THE EYES EFFECT – A Part of my Life I won’t forget

image source: wikimedia
Growing up in my house was something I never stopped being grateful about. The hard times, the flexing period, but I want to talk about this part of my life which I call The Eyes Effect period. In my neighborhood, a child who does not listen to his/her parent especially their mum, must always meet the rod, if you know what I mean. So children developed different senses and ways of listening to their mum communicate.

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The Eye Effect

This is a particular kind of communication customized by moms in Nigeria. This was one of the best way my mom could get to me fast, my mom doesn't need to have those eyes you seeing above; because whatsoever I am doing, my focus and attention was on my mama, I never can tell if she might come out of thin air with a spank to my buttocks…well, my mom would always give me signs with her eyes and every sign has their various meaning, that right there is The Eye Effect. Let me give an example, there was this day we had visitors come to our home to say hello and congratulate the family. I was little then, but I’ve got the memory of it. As kids, you would always want to go close to the visitors because one way or the other, they will always have something brought to them. At that period, things were really hard, three square meals were a fantasy we all long for. So I went and stayed with the visitor expecting some goodies in return for my cute laughs. Just as I was at the verge of a breakthrough came my mom’s eye effect. Her eyes caught me, I could feel the eyes talking to my spirit, my soul. Three blinks of the eye, suddenly I became a programmer, I could decode the eye signal and it was saying to me “leave there now” three words, three blinks, I didn’t need a Joseph to come interpret this dream for me.

Image source: flickr

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Even if in our heart, we said our mom was not being fair to us, with time we (me and my siblings) now understood that it was a way of protecting her kids and at the same time protecting the glory, honour and shame of the family.
Mama got different looks for every word she wanted to say to us in public, even at home. She has the slapping eyes look, where you got slapped even without touching you. She has the eye contact with a sarcastic smile, at that time this smile is not real, it could be real to the people around, but I know in my spirit that it’s not real. She got the go out and play outside look, I believe that look comes when she and dad are together, till date I don’t know why she gives me that look, maybe someone could tell me. She got the go do the dishes look and at that, if we fail to adhere to any of those looks and eye contact, she could slap you so fast you won’t even see it coming, you just hear someone else close to you crying, just like a bullet. She could slap you to another nationality e.g. slap you from Nigeria and you find yourself to be a Philippines boy/girl.

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Image source: pxhere

Growing up, I struggled to eat a square meal, that didn’t give me an excuse to go the wrong part, to go the negative way, because our parent taught us to be loyal, that’s why till date am still that good boy.

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Thanks to @dobartim for bringing up inspiration like this, for making us share our life story on steemit.

I remain your humble good boy @sparklez

PEACE!!!