Down Memory Lane

This is in response to an initiative of @ericvancewalton, to make us walk down memory lane and relive those moments long gone, keeping them alive for our future generations.

You can participate here

In a year from now you’ll have a legitimate memoir that you can pass along to future generations of your family. But what I really hope is it provides a valuable glimpse into your inner self.

Prompt; What store did you love to go to as a child?

Reminiscing about this part of my life actually brought smiles to my face, firstly because I have very funny memories attached to it and secondly because I had to 'exhume' these almost forgotten experiences, bringing them back to life once again.

It was the only grocery shop, a simple but large rectangular building right there in the centre of my village, its location near the Saint John's Anglican Church, gave it a sense of prominence, and gradually it became the central hub of the community.

Mornings and evenings, the villagers would throng 'Nwankpi's' grocery shop to stock up on essentials and for chitchats and of course some gossips. You could easily feel the pulse of the village by just being there.

The owner was known as Martins but I still don't know how he got the nickname, 'Nwankpi', which means the son of a he-goat....Hahahaha, but for me, the name didn't matter, he could be called anything for all I cared, the special allure the shop held for me was in the 'blomblo', pronounced as blow-blow, a distorted name for balloons. It was so nicknamed because of the act of blowing air into it, to inflate it into an orb.

Blomblo was every child's delight and at the front of the shop was a dazzling display of so many of them, in so many attractive colours. For me the trips to the shop with my Grandma was not just for the groceries but for those colourful blomblos I knew she would buy me everytime.

And as I walked home, my balloons would be bobbing happily besides me, and I would be the envy of the children, with some crying to their Moms to go buy them some.

Though these balloons didn't last for long, because some would burst before we even got home, the joy of the moment was unfathomable, the happiness in blowing up a balloon and watching it slowly expand and the vibrant colours in which they come, are the simple things that make memories, memorable.

Image created with hotpot.ai.

Thank you for stopping by my neighbourhood.