Going Home

Ever since I was a kid, I've always had this phobia of traveling to the village. And it was mostly due to the kind of movies I was seeing at the time. You see back in the days, every Nigerian movie was always about some wicked witch in the village attacking and killing people. Back then, those movies felt so realistic to me and I remember always thanking God that I didn't grow up in the village because I probably would have been dead (that was what I thought).

So when my dad decided it was time we traveled down to the village for a visit, I was so scared. I always enjoyed the journey down to the village but the moment I realize we're getting close, I always got scared. And my dad wasn't helping issues either. He would always ask I and my kid-bro to remain inside and not come out to do anything. He didn't say it but I felt it was probably because we had a witch in our compound who kills little kids.

_{Photo by Joshua Oluwagbemiga}

So my phobia got worse over the time and now I want absolutely nothing to do with the place. I remember when I finally gained admission into the university which happens to be located close to my hometown, one would think I would easily visit there from time to time to greet my people over there but nope. It's been five years now and I honestly don't have a plan of going there alone.

Now a lot of you might think that aside from the movies that placed fear in me, that I also must have seen something myself that was scary, but no I haven't. I mean I haven't even given myself a chance to see anything because I don't even travel down there.

So when it comes to conversations that involves my hometown, I might know my way around to the place but I basically know nothing about the place. I have no stories to tell about the place. Yes I've been there on multiple occasions, but I really don't do much when I go visit.

I'm always indoors trying to keep as much low profile as possible because I know this isn't right but every old lady I see in the village is a potential witch to me and I really want nothing to do with them.

The only thing I can say about my hometown was this one time we had traveled home and had witnessed one of the festivals. It was one of those native festivals where different masquerades would come out to give different performances, these are things that ordinary people can't do. They do it with help from their different gods and stuff like that.

I had witnessed that festival just once so my memory about it is a bit fuzzy but yeah, that is the only thing I can remember.

Sometimes I think about it and feel it's not right for me to know little to nothing about my hometown but am I willing to go learn more, hell no.