My CNN Days

I remember those days when we had just moved to the new Duplex, right in front of the hills. The area was still 'new' if you compared it to the rest of the city. We were surrounded by vegetation, my dad even carved a small garden out, Paw Paw trees, Orange and Guava ruled. Oh did I hate Paw Paw!, I still hate it. As young children, there wasn't much we could do in the area. Unlike the old quarters were we lived which had accessible hills, the ones here were close but unreachable. I had also just begun secondary school, I wanted to do new things.

We had a load of tapes of our favorite cartoons from way back, and we played them to the death. Soon, Cable was installed, but it wasn't stable. Some days all we had were news stations and some others which were straight from the Middle-East. Grudgingly, we had to watch CNN, Fox News, SKY, BBC back to back, if there was no tape or movie to see.

CNN was my favourite, it seemed to offer more of a variety of programmes, and I loved the way they spoke. I would pick up a newspaper and pretend to read like the newscasters, this was always a hit at school. I played with the idea of becoming one, fantasy! 

Summer Holidays, were the longest and I would come home straight from school, It typically lasted from about the end of June to the start of September. I usually resumed late, so make that the end of September!, two weeks less resumption never really hurt! lol. It was during this periods from '96 to '01 that I formed strong bonds with Christiana Amanpour, Wolf Blitzer, Fionnuala Sweeney, Jim Clancy, Terry Baddoo, Rosemary Church, Ralitsa Vassileva, jeff koinange, Femi Oke, Jonathan Mann, Larry King. I watched everything from World News to Sports, Entertainment and Technology programmes. I even memorized the schedule at some point.

I was glad to have CNN to watch, it kept me well informed amongst my peers, I'd always been one step ahead anyways. It was no coincidence that some of the events that shaped the world, I saw unravel first hand. 

Summer of '97 Princess Diana's death, We had played games till late but had to sleep because the next day was sunday, and we had to go to church. But for me, I couldn't sleep for a while so I got up and went to check what was on. 'Princess Diana, Car crashed!' Oh my days! I couldn't believe it as I saw the mangled car. Unbelievable!

'98 - '99 The next major event was Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky affair, which I followed closely. I will never forget Bill's speech 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman' even I knew He was lying.

Summer of '99, JFK jr's plane went down. I had only watched them hours ago, and now the plane was missing. I had thought of how stylish Carolyn, his wife was. And what a nice couple they seemed to be. Sad.

Summer of '01 Aaliyah was dead! In a car crash and a day before my birthday, Who didn't know Aaliyah, wow! terrible. She was 22, I was going to be 15.

Summer/Fall of '01 9/11 as it is remembered, I was just changing channels, because it seemed like a slow news day, nothing was happening. Next thing I got to BBC and saw one of the WTC towers smoking, I was just thinking how unfortunate, the plane slamming into the tower, and it was Live with the cameras pointed on the building. Next thing I knew another plane just slams into the next, OH MY GOD the video man screamed and the video became shaky with people running towards and away from the building. I was doubly stunned. Oh my God! I thought is this a movie, is this real?? 

Soon after, a couple of things changed in the house, I was graduating from secondary school and getting into University the next year. I can't remember what happened to the cable, but it lost an appeal. Given the current events in the world, I found myself getting back into that frame of mind, until someone brings me back to reality with 'Let's watch something else o!' Despite all that, those days were filled with happiness, sadness, gladness, things of a kind I would never forget. I miss my CNN Days.