Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The First Thing I Remember

My maiden memory of life is of my brothers and I silhouetted outdoors, and stargazing on a dark night, and then scuttling up the dark stairway in the 'TV House' in Kumasi with 'Champion' the beautiful, big, brown-and-white dog. What's yours?

26 comments:

  1. Anonymous21 July, 2009

    My earliest memories of growing up are inextricably connected with the house on 19th street. Dull blue with a tin gray roof, no beauty was immediately obvious to any onlooker. The centre of our lives within it was an old shortwave radio of the type popularized by Sanyo, around which we huddled, guided by the tall slender frame of my grandfather and honed our addiction to Liverpool football club.

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  2. We rarely look back to our first moments in life that truely defines who we are and yet we all spend much time trying to define ourselves by the future and what we r going to do...Too bad i dont really have much memories to share...

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  3. In a village near Suhum called Coaltar, my Community Health Nurse mum brought me up. My earliest memory in that tiny village, whose roads screams for bitumen (yet named after one) is one of fear. There was a police station situated on the road leading to the village crèche with one particular policeman who wore a bushy beard. He always frightened me so my mother would have to use any possible route that would take me away from him and usually it is the longest route. Sometimes she would force me through and I would weep like it's nobody's business...

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  4. In my home village, when I stood at our backyard, i could make out the lights of the city. It was always my desire to one day get into the city and stay there. I remember too the smell of rain on the colad hard earth, the sundays when we all went to church and, of course, who can forget Xmas!

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  5. Well, Poetry, I'm taken aback by your very vivid recollection and description. It was a great joy reading. Thank you for sharing.

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  6. I'm sure you do have memories of your early years. But I still like what you said about our first moments defining much of our present lives. It is deep.

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  7. Wow, Nana F, vivid recollection here too. What is your current relationship with (1) cops, and (2) men with bushy beards? It would be interesting to know. Hey, your little description of your community was very compelling.

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  8. Pen Powder, the city lights, the smell of the rain, church on Sunday and Christmas are very strong and sharp triggers. They are great memory joggers, or rather, they are threads of memory that never really go away.

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  9. Scary looking man in a lab coat mumbles something to the woman holding me still. I suppose they call her mama. She must love me the most. He on the other hand, holds my right thumb and inflicts the worst pain I ever had. All I see is red! Surely, I must not belong to him! Memories of this woman called mama, sleeping by my side in that aweful hospital back in Techiman! I must have been about 2 or 3 even though they say your earliest memory begins at about 3. How do I remember? I still have that scar from that pain he inflicted!

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  10. It would be my black pick up truck which was about half my size. It had police lights and all the noise generated by an approaching Head of an African State to go with it. I insisted of playing with it in the corridor on the polished wooden floor. My dad would come out of his room and carry the pick-up to the hall and place it on the carpet. His bedroom door would close and I'd promptly return to the sweet wooden surface only for the process to be repeated. Being a frustrating child is one of my first memories.

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  11. My first memory is from the age of 3 (or 4?) back in Swaziland. I confidently told my mum that from that day I was going to start dressing myself. She laughed. I then climbed to the top of a really steep wardrobe to get my favorite outfit. She was shocked and horrified. My second memory was trying to get my mother's attention at the age of 4 while she was busy studying. She just wouldn't listen so I started turning the light on and off until I stuck my finger in the socket and electrocuted myself. That definitely got my poor mum's attention!

    PS Your question to Nana F about his current relationship with 1) Police 2) Men with bushy beards had me in stitches!

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  12. Wow to you, as well, Maxine. Great recall. Pain is another good trigger of graphic memory. I love the way you transported yourself (and us too) back to those days subtly, with the way in which you described your mother.

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  13. Sweet recall, KFC. You guys are really blowing me away. Polic truck, huh? You could not have been friends with Nana F when you were both kids, lol. And of course the slender nature of the corridor and the parquet floors had more fidelity to a real street that the wide, carpeted living room. Nice memories, thou frustrating infant!

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  14. Fashionista at 4, Aby? Cool. Athelete too, for how you hopped onto the dresser. Like with Maxine, pain (electrocution) has apparently served you well, as a trigger.

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  15. somewhere in Kakata Liberia where i got locked up in the kitchen (1st floor of a one story-building) for refusing to take a spoonful of 'Seven-Seas' oil cos it was... oh my God! ...back then!

    Samuel Doe was large and in charge then foolishly then as if all were waiting for Charles Tailor to bring more chaos!

    yes back then, and in my stubborn quest to set my soul free i responded to the baiting sight of a ladder behind the kitchen window only to find myself midway down mid-air without a parachute! ouch!

    the mark never left my forehead even though my mum's caring touches soothed it ok. somehow i guess the remainder is to let her know never to lock me a baby boy alone in a whole house just for refusing a 'tasteless' medicine. never again! else i'd do worse! i promise on my honour!

    today, i look in the mirror and smile.

    but now, i take oil without even making a face!

    Nana, thanks for making me relive that moment!

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  16. hehehehe,

    i talk about Doe and Tailor almost as if i knew them back then.

    for the records, i was nowhere near understand such human nature! i had just moved on about 4years after my truimphant 'tadpole' swim from inside my dad to inside my mum; i know because i was the one who did the swiming!(that makes about 3 yrs breathing on earth).

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  17. ;-) i was 4 years old, i was being interviewed by Mrs. Forson (bless her soul, i loved that woman). Nursery too interview dey lol!
    She lined up certain articles for me to identy, the first was a cup.
    M.F: what is this?
    Me: "corpo" (i said it in Ga)
    M.F: what is it used for
    Me: tea and water.
    Lol!

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  18. i have seen lots of childhood pictures of myself sitting on the floor holding a big cup of cocoa tea(the size of my head)lol! Interestingly, my face never shows in any of the images, i'm too busy gulping down the contents of my cup. Gone are the days when i use to soak pieces of bread in my tea.

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  19. Oooooh, Novisi, I remember my own unpalatable Cod Liver Oil days. I bet that was when your mama realised she had her own SuperNov!

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  20. Again, Novisi, it's great to know that you remember your pre-foetal days. You remember your triumphant inter-body swim, huh? Lol!

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  21. Lucci, Lol. You guys all remember funny childhood events. Corpo paaaa? Lol. Great memory too, for remembering the dialogue!

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  22. Again, Lucci, it would be interesting to know your adult relationship with cups! Know what I mean? ;-)

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  23. The incredible stories, myths and legends we were routinely told about ghosts, river gods and other monsters before bedtime by an uncle.
    Scary, chilling and yet irresistible.

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  24. Oh yes, Posekyere, the stories of deities, dwarfs and trolls cannot be forgotten!

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  25. NY,lomao. Which "cups" r u referring to? ;-)

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  26. Lucci, you know what it is!

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