The Home I Miss | Olamide Tejuoso

As dry logs blaze to ashes, three years have scurried away into thin air, leaving my final year skinny and naked before concerned eyes. Yet, that feeling of father’s hug while I was a freshman still stood grounded in my memories. Many would say I should have grown out of this. But what would an academically fed but affection starved soul do? Shall I silence the yearns of a deprived heart for the warmth home serves whenever I run to it? Oh home, its feeling could never be bought with the cost of the whole world. Even when potions of fear from the knocks and shouts of an unpaid landlord threatens to lace our cups of happiness, there is still this antidote of calmness that guards us through our togetherness. 

 I remember the juvenile thoughts that danced my teenage mind before I left home, I made myself prodigal promises, never to remember my “boring ghetto” because we never had light for almost seven years until recently. I had heard stories of constant power supply for students. So I envisaged a good seamless avenue to completely forget home. It didn’t take two months of my stay on campus before I started longing for mother’s special Egusi soup which at times I complained of its frequency as the soup for most meals. Even for “white rice”. Meanwhile, I had maltreated my stomach with unsavory concoction rice all through the week. Despite that we stay in this Ibadan, I dared not decide to journey home, because I missed food. I can’t seem to fly on courage wings to bear this excuse before my strict mother.

That same first year, I thought it was an opportunity to finally apprehend my long pursued freedom, only to discover to my disappointment that I would be imprisoned behind bars of silence, cast by reasons of a strict academic environment. I could not fully spread my talking wings all because colleagues usually had books to read and I too. My roommates were surprisingly all arts students who always preferred reading to cooking and they rubbed off on me. Frustrating! 

School is indeed nothing like home, where I would scream each of my sisters’ long names to make them do house chores. That elder sister feeling has long been gagged. I miss exerting such lazy authority. And after doing the chores, the bliss of the moments we all share fetching water from our 50-feet well, tug at my cheeks for a smile accompanied by a chuckle. I can’t wait to spend my break at home.

The incessant barks of Lucky and Jell whenever a stranger steps into our surroundings still resonates in my ears. I miss  shouting them to order and pushing them into their kennel.

Many times at resumption, I am certain most of my friends would go on and on about how my cheeks were chubbier or how my neck radiated nourished feeding. However, they forget to thank uninterrupted hours of sleep I enjoyed at home.

However, the reality of school soon milking me of my leisurely earned juicy look, further fuels my craving for home, sweet home.
BIOGRAPHY

Tejuoso Olamide was born and bred in Ibadan. She is currently a 300L student of communication and language arts, University of Ibadan. She is an aspiring journalist and Poet,   who has passion for writing to right. 

Basically, her work focuses on relationship matters, prevailing crises, citizenship reportage and non-fictions.Apart from that, she enjoys reading, writing, traveling and cooking.