Age 6
I was in Primary School. I had just gotten a double promotion from Nursery School and I didn’t know any of my new classmates. I was an awkward child with a stutter, so I couldn’t even make friends.
I remember the recess. I remember how long it always felt. It was the longest part of the day. Recess. It was that moment when we had to go out and play. They usually kept the boys on one side and the girls at the other, the former made to play football while the latter played Cinderella, dressed in yellow, African bend down and other such female games.
I never felt among. I had this disdain for football and I wasn’t sure the girls would accept me. So, I would stay back in class and read during that thirty-minute period. Thirty minutes of loneliness that felt like three hours and never seemed to end.
One day, my teacher came up to me during the recess and asked why I wasn’t outside. I was shy. What if she didn’t understand? What if she judged me harshly? I told her that I didn’t like the games the boys played because I considered them too rough and just not my thing.
Then she asked, “Which games would you rather play?”
And I said, “The girls. I want to play with the girls.”
She kept quiet for a while, as if looking into my soul through her glasses. And after what seemed like an eon, she said, “Follow me.”
Then she led me to where the girls were gathered and said to them, “Let him play with you people.”
I watched as she stayed by the side ensuring that I got to play when it was my turn.
I don’t remember being mocked for being effeminate. I don’t remember any back talk or taunts from my new classmates. I do however remember the joy I felt as, for the first time, I could finally be who I wanted to be.
Written by Vhagar
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7 Comments
Real
April 09, 10:10can everything just go back to the way it was when we were kids.
Ikedi Oghenetega
April 09, 12:57This is beautiful. ?
BRYAN PETERS
April 09, 20:20Awwnn cute. Well I remember being mocked and taunted and Id rather not relive my childhood.
Malik
April 10, 11:36Me neither. Those childhood days are gone for good. It’s was a terrible thing to fit neither into the male team nor the female team.
trystham
April 10, 17:00I don’t remember activity-filled breaktimes o. I do remember gossiping A LOT. By Jove!!! I loved ofofo and story tellers like my life depended on it. I still do sha
Q
April 11, 10:32Deep
Leeman
April 12, 20:30Very deep! Not quite long, I saw two boys between age 8 to 9 holding hands and resting on each other shoulders laughing heartily to school on the street. I smile at their innocence and worry about what kind of bond the society is going to steal from them in few years to come.