One of my new year’s resolutions this year was to resurrect this blog. However given its the 17th January and this is my first post you can see it’s a resolution that’s going about as well as the "eating more healthy" one. However I have a bit of a cheat to get me back into regular blogging over the next month.
Back in January 1977 I was a 7 year old, skinny, straggly haired kid living with my parents and older brother in Lagos, Nigeria. Life was a simple round of school, playing with friends, going to the Ikoyi club and trying to earn badges at Brownies. However in mid January we had, what was for us kids, a welcome break from this routine as we were given a month off school. I have happy memories of me and my brother building cities of cardboard boxes in the garage, trying to learn to sew and going to see all sorts of music and dance performances. Why am I telling you this?
Well at the tail
end of last year my parents were searching through boxes in the attic and they found a diary I had written during this month. The month off seemed to be less of a welcome break for the school and our parents and so we were set lots of work to do at home. Seems that the cardboard box city and the sewing were actually homework set by the school as was to write a daily diary of what we were doing.
It’s hardly high class journalism and I only wrote a few lines each day, but I suppose that is only to be expected given my age. That said I found it an astounding insight into the life we were leading back then and the way I viewed it. It re-awakened many old memories and really made me appreciate, once again, the remarkable journey that my parents took us on when they made the decision to move overseas. So I have decided to share that diary with you, day by day,
here on this blog. You too can have a look back at what was on the mind of my seven year old self.....
As a way of introduction I feel I should say that the school, St Saviours, Ikoyi, didn’t just randomly give us a month of school. All the schools in Lagos were closed to celebrate FESTAC 77 – the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. For a month several venues in Lagos hosted daily performances, there were street festivals, regattas and all manner of celebrations – some of which I mention in my diary. According to various website I have come across there was also a two week scholarly colloquium which had five strands Arts and Pedagogy, Language and Literature, Philosophy and Religion, Historical awareness and Science and Technology... quite the ambitious program.
So if I have captured your attention do move on to the next post were we find the first two days of my diary....
end of last year my parents were searching through boxes in the attic and they found a diary I had written during this month. The month off seemed to be less of a welcome break for the school and our parents and so we were set lots of work to do at home. Seems that the cardboard box city and the sewing were actually homework set by the school as was to write a daily diary of what we were doing.It’s hardly high class journalism and I only wrote a few lines each day, but I suppose that is only to be expected given my age. That said I found it an astounding insight into the life we were leading back then and the way I viewed it. It re-awakened many old memories and really made me appreciate, once again, the remarkable journey that my parents took us on when they made the decision to move overseas. So I have decided to share that diary with you, day by day,
here on this blog. You too can have a look back at what was on the mind of my seven year old self.....
As a way of introduction I feel I should say that the school, St Saviours, Ikoyi, didn’t just randomly give us a month of school. All the schools in Lagos were closed to celebrate FESTAC 77 – the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. For a month several venues in Lagos hosted daily performances, there were street festivals, regattas and all manner of celebrations – some of which I mention in my diary. According to various website I have come across there was also a two week scholarly colloquium which had five strands Arts and Pedagogy, Language and Literature, Philosophy and Religion, Historical awareness and Science and Technology... quite the ambitious program.
So if I have captured your attention do move on to the next post were we find the first two days of my diary....
1 comment:
Ah, i've been trying to get back into blogging too! Sometimes I manage, mostly I don't!
Love the idea of the diary though, my Mum has the scrapbook diaries that my sisters and I kept when we went on holiday each year. I've not looked at them for years but i'm sure they would be interesting.
Melissa
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