Describe Your Para : Either Peace or Noisy, My Para has it.

The world is connected and with this contest by the BDcommunity, it shows how words can mean different thing to different people or locality. Today we are asked to write about 'Para'. A word which means neighbourhood in Bengali a tongue in Bangladesh.

My house is located on an Island in one of the African country called Nigeria. The town is called Ajah and it's situated in the city called Lagos. I live in a gated community which is popularly called an estate in this part of the world and this is to reduce the issue of robbery and to provide security amongst the people living there. I have been living here for like 10 years plus and sometimes it's a good thing while it can be bad.

Why I enjoy living here:

Asides the beauty that surrounds the environment and close proximity I have to recreational centers, I love my house due to it early morning serenity and late night activity. I can wake up in the morning and decide to go to the beach which takes nothing less than 15 minutes drive on a good day or 30 on a heavy traffic day. This beach is never filled up with people or maybe it is the time I visit with my friends or family. It is always quiet and peaceful and the only sound disturbing my peace is the sound of the sea hitting the rocks. People who love communing with nature come here a lot especially the ones who loves yoga and likes exercising by the sea. This place gives me joy and calms my soul. When I'm in the middle of life trial, I visit this place after work most days and by weekends. There is some kind of peace attached to you watching the raging of the sea and the movement of the crabs. This place is my para and I love it because it gives me peace and calms my mind.

Another place that holds a good and bad place in my heart is this little monster. In the morning, we need no alarm clock, this little machine you see in the image above is a grinding machine used in grinding beans or pepper. The owner resumes work from 5am which means everybody in the neighbourhood has to wake up. Once it goes to sleep at night, we all sleep too. It serves as a reminder that peace and quietness has a limited time in my para and that this little monster controls it. I love the sound sometimes because it helps me know what time it is in the morning so as to get ready for work and it's a curse during my off day when I am trying to catch up with my sleep.

Residing inside the shop is my friend from the Northern part of Nigeria, anytime you see a little kiosk like this, it is run by this kind of people in my country and they sell anything sellable. They are mostly found in areas like mine because the owners serves as security men and gatemen too. This particular shop helps my house a lot because it proximity helps limit the way we go out to buy stuffs in the mart when we can get it there especially during this pandemic. The occupants also sometimes help us when we have heavy lifting to do around the house, they sell stuffs to me on credit when I am low on cash plus Abdulahi can help sow our clothes during emergency. There shop serves as a meeting place for the guys around the estate to gist and drink. Once it's evening, people assemble there to play and gist which I can watch from my house which is directly opposite the shop. They can be lousy or quiet depending on how the drink hit their system.

My street is always flooded during the raining season, downside of living on an Island, but the most amazing thing is that one day of sun makes a difference in 7 days of rain. My para always look deserted after rain and alive when the sun is out. The fog is lifted and the cloud is white, you see goats walking majestically around like they own the street and the little fish we see during the rain have all disappeared. Then when the sun is down little children come out to play.

These are the special places in my para that holds memories to me. Whenever I am far from home, I picture myself on the beach chilling and meditating. Truly home is where the heart is and my heart is stationed at home until I marry..lol

P.s: My beach video was made into a gif because of the size of the file.