2 weeks in..

Whoever said some parts of Nigeria are still backward didnt lie.

I picked up my call up letter quite alright. That was after the crowd had gone mad and the NYSC officials didnt seem to show any crowd control skills. How can you have almost a thousand people queue up in no particular order to collect a letter that isnt arranged in any order. I take that back. We didnt queue up, we became a crowd that couldnt be managed where the tall ones had their noses up above the short ones and could smell their hair. God help those who had smelly weaves in their noses. One official then came out and said, he'd call out names (written in no order) and we had to queue up as he called out the names. Yes, that worked for a minute but the queue didnt move because the letters were not arranged in the order that the names were called. So once again, it became a very angry crowd. Finally the same guy came out with the letters and called out the names as he went along. That finally worked, after we'd spent almost 6 hours trying to pick up a lousy letter. After the gruelling task, the letter delivers the bad news that yes you have been posted to the state you asked for, but your orientation camp is in some remote village somewhere. Wow! How exciting!

Fast forward to days later and Lagos corpers are heading to Iseyin, Oyo state. I was looking forward to it. Partly because I'd have the opportunity to meet lots of people and also get a last minute feel of what its like to be in a boarding school. A few miles to camp and my feet went numb. Some call it cold feet but thats for those that that can feel their feet at a time like that. Got to camp and well, let the chaos begin. In as much as I would like to delve into every little detail in regards to registration, I cant. That itself is tiring. It was one hell of a day. I got there shortly after 11am but didnt finish my registration till 12.40am the next day. Thus leaving me with 4 hours to sleep, wake up and get ready. Well, I didnt get any sleep, so I had loads of time to get ready. With an 18 man room, I wonder how people still managed to snore away and sleep comfortably on a metal bunk and a mattress the width of a notebook.

Days went and so did the people. Many stayed to register and then found their way out, others took more drastic measures like scaling the fence. I had no escape route, so I had to stay put, in as much as I wanted to leave so bad! I mean seriously, how easy is it to manage in a place where there are pit latrines in place of toilets and open air cubicles in place of shower areas. SERIOUSLY HOW!!!!???? I managed to have a shower once in a while but hell no was I hovering my bum over a hole in the ground. As God would have it, my mind and my body were in sync and I didnt need a number 2 till sunday when we finally broke out with an 'atm pass' and headed for the nearest hotel. There we shat, showered and crashed. Forgive my crude diction but it has to be said in its crudest form for you to understand how bad it was.

Next day, I played a tiny bit of volleyball and managed to 'sprain' my ankle. Call it whatever you want, but I managed to get my exeat and with all the fuss I made, I got the rest of the 2 weeks off! Haha SUCKERS! The patient dog always gets the fattest bone, I kid you not!
I've been home for a week and now I want to go back. I'm more bored at home than I was in camp! So I'm packing my bags and I am off tomorrow. Lucky for me, it finishes on friday, so I'm sure my bowels can rest for another 3 days! Hehe!

I shall be back soon with a post on 'moving on and the barriers we create for ourselves in relationships'. I have questions! I need them answered by my very able blog fam.

Its EID next week and to my fellow muslim brothers and sisters, Eid Mubarak. To others, I say, enjoy the meat!


xxx