Born City: We were toughened to be men, not freeloading gigolos

Round and round: Rolling old tyres around the estate was a favourite game that shaped us into real men  Photo: File

Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart, has very interesting observations. One of them goes thus: “Fortunately, among these people, a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of the father.”

This book reminds me of my in high school days. For some of us, this was the first time we were joining a boarding school, away from the protective wings of our parents. It was at this stage that we proved that we were grown up men. We were reminded that we must work our way up, as what was owned by our parents was theirs and not ours.