The specs of being a corper: My story pt 2

3. the initial days at Ibadan: thanks to that 19,800 that came in just about when we were leaving camp, my "squad" and I could afford to pay hotel bills and enjoy the copper luxury life of Ibadan...yeah we were all posted to Ibadan.

 Registration wasn’t stressful for me because I did the easy part and came in later for the rest; there is no stress in life biko. Oh my God, how will I forget to mention that it’s when you get posted for NYSC that your parents will remember your long lost relatives that live in that state and if you are lucky, you get to choose which of those relativessss you will like to stay with. 

my case wasn’t different, I chose my awesome aunt whom I’m not staying with anymore, yeah i know right if she’s awesome why am I not staying with her anymore? See....the thing is her place is far from my PPA, I’m serious na.....

My first days and even months in Ibadan, oh I wish I had known I would meet the friends I have now I would have just fast forwarded time, if I could. The first days were good, parties here and there; fast food was the order of the day, like every day. Wish I knew there would be rainy days, like both literally and figuratively.

I forgot that I wanted to save all my allawee and buy a car or build a house like most of our NYSC motivational speakers did during their time.

The hustle to find accommodation was real, everybody wanted to get houses in the best areas irrespective of what they or their parents can afford even those that have found the perfect lost relative were still searching for house, why? Dashing one thousand naira to agents. sorry I was meant to talk about myself not others, after staying with my aunt for weeks I was finally favored to get a fully furnished house close to my PPA, yeah right I was lucky...naah, luck is just opportunity meeting hard work *winks*

4. MY PPA: for those wondering where I got posted to, I was posted to Ibadan North West local government onireke Ibadan and yes your guess is as correct as mine...no work. Information reaching says some don’t know the meaning of PPA, its place of primary assignment.

After waiting for about two months to get my internal posting due to the bureaucracy, hectic and busy schedule of the local government workers, I was posted to the finance department.

My work is boring, that’s if I work, nothing much to write about it lets just fast forward to the broke days.

THE SPECS OF BEING A CORPER

Apart from people shouting wee and expecting us to answer back like mad dogs, I believe there are more to being a corper.

 I obviously will write from a personal view, if you feel you have better ideas share em.

1. The preparation for camp: The hype behind preparation for camp would make you wonder, everyone seems to have an idea of what camp would be like, don’t wear this, carry this, and carry that, in my case there was a book given to Eagles "Eagles in Khaki" I’m sure many of you like me read it and were even more frustrated. 

The only place for reliable information seemed to be a bbm channel for corpers, I didn’t even know if the channel was run by a secondary school boy from the comfort of his bed, making graduates run here and there "they say i should buy 10 whites, 10 shorts. i heard some people even bought about 21 white t shirts and shorts for each day, wetin happen.

omg then the photocopies, photocopy 20 copies of this and that, I literally spent thousands of Dollars sorry Naira and I’m not exaggerating on photocopying items I didn’t later need. Then the night before the main camp day and the butterflies running in my stomach sorry scrap that, the urge to get to camp and begin my service.

2. camp day: on getting to camp, the soldiers cared less about how long the queue was or whether you are a graduate or you are the jagaban of agaba land, if you like speak pure British English we all still did frog jump...yes frog jump with our boxes on our head, see people fainting.

The registration queue wasn’t even helping matters, shey if I had known I would resume two days later, the queue was so long that ...no metaphor is entering my head right now but it was very long. about an hour later i was in front, Glory to God.....I was wondering why the other peeps were on the longer queues when mine took me just about an hour.....ooops my supposed one hour line was just for submitting one of the many documents, fast forward to about 8 hours later I finally got a platoon and all the other things.

Some people were already paying officials to work their posting to Ibadan, i’m not judging, I’m just a careful observer.

day 1-2-3-4 squad don dey form, some were already having babes and boyfriend *in Jenifa voice* camp was becoming fun, Mami market, the igbo sistrens and brethrens, different accents.

Day 6 squad was already having goals SQUAD GOALS and we were eager to leave camp and achieve those goals. i wish we knew  the proverb that says 20 children don’t play for 20 years, in our case camp squad isn’t squad after camp...oops I’m talking too much we will talk about this tomorrow.