Childhood is a stage of attentive learning. The things we get to know, we take it religiously, even though sometimes we assimilate the wrong things. I remember the song “standard living.” We pronounced it with our baby tongue and changed it to “sandalili sandalili.” I guess it stuck with us. Now I begin to wonder if we didn’t have any teacher to correct us then. Anyway, today I will share the things we took as facts that turned out to be lies.
1) IF YOU SWALLOW SEED, THE SEED WILL GROW INSIDE YOU AND BECOME A TREE
(laughs) I really took this seriously. When I eat agbalumo or drink watermelon, I will remove all the seeds first before I can enjoy my fruit. I remember the day mistakenly swallowed pawpaw seed. Yee! All hell loose. I shouted and cried like a mad woman. When my mom heard why I was crying, she laughed ehn. I had to stop crying to look at her. She explained that it was impossible for a seed to grow in a person’s stomach. I stopped crying for the peace of the house but I secretly still believed in the lie. I always got scared when I fell sick. My mom would make fun of me that it was because the seed was already germinating. (lol) Let’s move on to the next.
2) IF YOU SWALLOW A GUM, THE GUM CAN GUM ALL YOUR INTESTINES
You have to have believed this. I heard this one from school. This really scared me. I stayed away from the gum. If I actually do eat gum, I eat it cautiously in order not to swallow it. I have swallowed it many times but it wasn’t as bad as the very first one. I would pray immediately after I swallow it that the gum should digest normally. (chuckles)
3 ) IF FOOD DROPS ON THE FLOOR, YOU HAVE TO PICK IT UP BEFORE 3 SECONDS PASS IF NOT THE DEVIL WILL EAT IT
Gosh! I now realize that I wasted a lot of food. I watched out for any incident and when there was, I was the first to point it out. Whenever it happened to me, I was extremely pained. However, I have no choice but to throw it out. The pain hits hard when the food was something you really begged for. When it finally gets to your hand it slips. The shock alone makes me forget that I had three seconds to pick it up before the devil eats it. Most of us used it as an edge. Whenever we did not want to take our medications, we make it “mistakenly” slip out from our hands. I tried it too but it didn’t work. The drug slipped out of my hand. I was given a dangerous bombastic side-eye by my mom. It was enough to convince me to never try that method to escape medications.
4) IF YOU TAKE MONEY THAT IS NOT YOURS FROM THE GROUND, YOU WILL TURN TO A YAM
(laughs) I think the idea of this was from a popular Alfa Sule comedy, “Soji” The boy Soji took money from the ground and got frozen. Anyone who decided to help him by touching him also got frozen with him. It was mainly after watching this comedy I started hearing this. However, it kind of scared me a little. Any amount I was with, I always held it tight so it wouldn’t fall and I would not turn into a yam.
Looking back, it Is so hard to actually think that I was scared of or believed these things. It turns out that many of these lies were told to us to discourage us from doing certain things. These things made childhood exciting and fun.
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Spot on, especially that number 3 even other lies like If you eat beans you will grow tall, If you whistle in the night you are calling snake