Good old memories

Long time memories flash into our minds on and off. Best among them are known to be those directly linked to our friends and family. This opinion can be agreed by many of us.

When I think of the present time and the kids of this time, I really think that we had had a better time than them. Our way of passing time was far better than now.

Annually, after the completion of three full terms of studies me and my sister along with my cousin brother comes from Male’ ,to our ‘home island’, for our biggest holidays. It is so nice to be with our best friends and start our busy and pre-planned routines. These plans were planned in a way that we could fulfill our religious duties such as praying and reciting Quran. In this way, our daily plan normally commenced with the Fajr prayer. We had a habit of waking up very early and going and waking our friends and spoiling their greatest dreams. By the time of the ‘Azan’, our group will be ready and we will go to the mosque. This was sometimes affected by some scary stories ‘made-up’ and told by some of our group members. A light breakfast helps us to start our work. This does not mean we had a lot of work at home. But there were a lot among us who had a house’s work to complete. So, we assist in making their work light. Sweeping the road, washing the coal-coated pots at the beach side, separating the unwanted from the rice and fetching water from the Old mosque’s well were the best among the house work. Looking after younger sisters and brothers were also assigned to some of us. So we had a great time playing and imagining ourselves as grown-ups.

Kids liked me a lot. So, I never had a chance to be alone. The kids who liked me dearly, left me in situations which I found it very difficult to decide on who and who will go with me. My decisions sometimes made them to cry. So, I had no other choice other than taking all of them along with me. The scene seemed so funny when a group of kids always surrounded me, no matter where I go. At times I had to face some intolerable comments regarding this.

As my parents had separate livings my sister and I had a tough time walking from Grandma’s house to Mom’s place. As we were frequently seen going from these two houses, some people used to assume that we were aimless wanderers. And I hated it when they actually do not understand our purpose and intention of those frequent walks.

Playing ‘Ovvalhugondi’,’Dhashundhamaa’,‘Thinhama’ and ‘Gandufilla’  were our favourite leisure times. We also played games which needed running in the evenings. It was so much fun. After the games we go to the beach area for long walks. Our island was surrounded by an attention-catching beautiful sea. There were few coconut palms almost at the sea due to erosion. The beach area was clean. On different occasions we spend time cleaning the place and collecting play materials for our cooking games. Most of our group members did not have the power to resist the sea’s call so even in the evenings, we end up walking into the sea and walking up to the reef, which is clearly visible and dry due to the  change in the tide. There we come across limited but different types of sea creatures. Sometimes we feel as if frozen, if we see a ray or an eel and rush back to the land as soon as possible.

To conclude, I have to say that it is impossible to write all of our wonderful experiences together. These childhood memories were full of fun. We were so united that we were always seen together. Now we recall these pleasant times when we get a chance to meet the members in our group. But there are few who do not even bother to think we were ‘such good friends’. My good friends and I treasure them within us though, some think that these memories are of no use. I am sure that our relationships would be further strengthened by these and our own kids and other children of present time would love to hear these stories and would have a clear picture of how different things were at that time.