I'm not blaming my parents for our scarcity,far from it.My parents were just farmers and with seven children to feed,it's sure hard to make ends meet.We were thankful that we had shelter over our heads.And when my eldest brother got married and had a child,well,more addition of mouths to feed.Now,looking back,I felt that we were luckier than most because we never went to bed hungry.My parents priority were feeding us.They worked hard for that purpose and thanks to them,we've never known hunger.We had three whole meals everyday and we can eat whenever we felt hungry.Most important of all,we could eat rice everyday and that was considered a luxury in those days.We always had the 3 basic foods whenever we had our meals that is rice,vegetables and fish,salted of course,and sometimes we had those bland tasting dried anchovies.Some of my friends then rarely had those.Most eat only sweet potatoes,yam or tapioca .They rarely had rice or fish.
My parents were a strong believer in hard work.Every single one of the family members had to pitch in to help as long as they were able.The elder children would help in the fields or being given the task of collecting firewood.The younger ones would help with the housework or looking after the toddlers.Even fetching water was a full day's work since we had to fetch it from a source quite far from the house itself.Indoor plumbing? - well,again,dream on!