As a child, I was curious about many things. I wondered where I came from because I found no kids on supermarket shelves, which contradicted my parents' story. I wondered why the sun followed me everywhere. I wondered why I had to go to school all the time. I wondered why teachers had to beat me up because hair grew on my head.
I also had simple dreams. I dreamt of using a biro pen like the adults. I dreamt of driving the cars I drew and living in the houses I sketched. I dreamt of being a rich person, just like literally everyone around me. I dreamt of going to Dubai and riding a rollercoaster. I dreamt of going abroad to the places I saw in movies. I wanted to meet DJ Afro in person. I wanted to bend metal with my mind and control water with my hands. Hollywood had me good.
I also had a lot of free time back then; I mean, the hardest concept I had been introduced to was divisibility tests. I had a lot of energy, too, so I did the craziest of things with my friends. We hung out at a waterfall near my home that only we, the villagers knew about. We raced on bicycles and played jump rope, singing songs like, "Public van public van number twenty-eight” which made no sense but what did we know.
I also did unconventional activities like grasshopper hunting. My friends and I knew a place with tall grass and tons of grasshoppers. We would pull up our socks, literally, to avoid that itch people get when blades of grass tickle your feet, and then we would set out hunting. You should have seen us running after those insects with so much enthusiasm and grit, each of us wanting to capture the biggest one. Now that I think about it, it must have been a nightmare for those poor grasshoppers, and it is even worse for any insect rights activist reading this, but anyway, I digress.
The first time we did it, we had bottles with little holes all over so the grasshoppers would have air, and we filled the bottles with grass so the grass-hoppers could feel at home. Not to brag, but I was quite good at catching them. I would stealthily sneak up on them and throw my sweater over them. I would wrap my sweater around them and pick the biggest one. Nat Geo Wild had taught me the value of leaving the young, for they would be tomorrow's catch. Sustainable hunting. Pretty neat, huh?
I always went home feeling like those American children on television with weird pets observing the grasshopper like a scientist. It would become the centre of my attention, and I would hide it from my parents, perhaps because subconsciously, I knew it was wrong to keep it captive like that. By late evening, the grasshopper was hungry and weak, so I grabbed it by the hind legs and tried to feed it and give it water, but I found it dead the next morning.
I was genuinely sad about the matter and kept thinking about how I had taken away the parent to some baby grasshoppers. Nat Geo Wild had not taught me enough Biology, it seems. Over the weekend of that week, my friends and I held a small funeral for our grasshoppers under an avocado tree near our home and decided to improve our accommodation standards. We got a carton box and decided that we would fill it with grass just before the hunt so the grass would remain fresh, and we attached a tin inside for water and the breathing holes all around with a transparent piece of plastic at the top for observation. It was an innocuous project.
That was a five-star hotel by grasshopper standards. We started hunting the following Monday after school with our socks above our knees, almost touching our tiny shorts. It was a successful hunt, and we had our guests settled in. I agreed to watch them for the night, so I took the box home, a poisoned chalice. You obviously know they did not make it, another dent to the grasshopper village. Breaking the news to my friends the next day was one of the hardest things I had ever had to do.
We never hunted again after that. We realized grasshoppers are rather claustrophobic. Unknowingly, we had also stumbled upon an indisputable truth; nobody knows what is best for anyone or anything.
Now though, writing this, I realize just how much I wish I could be a kid again.
The piece filled me with nostalgia, memories of when we had it easy and with no responsibilities. Amazing work!
Growing up is not easy. Good work Sir!