“Videre est credere” Laugh it off with Dad!

I remember my dad was very good in languages back in the day.

He would conveniently converse in the major languages of Nigeria, namely Yoruba, Hausa and Ibo. He could also speak some other ‘not-so-major’ languages of the country. I remember he would make attempts to speak some Latin as well!

Funny, thinking of it now, I never really saw this trait as a gift he has although I used to be proud of him every time he spoke to people from all these languages’ areas.

Why am I referring to this now or what is the point of all this?

One late night, during my usual chat with dad on the phone in far away Nigeria, we got talking about the world cup.

By the way, my dad is a great soccer fan (football as it is called back home).

So we got talking and I asked how he’s finding the games so far.
“Oh the games”, dad said, “you know we have not had electricity for the past 3 days and so I have been ‘debarred’ from watching the games” he concluded.

“O what a shame” I said. Trying to encourage him I said, “I’m sure dad you’d still get the news of how the World Cup is going from other people somehow”.

To that, Dad did not sound very happy and guess what his reply was:

“What does it matter if I get reports about the games?, as the saying goes in Latin “Videre est credere”

“What!What!! Dad!!! What does that mean dad”? I didn’t quite get him at first. Then I burst out laughing!

Before I recovered from my laughter, dad added that “Videre est credere” is Latin which means “Seeing is believing”.

Apart from helping me to understand the pronunciation of the phrase, dad further explained the point he was making.

“I rather see the games myself. I could see all the nitty-gritty of it all, he added. That makes it more interesting and fun than having somebody tell me the story” explained dad.

I could not agree less!

And guess what else I discovered? I realized that my siblings and I took after dad as far as language skill is concerned.


That story is for another day. For now….“Videre est credere” hihihi!!!