Child Of The Water

Sometimes I feel parents should allow their children to explore things and different lifestyles instead of caging them and preventing them from hanging out with other children or participating in the adventures their mates are involved in. This has become very rampant in today's world where children can no longer be seen on the street engaging in activities as simple as football.

I'm sure you don’t know why I brought up this “too modern” way of parenting.

Back in the days when we were growing up in the village, every parent dreaded the thought of their children going to the rivers, which we had in abundance in my community.

Although it wasn’t their fault, because the rivers were spiritually inclined and flowed with high currents which resulted in people drowning (both children and adults) every now and then. But if not for the stubbornness and spirit of adventure we displayed, I wouldn’t have known how to swim.

“So you can swim?” Yes, very well!

At the back of our street was the flow of the River Ethiope, whose source (worldwide) is in the next community we share a boundary with. Those days, especially during the dry season, we would sneak out from school to go to the river to enjoy the sweet flow of the water, with competitions on who could swim the fastest and furthest. We would also compete to see who could dive deeper into the river’s depth where the white sand was, and the evidence was bringing out the white sand in our hands. And the craziest thing was that the river was a natural one, having aquatic animals in it such as fishes, snakes, and other dangerous creatures. Most parts of the river were covered with dirt, making it hard to see the depth, but even with that, we swam in it without fear.

Those days, we would go to the river and practically sleep there (I mean, spending the whole day in the water), even knowing that we would be flogged mercilessly at night when we returned home.

There was one particular river that all the parents in my street would gather to flog hell out of someone if they heard we had visited it. It was the Bridge River, where vehicles moving at high speed plied the road, and those vehicles claimed lives continuously. With that fear, parents didn’t allow their children to go there. But hey, that river was the most fun one because we would somersault from the top of the bridge into the high-current river below. Oh my God! What a sweet feeling.

Back in the days, due to my very light complexion, anytime I pulled off my clothes to swim, people would say I was a child of the river because my complexion would glitter inside the water unlike the other black guys. In case you don’t know, we were made to believe that the rivers were owned or occupied by goddesses—and it’s very true, because occasionally we saw things and heard news about strange happenings in the water. Also, a lot of people travelled from far and near to the rivers to make sacrifices in worship of the goddess of the river.

Mehn, those days were really fun. It’s just sad that this modern way of life no longer encourages such adventurous lifestyles.

Thanks for reading.

This is my entry to Week 191, Edition 03 of the Weekly Featured contest in Hive Learners Community

Images used are mine