JUST ONLY YESTERDAY. YES! WE WERE PLAYING 'KUSO'

I was going through some ‘throw back things’ from way back and I came across some things that warmed my heart at their sight, and I was flooded with this nostalgic feeling as to how so much has changed between the ‘then’ and ‘now’. It’s been ages, yet it seems like it was only just yesterday.

Just only yesterday, I was in secondary school with my 'basket' shoes and 'kobos' that were eventually upped to the naira notes which would enable me buy soft drinks, puffs and the likes at break time and that would sometimes be lunch until you got back home after school. I was a 'big' girl at that level. winks.

I remember how a couple of us swore never to buy the soft drinks anymore when the prices were increased to 50kobo or was it N1.50k? Can't remember the exact price now. Nevertherless, we found ourselves back to buying the drinks after staying away for barely a week. *Laughs*

Today, we are still buying even though it's several times double the amount we protested against back then.

It was only just yesterday. And yes, I did play 'kuso'.  

Just yesterday, I got into the University and missed a lot of childhood friends along the way as many of us ended up in separate higher institutions.

Just only yesterday I wrote my final exams in the university for my first degree and a couple of months later I was off to camp for the compulsory one year of NYSC.

Only just yesterday, I started working and making a living and then I realized that I was no longer that child of ‘just yesterday’ who would now need to fend for herself without waiting for any daddy, mummy, uncle or aunty to feed her or tell her almost everything to do or not to do. 

I could go on and on.

Where did yesterday go?

I was looking at this pack of thread on the left above and I remembered how my ‘best friend’ back in the days would come all the way from her house to ask me to come with her to the market which was closer to her place just for us to ‘plait’ our hair and of course we had that belief that a particular woman was best in handling our hair with that thread. 

Interestingly, we still saw ourselves as ‘BABES’ even with the threaded hair sometimes made in what was popularly called ‘shuku’ which is now funkily called ‘galas’ or whatever.

Life was sweet. Where did all that go?

 

Then, if we wanted something more matured during the holidays, we would either ‘perm’ the hair with locally made relaxers or fix the synthetic weaves which were the only options for us then. Worst case scenario, we would braid the very long ‘Bob Marley’ and pack it up in different styles such as ‘soul to soul’ named after Caron Wheeler, the female lead
vocalist of the old school group ‘SOUL II SOUL’.

Today, all that has changed.

Nowadays, you would see teenage a secondary school student on holidays with human hairs in the names of Brazilian, Peruvian et al worth as much as N70,000 and more even as the young girl would have the air of  “I’m atop of the world” around her, without a clue in the world on how to earn one kobo yet.

Gosh! Times have really changed.

My question is, have the changed times marred us as a society or helped us more?  

I’ll leave you to ponder on that while I’m still busy reminiscing on my childhood moments in my head.