Last year December, I made a conscious decision to stay away from my phone throughout a family trip. I actually said it out loud to my family and I didn’t realize they were already waiting for such a moment. My mom literally shouted “Amen ooo” right after I ended my statement. You know how African mothers can be. I did not even see how my brother snatched my phone from me afterwards. I mean on a normal day, I would have ran after him but that day was different.

Knowing we were traveling, my dad gave me one of his walkie-talkies. According to him, he just wanted to ensure my safety. But I think he really didn’t want me to feel the absence of my phone. He even worked out a whole coded language for us to be having over the walkie-talkie. If I needed him, all that I had to say was, “911” and he would respond with “what’s your emergency?”.

At first, it was really funny and my brothers were even laughing but everyone later joined in on our 911 fun. I didn’t like it that my brothers joined because those demons ended up 911ing me to bring them water at some point which was annoying.

The first day without my phone was torture. I woke up searching everywhere for it and then it dawned on me I left it home. The shocking part was when I realized a lot of things I didn’t know about myself. I found out I didn’t know how to cook Jollof rice. I tried and ended up with something close to rice porridge. My mom not wanting me to feel bad told me it’s a dish in Asia. At that time, I was excited but now that I think of it, I have a lot of questions for her.

I had no idea I liked things pertaining to “law” until the second day. I went to my dad’s desk to meet a criminal law book opened. I sat down to check it out and by the time I realized, I had read more than half of it. Funny thing is, I thought I didn’t understand what I was reading until my dad “911ed” me to ask me questions about it after he found out I read it.

On the third and last day, we had a truth or dare session with my parents. Surprise? Yeah that’s my family for you. We went for a private concert and upon returning very late, my dad still wanted to “have fun”. Right after I changed into my pajamas, my mom 911ed me and after asking of her emergency, she asked me to come to the living room. The moment I entered, I was dared to dance, and that’s how I danced azonto at 11pm on the 27th of December,2023.

Anyway, just like that, this has become a tradition for our family vacations and we’re looking forward to “911ing” ourselves this coming December too. I believe going days without my phone became easy because of my family. I know what you’re thinking and of course I’ve experienced “power outage and no signal” before but you really think they made me stay away from my phone? laughs in Chinese