could eat no more.
The vegetable soup was properly garnished with crayfish, roasted bushmeat and fried fish, arguably the best I'd eaten in a long while. After I stuffed myself to the brim, I sat there for sometime, waiting for the food to digest a little. Danielle on the other end of the table had less luck, she had splattered oil on herself while trying to tear the meat lion style.
After dinner, we washed up, sat with grandma and caught up after a very long time, relieving past memories. After chatting for about two hours, she showed us round the compound. It was only after this that she left us to ourselves and called dad in for a chat.
Danielle and I went into the room we were to stay in and got ready to sleep, at about 9 PM dad called us for prayers, we went into grandma's rooms for prayers and retired into our rooms for night.
The next morning was the beginning of a series of events that strengthened my decision to come to the village again.
We woke around 6:30 AM, the sharp ring from my G-Shock wrist watch jeered us into full wakefulness. We brushed our teeth and headed into the living room to meet grandma, who embraced us even as I tried to prostrate, and my sister tried kneeling down to greet her. We then went to greet dad, who was just coming into the living room.
After the morning prayers, Danielle and I divided the house chores amongst ourselves and got busy cleaning the whole place, after we finished cleaning both inside the house and the compound, Danielle went to assist grandma in the kitchen while I went to wash dad's car in preparation for his return journey.
The morning went by in a blur, after breakfast dad traveled back home. It was a little boring at first, then grandma suggested that we go and meet other kids at the village square, it was that time of the year that the teenagers in the village took on different projects to contribute to the growth of the village.
We acquainted ourselves with the other kids quite easily, then the youth leader explained out job for the next few days, we were to assist in building stalls for the new market. The boys went to the saw mill to load planks into the lorry, while some assisted the carpenters and brick layers at the site. While the girls prepared the meals, and fetched water for mixing the concrete.
There was a lot of food to eat, I had my mouth stuffed most of the time, enough to make me forget that I was working really hard. In the evenings after our community project we would sit around a fire and listen to interesting tales, or sing and dance around the fire. It was so amazing and for me nothing in the city could beat that.
On different occasions I followed the boys to a nearby river to fish, and to hunt birds and bushmeat with catapults, and there was this one time I nailed a grass cutter myself, it was a lucky headshot and when we roasted it I was given the largest share.
It was all fun, but after two weeks dad came to pick us, I was very happy to see him and I was really excited to tell him about our community projects and hunting trips. On careful inspection he noticed the scars I got from running around in the bush chasing rodents. But knowing that as a male child it was bound to happen, he did not scold me too much.
It was a little sad leaving grandma, but she made dad promise to bring us some other time as we'd agreed with her earlier.
Life in the city is amazing, but there is no harm in coming to the village every once in a while to breathe in fresh country air.
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