Sand swept memories

The doors of the mighty airliner slowly opens wide.

I stand at the edge of doorway. Pause for a second and take in the sight that appears majestically before me.

The wind sweeps across the tarmac, churning dust in its wake and caresses my face.

The rainy season has just ended. The weather is fair. The smiling faces on the local populace is warm. They make us feel welcome.

We are whisked away to what would be our home for a few months. A quaint hotel somewhere in the city. It's a comfortable place. Just right for a family of four with two toddlers who are keen to start running around again.

It's a strange feeling being stared at by the local inhabitants of the city. We, with our straight black hair, and fair skin. They smile and wave. We wave back.

This is such a new experience living in a concrete building with high ceilings. We lived in a two storey house made of wood and concrete in an urban jungle. The space here is big enough for my sister and I to run around in, and even ride our tricycles. Such bliss!

We spend a couple of months here before we are finally taken to our new accommodation.

It is a towering and sprawling structure. The building is made up of six, three bedroom flats. My bedroom is big enough to be a house in some parts of the world (more on this in the next chapters), and this is not even the master bedroom.

We are given the keys to the flat on the right, on the ground floor. The entire unti has a ceiling which is at least 10 feet high. The thing about this place is its size. It's depth.

A huge living room welcomes us as we take the first few steps in from the veranda. The living room opens out to this veranda via wide swinging metal and glass doors. The dining hall is directly connected to the living room which makes the space even larger. A kitchen, with its own pantry, is through a door on the left of the dining hall, which leads to the common backyard.

On the right of the living room, is an 25 foot corridor where the bedrooms, guest toilet and storage rooms are located. I remember running trough this corridor everyday. At the end of the corridor is the grand masters bedroom with its own toilet and bath. Each bedroom has its own built in floor to ceiling closets and windows.

What a lovely change from our former residential addresses. This will be our new home and permanent address for the next decade and a half.

I vividly remember the games my neighbors and I played everyday - police and thieves, house, bike racing, cricket, football, catchers, hide and seek, war games, marbles, matchbox, and the list goes on. We would build house like structures with twigs that we broke off from the trees we climed. And there were a lot of trees!

Once every year, we watched the Emir and his entourage, on horseback, as they made a very colorful procession to the Governor's palace (Featured photograph courtesy of Richard de Vos) which passed right in front of our house.

We slid down the hand rails of the staircases. We made bonfires from the leaves we raked off the ground. We had picnics in the Indian teepee my dad made for us, swam in the mini pool we constructed in front of the house and climbed up and down the tree house Dad and I made.

As we grew older, the childhood games became less frequently played. Teenage life was upon us. We got into sports - football and lawn tennis. We started hanging out with the opposite sex more. We went to parties on the weekends and came home at ungodly hours. We began to drive. To date.

There were endless parties held by the different expat communities and friends. We would end up at a different house party for various occasions almost on a weekly basis. From birthdays to religious festivals.

Can you imagine the variety of food we got to eat? The cultures we got to experience?

As teens we hung out at the local state and Lebanese clubs on weekends too. Ate at the Peking, Palace and Pink Peacock Chinese Restaurants for a lovely taste of Asia. Bought bread on Bompai Road. Went to Sabon Gari market for whatever we needed. Attended mass at the St. Louis Parish Church with our families.

For a taste of Lebanon, we would drive to Beirut Road. We had ice cream at Spring Time.

We had barbeques, outings and picnics at Tiga, safaris at The Yankari Game Reserve.

Best of all, was the food. From pounded yam, egusi, moi-moi, jellof rice, and the list goes on! Plus, we had tsire or suya, the best tasting meat on a stick in the world ever!

We did all these things and more. We made friends. For life. So many. From different countries. Different walks of life. Different religions.

As the years pass, some names are forgotten. Friends. Teachers. Places. However, the memories remain. The faces. The smiles. The laughter.

We lived life. No, not in a European or American state. We lived life in Nigeria. We lived life In Africa.