Throughout my childhood days, I cannot count the many lies that was dished to me and my siblings. In fact some of them we so believed and held on to that we even went ahead to sell them to our ignorant friends at school. One of such lies that I held onto for a long time before the light of understanding shed into my brain was one connected to excreta.
It so happened that our compound was not fenced yet and while we would be indoors doing the usual family stuffs or sleeping, unknown persons would stroll into our compound and defecate at our backyard. We would open the door to go out in the morning only to be greeted with the disgusting sight of faeces in our yard. One day my mum out of anger sent me to bring fuel for her and a pack of match sticks.
I wondered what she needed the fuel and matches for. "Does mom want to kill someone ni ? " I thought. I brought the fuel in a can plus the match sticks to her, she collected them and said that she would burn the excreta so that the one who did it would have a swollen bumbum and be exposed. Ah, mummy is that true? " I asked amazed at such a theory. She responded in the affirmative with a strong conviction owning to her many years of belief in that ideology. I watched her as she indeed made good on her words by pouring fuel on the excreta and striking a match to burn it up.
I began to wait for the news of anyone in our community who miraculously got a swollen butt so that I could also enforce some beatings on him or her for such atrocious acts but no news was forthcoming. The only noticeable change was that since my mom burnt up the excreta, the acts stopped and we all assumed that the "ritual" worked. After a while, I went to play with some friends at the community field when one of them named Aisha screamed for us to watch out because there was excreta on a small patch of grass close to where we were standing. I quickly remembered my mom's tactics and sought for fuel and matches to burn up the excreta but I couldn't find any at all and I didn't want to go back to my house to get some.
Aisha then asked me why I needed the fuel and that was how I sold them the lie that it would cause the culprit to have a swollen bumbum and he or she would be exposed. Thinking about this event now after many years has passed, I can't help but shake my head to the many lies that I held on to which were sold to me by one relative or another. Till date though, whenever I stumble upon an excreta by the wayside or a bush path, I recall that lie, smile and shake my head at my feeble child mind that believed such tales.
Thanks for reading.
Image source: Meta Ai
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