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THREAD. How books taught me to dream in rural Nigeria.
I grew up in a small town (Ogbomosho) located about 200miles Northwest of Lagos, Nigeria's capital city. It was your classic, small African town with warm people, great weather, and little to no commerce.
My dad (an accountant) and mom (a school teacher) provided a sparse but comfortable home with lots of books and a TV set that never worked.
The closest TV station was NTA Ibadan, which was miles away from us and well outside the range of our small TV set. Cable TV wasn't an option in 1980s Nigeria.
My strict parents literally kept us indoors everday after schools. No sports, no parties, and little to no social visits. That meant the ONLY source of entertainment for my siblings and I were the books in our small home library since Ogbomosho did not have a local library.
I was an avid reader and finished all the books in our home library by the time I turned 9. I never quite finished "War and Peace" but read everything else.
I kept asking for more books until a traveling book salesman sold my dad a set of 20 books about the Second World War.
Those books became my refuge. I followed Patton to Omaha Beach, pondered on his rivalry with Eisenhower, and lived Russian's glorious victory at Stalingrad on the dusty roads of Ogbomosho.
Those books changed my life. They filled me with an intense desire to travel the world, to rise above my surroundings and become the best I could be. That traveling book salesman is the hero of my life story.
Today, I have lived on 3 continents; I have visited many of the places I read about in the WW2 book set; and am living the life I always dreamt of. Books taught me to dream, and those dreams have come true.
I am trying to provide the same environment for my kids in today's hyper-connected world. They get to watch TV for a Max of 3hours a week and must entertain themselves with books the rest of the time. My 9year old daughter currently has a personal library with over 100 books.
The moral of the story is that people never change unless they meet new people, visit new places, or read new books. The first two change agents were inaccessible for me so books made all the difference.
