From Silence to Laughter: How One Sallah Celebration Reconnected a Family

My uncle who’s a Muslim, that has been away for a long time was finally transferred back to the state with his family. During the sallah, he invited my family to come celebrate the festival with them. It was my first time participating in the Salah celebrations because in the southern part of Nigeria, where I come from, we’re predominantly Christians. So, it’s not as loud it is in the northern part of Nigeria.

But this one was surprisingly beautiful. The energy, the love between families, the aroma from the kitchen… and of course, the ram meat. The women in the family including other guest that were present didn’t hold back in showcasing their cooking skills. We’d Fried, grilled, peppered and stewed meat. I’ve never eaten so much meat before. My jaws started paining me because of too much chewing.

But amidst the merriment , something happened that actually left me thinking deeply.

The reason for the gathering wasn’t just to eat but to bond with family members. Especially for the kids because the last time they met each other they were all little, now they’re teens. So, this was a chance of reconnecting with each other to avoid all this stories we here on news like “I got married to my cousins or relatives without me knowing.”

But instead, the reverse was the case. They were all sitting side by side pressing their phones, as if their lives depended on it. No greetings. No catching up. No questions like “what school do you attend now,” “do you remember me”? Just silence.

We even overheard the whispering to her mom, when her mum insisted she drop her phone and discuss with her cousins since she was the oldest among everyone, but she said “she don’t know what to say to them”.

That word hit us hard.

Her dad had to cease her phone along side other kids and ordered all the children in the house to go to the children sitting room and get to know each other.

Kids this days aren’t just being antisocial, they are just socially stuck or disconnected especially the rich kids. It’s not as if they don’t care but the face to face interaction with people has reduced.

It took me down memory lane to when I was a kid. When we didn’t need phones or video games to bond with friends and family. It just came naturally. We played outside even when it was raining. There was no kind of games we didn’t invent just to keep us happy. Sometimes we’ll argue about the rules, that leads to fight but at the end of the day, we ran around together like nothing happened. We built memories that still make us laugh even now that we’re adults.

But what do we see with today kids? A generation raised by gadgets, phones and other devices. Kids who can hold a conversation for hours in group chats but find it difficult to say a simple “Hi”, to there cousins sitting close to them.

Thanks to my big uncle, who did what a lot of people would hesitate to do, by collecting everyone’s phone and sending everyone of them to the kids sitting room to interact. You need to see them going to their sitting rooms, like sheep without shepherd with lots of grumbling without their phones on them and unsure of what to do with themselves.

About an hour later, we started hearing noises and some form of arguments from upstairs. So, my uncle told me to check up on them. I got there and saw how they were playing, laughter , playful insults and heated arguments between the boys and the girls.

Thanks to the Play Station game in their sitting room that saved the day. They were no longer strangers with the same surname, they were cousins again.

But one thing I realized that day is that phone isn’t the enemy. As a matter of fact, phone have made life easier for us in several ways. But when it begins to replace real connections to the point that they bond easily with online strangers compared to family members, it becomes a problem, that’s where adults should step in.

This doesn’t apply to children alone even to adults as well. My kid sister is one example. She can stay in her room from morning till night as long as she has internet connection. It’s only when she’s hungry, you see her coming downstairs to look for food.

As parents, we have a role to play by creating opportunities that encourages presence rather than collecting their device. Thank God for the schools were kids interact with their classmates more often but beyond that, we need to teach them how to interact outside their little social circle from home and few classmates, show interest, feel awkward, without reaching for their phones or laptops to hide behind.

Human connection isn’t automatic. It’s learned. And if we don’t teach it, the phones will. That sallah day reminded me that moments we remember more often are not stored on cloud drive. They’re the ones we live in real time and with real people, in real places.