Reuniting with Yendi

20th of August 2008. I found myself in a bus in the one hour Tamale - Yendi journey.
Earlier in life, I had spent my first three years in Primary School in Yendi and it was there I made my first real friendships.

Memories
As the bus moved on and as I half slept, thoughts of those days kept coming up.
My first fight with one Osman which ended in a draw only because some bigger boys stopped us from going on. I remembered how I was about to get beaten.
I also remembered how we ran after the bush rats to catch them for a roast - how I was never fortunate (or skilled) to catch one.
I remembered fondly how we hunted birds and again I was never fortunate (or skilled) to kill one.
My mind drifted to those primary school days. I was one of the few in the school who could read basic words. One particular name kept coming to mind - Adjubi.
She was a Primary One class mate. I wont even remember how she looked like but I remember her as one of the brilliant kids of the school at the time. I hope she is making is somewhere today.
And I remember the shy me at the CYO meetings where I could not be given any acting role during Easter because I was too shy to act.
I also remembered how I was urged on to grow my little farm just by the house. And I was so proud that I could harvest a bowl or two of groundnuts and some roots of potatoes.

And I still remember how we packed our belongings into the waiting truck ready to make that transfer to Tamale. It was 12th Sept 1989 - I was just 9.

As the bus approached Yendi, I tried replaying all the paths and streets in my mind to see if I could be right.
Lo! I wasnt too wrong. I did not have time to move into the Junior Staff Quaters where I spent some growing years but when I return in two weeks, I will be visiting JSQ18 where I lived and grew.
I will be happy to meet a 6 to 9 year old boy in the house who will look shyly at me and remind me of me.

Purpose of visit
This time I found myself in Yendi not because my parents were on transfer but because I was an ICT trainer.
For 5/6 weekends I will be training staff at the district level some basic usage and applications of computers.

The icing on the cake during the period of training will be walking along the paths I walked through almost two decades ago as a kid. Back then, all problems could be solved by finding some little corner to cry. It's very different today.

It's a mixture of history and expectations