Joyful Chants of Childhood

Apr 25, 2025

Childhood (noun) 🗣️ /ˈtʃaɪld.hʊd/

:the state or period of being a child

This is for the children we were. For the chants we outgrew. For the ones we lost, and the few we still hold.

They say, “Ogun omode ko se ere fun ogun odun.” Twenty children will not play together for twenty years. I used to hear it and laugh, thinking surely we were the exception. Surely our chants would last forever. But time is a patient teacher. It has shown me that even the closest hands must one day loosen their grip. And we must be ready to let go.

Still, that truth brought echoes in my mind that refuse to fade. They reflect the sounds of several chants back to me, laughter fastened to sand munch and pebbles thrown, while the owners of cars would yell, “E ma wo moto mi o (be watchful of my car)! If you break the glass, you are in trouble!”

Memories travel to mango trees where we picked ripened fruits, to chalk-drawn lines etched into dusty grounds, to Buju buju o, to Ten Ten, to After Round One or Who is in the garden?, then to games of truth or dare in unconditioned classrooms, and on to vigorous texting about gists and amebo that would make our parents say, “You and phone, always! That’s why you keep burning food. In fact, give me the phone, you will collect it after third term.”

And when you got to school the next day, you’d tell your friends they had seized your phone, then Chinelo, a girl whose parents said she wouldn’t have a phone until university, would laugh her lungs out and say, “You are temporarily welcome to the group.”

Childhood was loud in the most innocent way, and I, one of many voices, sang along. But no one tells you the chants don’t last forever, until the last minute. I remember them now in shards. Nkem, with the crooked tooth and legs that never stopped moving, who could outrun any boy and bawl her eyes out if she wasn’t allowed to join them in playing football.

I remember Tinuke, whose parents restricted from playing with us. She’d watch through the iron bars of their gate, pressing her face against the cold metal like she was missing the world. Ugo, who always brought cabin biscuits to share, only for his mother to show up, shouting that he had stolen them from her shop. Peace, who insisted on playing mummy and daddy with Kehinde, always forcing me to be their child because of how small I was.

We played until the sun folded itself into the arms of night, and the moon shone down on us, casting a glow on the dissatisfied frowns on our faces as our mothers called us home.

After closing hours from secondary school, we would walk home together, shouting at the top of our lungs, school bags bouncing off our backs or weighing us down. Someone would say, “Did you see Miss Oke’s skirt? It’s that same blue one she wore today o, upon that she will be beating someone.” And at the same time, another person would add, “Math teacher flogged AJ today, ehen! But my guy chest am. No tears at all!” and then several arguments would follow. It’s what singled us out as children, the shared noise, the chaotic joy, the feeling that the world was small enough to hold you all together.

Sometimes I wonder if those moments knew they would become memories. If Bukola knew we were going to drift apart after secondary school, not because of any quarrel but because life quietly got in the way, and if Jamal knew we would become best of friends years after graduation, during one random WhatsApp conversation about ASUU strikes and then we started asking why we weren’t this close back then. If God looked at us, full joy, and said, this too is part of your story.

Back then, friendship was simple. You only had to live on the same street, stand beside each other during morning assembly, laugh at the same Nollywood movie line or unrealistic part, argue about who is stronger: Superman or Thor, you both hate Chemistry or Math, or you both had zero in a physics test. That was enough. You didn’t need to know if someone’s parents were struggling with rent or if their house help was the one raising them. We just needed a skipping rope, ball, bare feet hardened from running in the sun, a water machine gun, shibije, suwe drawn in sand, maybe a rubber band or two, and the will to chase each other around until the sky turned orange.

Sometimes the bond was sealed over shared Chin-Chin during break time or both of us getting punished together for noise-making. And those Whot cards, those innocent Whot cards our parents would throw away, warning us that gambling starts like this, that it’s “the devil’s tool.” They didn’t know we just wanted to play a game and see who wins. We weren’t betting on anything, we just wanted to play

But then, slowly, it started to change. Primary school scattered us a little. Secondary school, more so. Some of us moved to other towns, states, countries, lives. The chants became fewer. The laughter turned into phone calls, 2go-ing, Facebook-ing, then silence. However, I held on to the memories like prayer chaplets. Sometimes, I lost one.

Because there was Chika. Sweet, sweet Chika. The one with the loudest laugh, most brilliant, full of energy, admired by students and teachers alike. I remember how she’d swish through the JSS3 block, writing “Slap me on my head” on a paper and pasting it on someone’s back just to start chaos. She died… even before she could grow into her dreams. Before any of us could say a proper goodbye.

As human as I am, I had forgotten her until someone posted the news in our alumni group chat. I searched my memory for who she was, and the pieces came, bits of her life etched in my mind. That day, I actually realized that sometimes, we don’t outgrow friendships. Earth just takes them back.

By university, friendship became something more fragile. We met in between lectures, shared trauma over being broke, midnight cooking, and looming deadlines. We loved each other in full-blown gists, in shouting lyrics to loud music, in group chats that buzzed long past midnight. And if you had slept off, you’d wake up to over a thousand messages.

But some of these friends are echoes now. Only a few still dangle around us. Purpose, passion, or pain has placed us on different roads. And I no longer try to make our paths align. Because I’ve learned that love doesn’t always need presence to be real.

Still, sometimes I pause and wonder if they think of me too, the little girl with ink-stained fingers and the young adult with a thousand questions. If they remember how we chanted our names like incantations. Or if they’ve finally learned, like I have, that Leke leke never had the power to bless us with a white mark on our nails, that it was just one of those little lies we clung to because it made childhood feel enchanted.

If they, too, feel the quiet. Because the truth is, children don’t play together for long. And nobody prepares you for that.