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I was
discussing with a childhood friend and we couldn’t help but try to recall our
memories of good neighbourliness while we were growing up. I recalled how we walked to school together
and sometimes had to help with taking along our neighbours younger children ;
how we ensured that the children had food to eat if their parents were not home
when we returned from school.
Neighbours
of old travelled and entrusted their children to the care of one another and
they came back to meet their children as good as they would have cared for
them. We recalled that as teenagers, we played a game to serve each other on
weekly basis; that involved doing light laundry, taking the skinned beans to the neighbourhood mill for grinding,
taking our shoes for polishing and ironing our school uniforms.
Four of us
who were age-mates and in same form in school didn’t have to take our separate
home lessons, but had combined classes as agreed by our parents. We learned together happily and it was
cost-effective for our parents. We
borrowed from each other’s library and it ensured that we tasked ourselves on
the books we read.
We didn’t
count the number of times that a neighbour came to ask for salt or a box of
matches. Neighbours who couldn’t afford
a refrigerator did have to suffer, because they freely stored their pots of
soups or stews in another neighbour’s.
The young
children had ‘mothers’ in women other than their biological mothers because the
women didn’t hesitate to correct the children when they erred. Older women helped nurse babies of younger women
before the arrival of their family members. It was all about community living
with love.
Gradually,
we saw how situations changed; rather than community living which saw people
caring for one another, we started seeing isolation. Today, families hardly interact. Not only are
the houses ‘gated’ so high, the people themselves are total strangers to
themselves! It is ‘killing’ to see neighbours keep straight faces when they see
themselves in the morning. Yes, it is happening today.
My friend
sighed as we were talking. She didn’t want to go into many details, but she
managed to mention that two of her neighbours in a house next to hers had been
‘visiting’ the police over a heated argument. One neighbour had gone to ask the
other to come and remove his car to enable him drive out early one morning, the
other thought that the manner of
approach was rude and demanded an apology. By the time wives of both men came
into the picture, everything turned sour. The police had to intervene after
windscreens were smashed.
Arguments
are that some neighbours have been instrumental to attacks against their
neighbours, while some others have been accused of abusive tendencies towards
young children. I am sure that asking a neighbour for salt or even water today
would be the ‘strangest’ and most suspicious thing to try. Our fears have changed and each person thinks
that the other is bad. But if one good
person makes a good neighbour, then good people in society will make the good community
that is so desired.