A throw back to my childhood!

Though I grew up in the city, I was fortunate to be raised in the green parts of the city. Something I didn’t fully appreciate until recent years. Being able to playfully climb up and down the trees that surrounded my childhood home. Or energetically jump up and down, with a broken tree branch in hand, hoping to knock down an avocado fruit from the avocado tree in front of my home. Or watching my neighbour pluck palm kernels from the palm tree in our compound to make some palm oil. Or dashing round my next door neighbour's compound, to pick up the African Star Apples that littered the floor with my friends. Whilst turning our dresses into temporary Kangaroo pouches to hold our fruits in place.

Behind our home was a luscious green space that my family turned into a a seasonal farm. My siblings and I would take turns to tend to the farm and would spend time making ridges with our hoes so we could plant fresh crops. These were almost forgotten memories until my recent walk through a local community park, where I saw some colourful Euchinacea plants.

Since these flowery plants are known to have traditional medicinal properties, seeing them planted across the park, made me think they didn't grow there by chance. Out of curiosity, I decided to look it up and discovered it was indeed a local community based project. A project initiated by the local garden shop situated near the park. Their sole aim was to create an awareness of the healing properties of Euchinacea plants for passerbys like myself to glimpse. Seeing the Echinacea plants in full bloom, took me back to my childhood years. When we grew crops for a purpose and shared our harvests with friends, loved ones and those in our communities. Just like the local garden shop was doing here. As they chose to share their knowledge of Echinacea plants for the community to benefit from it. I just found it interesting that a simple walk in the park could send me back to my childhood years.

And speaking of my childhood years, I went searching for my childhood home not so long ago,  to see if it retained its charm as my family no longer reside there. Sad to say, that when I got there I couldn’t recognise the place. The community spirit had long varnished, along with any evidence of the childhood memories that I once shared there. All the homes of my childhood friends had also varnished. They were now replaced with ill-planned corporate buildings that were a sorry sight to see. Oddly enough, there were only two buildings left standing from my childhood years and one of them was my childhood home. It wasn’t as I remembered it, as the building looked ramshackled and was in dire need of a fresh coat of paint.

Guess that’s why they say, nothing lasts forever. The memories from my childhood years, will forever remind me, to cherish every moment that life will bring my way. Because tomorrow is truly promised to no one and I hope wherever life takes me, I can take those memeories with me.

---

Standing in front of my childhood home. How times have changed!

---

The colourful Echinacea plants I saw on my walk through a local community park.

---