IF I ENTER THAT ROOM WE WOULD NOT STOP LAUGHING ____WEEK 239 EPISODE 03

If you were placed in a room with all your childhood friends and classmates, how long do you think the gathering will be lively for? Do you think the old camaraderie will be able to be reignited?

If I entered that room today with all my childhood friends from Onitsha, from that small primary school where we used to write on dusty floor when we had no book... Ah!

That room will be lively FOREVER. Not 30 minutes. Not 1 hour. From morning till night!

You think we will be quiet? No way.

The moment I enter, I will shout "MAMA NKECHI PIKIN DON COME!" And somebody will shout back "Chinweokem! You still small like that time!"

And just like that, we are children again.

We will not sit down jeje like adults. We will drag chairs. We will laugh. We will be doing "Do you remember? Do you remember?"

Do you remember how we used to steal Mrs. Okoro's chalk to draw ten-ten on the ground?.

Do you remember when Emeka fell inside gutter because he was running after his slippers during rain?

Do you remember when we sang "Sandalili sandalili" and clapped till our hands turned red?............

Do you remember when we shared one bottle of mineral and everybody sipped, sipped, sipped until it finished?.............

Ah, that room will be too noisy. People outside will think we are fighting, but we are just laughing..............

And the camaraderie? Will it be reignited?

My dear, it never died! We only pressed pause.

Because childhood friends are not like adult friends. Adult friends need money, need status, need "what do you do for a living?" Childhood friends only need one thing: "You remember me?"

And yes, I remember you. I remember how you gave me half of your buns when I had no food. I remember how you covered for me when I didn't do assignment. I remember how you held my hand when they wanted to flog me.

That kind of bond does not die.

In that room, Emeka who is now driving bus will still be Emeka who makes us laugh. He will still crack joke about how he used to copy my note. He will still be the comedian.

Favour who is now married with children will bring her children picture and we will all shout "Ah she don born o!" And she will laugh and say "Na your mates?"

Obinna who is in Canada will still try to speak Igbo and fail, and we will still laugh at his accent like before.

And me? I will still be Chinweokem, the girl who likes to write story. I will say "Guys, I still dey write o, now I dey write for Blurt and Hive!" And they will say "Write our story! Write today!"

We will play Ludo. We will play Whot. We will sing. We will dance small. We will take plenty pictures. We will create WhatsApp group and this time it will NOT die, because we will be dropping voice note every day, disturbing each other.

How long will it be lively? If they put us in that room by 9am, by 9pm we will still be lively. By midnight, we will still be talking. Security will come and say "Oga, please go home." We will say "Give us 5 more minutes!"

The truth is, when you put childhood friends in a room, time goes backward. We forget we are adults. We forget rent. We forget NEPA. We forget data. We become those small children with dusty uniforms again.

So yes, the old camaraderie will be reignited. 100%. Because some friendships are like palm oil stew — even if you keep it for 10 years, when you heat it, the taste comes back.

If you give me that room today, just bring enough groundnut and pure water, because we are not leaving soon.

IMAGE IS AI GENERATED