My Early Childhood

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If you wanna discover who you are, try to discover your childhood.

Just like any other kid, my childhood memories are still fresh and I can never forget how lovely it is to be a young boy trying to learn and grow the right way as my childhood was filled with UPS and DOWNS. Series of events that took place when I was young, let me not bore you with introduction, but go straight to what it was like when I was young.

I was the type that loved going to school then but with the help of an incentive given to me by my mum, you want to know what it was?, BISCUIT. It was the real encouragement I got back then that made me go to school everyday. One biscuit in the morning for going to school and one in the afternoon for doing my assignment. This gave me no choice but to take my education to be of importance than any other thing. Thanks to my mum.

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Hailing from a poor family, I spent my entire childhood in the ghetto with other kids playing after school hours where ever we find to be fun. I was not the best when it comes to playing football, but I was the captain of our small but mighty battalion because of my ability to think and find means of defeating our opponents. Let me list out some of our traditions then while I was young.

1. After each football match, we must practice the martial art by fighting each other with the skills we might have learnt while watching movies. (this is one of the reasons why my parents don't agree to allowing me to watch movies)

2. The owner of the ball to be played gets to decide what team he wants and how the match will be like (reason why most of us save to buy ball)

3. You can get as many as possible yellow cards as long as blood does not come out from body of whoever is injured, but if we see blood; that is a straight red card

4. The not so good footballers are always chosen as the goal keeper (any objection to this means you are not playing with us)

5. The most skillful player will be chosen by casting lots (no one wants to be on the loosing side)

We were always happy when ever it is weekend, cos we know we have all the time in the world to play (from morning till evening). Whenever there is no ball to play and we do have money to buy, we make masks with papers and we go about singing, moving from one house to the next collecting money from parents. The one whose parents give us the highest amount decides how we will get the ball and share the remaining. But sometimes I get the privilege of sharing the money cos they all trusted me.

Sometimes we get fed up playing ball, the other options we go for :

1. Get our catapult and start hunting for games.
2. Go to a river to catch fishes and crabs.
3. Get a wood and drill a small hole inside to make what we call Racket, put the contents of the match stick head in the hole, hey a suitable nail that will fit the hole and strike it against the wall to make a sound just like banger. (anyone who buys matches for us will lead us round the community while we play with our racket

My childhood story is more than this, but for the sake of this post, I will end it here. One thing I have gotten from my childhood is that **I have been able to discover myself after discovering what I used to do as a child. I was the type that possessed great leadership qualities, I was the think tank of my friends, and this has made me realise my purpose in life. I was born to lead, to create solutions to problems, to make the world a better place.

The short story is in response to the contest organised by @averageoutsider. Here is the link to get the full gist