NYSC DIARY : Grateful For Jollof Rice and Yoruba People

A

abujagirl

Guest
I think i'll be passing out less than one month from today - October 6, 2016. I'm no longer checking my calendar everyday. I'm relaxed and ready for some of the uncertainties life may throw my way. I will never be ready for all of it but i hope i never fall face down. Today is not about me [we'll talk about me soon]. Today's diary entry is by a corps member i met through the NYSC SAED programme in camp. I hope you enjoy his entry.

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A few days ago, a friend of mine asked me to share my one year NYSC experience with her as she prepares for her batch B call up this October. I think I have been too carried away by a lot of things that I forgot to keep a diary of all my daily and weekly happenings and experiences as a corper.

Oh, ok I think I would start with my jollof rice and fried fish experience in camp; i had the best jollof rice in my twenty something, only God knows what years on planet earth right at the Iyana Ipaja Lagos orientation. It was quite an experience for me being the fact that I wasn’t the social friendly and untamable kind of guy. Maybe you might think hey, dude…you are social jor. I mean am that kind of guy who craves for a private life so I can meditate and focus on more productive stuffs and who can’t be kept away from freedom for weeks.

It was hard for me on the first day in camp as I wasn’t briefed properly on what to do as soon as I get to camp. I travelled almost a six hour trip from delta to Lagos and arrived at the camp ground 8pm on the first day and immediately went straight out to begin my certificate verification and registration forgetting that I needed to go for my accommodation first before other things. After my registration which I later did around 11pm in the night after standing on the queue for hours with a thousand others from different universities across the country and away, i went back to look for a hostel accommodation and was told all the rooms were all occupied. Really, how and where am I going to sleep tonight I yelled at the NYSC official in charge of the accommodations as she begged us to wait out for them to make provisions for us.

After waiting for two hours of which I spent half the time dozing off holding my bag under my chair to avoid any theft issue; we were asked to go sleep at the clinic sick bay of which i thought was the perfect accommodation for me only to be ejected forcefully after two nights when the graduate doctors began receiving casualty corpers who got sick from the stress and irritations of the environment. We were later given a mattress to go sleep on the floor in one of the hotels that were already filled up and there I finally began to fill amongst those who came to camp with no fear of being ejected from the room anymore only to fall sick two days to leaving camp.

I thought it was all a joke as everyone kept saying I was faking it to avoid going on the parade ground, oh…I wish I was damn faking it because I suck for a military sergeant so why waste my energy doing what I sucked at; I could barely open my right eye as I had the most tremendous headache with a banging hit on my head and had to be rushed to the clinic where I was placed on a bed rest for hours.

I could remember some of the mami market experience with some of my female corpers as I was the Don Jazzy of the club taking a few girls i never knew I would never meet again out until Passing out Parade POP. I remember meeting Africa’s finest Pop artiste Dbanj, Cynthia Morgan, Naeto C and other top artistes who thrilled us at the variety night and also GT Bank’s movie screening of the movie Gidi UP series.

It was all an amazing experience at the Lagos orientation camp. I think I had some of the best camping experience as a corper because some of the pains, stress and challenges I faced while in camp helped me to face the tough world out there as I was posted to one of the most remote areas in Ikorodu area of Lagos state, a village called Bayeku surrounded by a large mass of water and swampy soil.

I was so ready to face what life had thrown to me with all my heart until luckily for me I was relocated back to the developed part of Ikorodu where I met some of the best and nicest Yoruba indigenes who were always ready to help you with anything.

Thanks to NYSC I believe I came, I saw, I experienced, I was transformed and I became a better version of me.

Written By Chiazor Daniel
Lagos
 
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