Christmas In My Boyhood -By Onyejaka Alex Arinze

Christmas is in the air again. The mood is always the same every year. It is a season of joy and fun. Being an holidays period, it affords us opportunity to exploit. This year, it brings back memories of my growing up in Asaba during Christmas period. I wish share it. We often engaged in many activities to keep ourselves busy. There were tales by moonlight.

Compound versus compound football matches. We also had hide and seek game. We played Ludo game and circus. It’s been over a decade i visited Marine, the place of my birth and childhood. Let me tell you a little bit of life in Marine road in those days of my boyhood. It was a suburb but rustic. It derives its name from the famous River Niger. From our house compound we could see the bank of the river. We were told that it was Mungo Park, an earlier Portuguese who visited Africa, discovered River Niger. I’m still confused with the veracity of this.

River Niger wasn’t more than 400 metres away from our house. Our parents never allowed us to swim in the river like most children did. They feared we could get drawn. I usually accompanied my friends to the river to swim. Sometimes, they hunt for fishes with their local made nets. Unlike me and my siblings, they were not afraid of being drawn. Their parents or older ones taught them how to swim. There’re children whose parents were mostly from riverine area of Delta state and River state. Most of our parents were in the same social economic bracket. Low income earners and petty traders. My parents were among the traders. Most of the inhabitants in Marine were non-indigenes of Asaba.

They were mainly Igbo speaking natives from Anambra, Imo, Enugu and ebony. We reared fowls and goats and other domestic animals. They moved round uncontrolled. They leave their pens in the morning and come back at dust. They served as meats during Christmas and in other festive times. We lived communal lives. There was a strong values excepted from every child. Parents begets a child but it was the responsibilities of the community to stir the child. It was a big community made up of yards. Each compound was called a yard. Every yard had ten to twelve families depending on the size. Life was relatively peaceful at night. There were few stories of robbery incidents. There’s a police station directly adjacent to our compound. Infact, we shared the same fencing blocks. It was dirtiest police post I had ever seen. The building housing the police station was not fit to inhibite even animals. We had not faith in their batons and one pistol firearm. We protected ourselves. No, we believed in the efficacy of our prayers for God’s protection.

Christmas always came earlier to us the children in Marine road. We anticipated it with carol songs. Block rosary was a breeding ground for children of Catholic faith but to us it was all inclusive. It played effective roles during Christmas. We would be taught new Christmas songs, and we would visit different compounds to sing. We were being guided by Adults whom we referred to as “brothers”. They coordinated us and planed all our activities. It was usually a night affair so we moved around with gas-powered light and candles. We raised a lot of money from Christmas Carol patrols. We didn’t get to know how the money would be utilised after the Carol service. Perhaps the brothers knew. We never complained.

Another Christmas activities we fancied so much was the display of our masquerade. We had our own made masquerade. We called it “mmonwu” in Igbo language. It’s a peer group association. I was one among my peers who were brave to be dressed and masked as mmonwo. We had our drums and ogene.

As wearer of mmonwo you must be brave and fearless. You must be a good dancer to attract adult admirers who would spread us money. We did must for the money than entertainment. We faced attack from rivals from other groups. It was more of a battle for territory supremacy. At the end we would settle our differences and become friends. Do children of this days engage in these activities again? I doubt.

Onyejaka Alex Arinze