The 21 lies our parents told us while we were growing up in Africa.

1. If you drink garri or coke after eating mango, you’ll dīe.

2. You must throw your fallen tooth on the roof before it can grow back.

3. When you sing & wave to the egret birds, you’ll get white spots on your fingernails.

4. If it is raining and there is sun at the same time, it means that a lion or monkey is giving birth.

5. India won Nigeria 99-1 in a football match.

6. When you bend and look back in between your legs, you’ll see spirits.

7. A mother and her son breaking firewood in the Moon as punishment, because they went to the farm on a Sunday and the Moon carried them.

8. Don’t wear ruber bands because it drains blood.

9. If you eat while kneeling, you will never get satisfied because the devīl will be taking some.

10. If you blow air inside a pencil sharpener, it won’t sharpen pencils anymore.

11. If anyone jumps or crosses you while you’re sitting or lying down on the floor, you will never grow tall again until the person repeats the process.

12. If your parents send you on an errand and you came back late, to escape floggīng or punishment, you need to tie together certain leaves in the bush.

13. If you come to school late, in order not to feel pains during flogging, you need to put a stone in your mouth.

14. When you swallow a seed, especially African star apple seeds (Udara), it will germinate and grow in your stomach.

15. The coconut water is only for the elders.

16. As a young girl, if a boy touches you, it’ll result to pregnancy.

17. If you whistle at night, you’re calling the evīl spirits and serpents.

18. If someone bites you while fighting and you rub a fowl faeces on it, the person’s teeths will fall off.

19. If you sweep the room late in the night, all your blessings will go away.

20. If you look at the mirror at night, you’ll see a ghost.

21. If you eat Turkey’s meat without burying the head, it will turn to a snake.

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