Episode 4: the corps story

“Hey! Who is that?”
It was the hostel official’s voice. He was referring to me. Then, he held a torch to my face and down to my black butt. Yep, I was stark naked.

“You’re getting decamped today. Don’t put any clothes on. I’ll parade you naked in front of everyone first before moving you out of the premises.”

Wahala!

This part of the story begins just after my first night in camp. You had to drag yourself out of bed before dawn to bathe, unless you planned on doing rub and shine. For the sake of my non-Nigerian readers, rub and shine is when you apply powder and makeup, and catwalk your way down the hall, hoping that no one notices that you haven’t had a bath.

My role as a member of the lectures committee had me on stage every morning as lectures went on. I needed to be comfortable in my skin, and to achieve this, I needed a bath before leaving the hostel. But so did many others. So, each morning, you met a longer queue in the bathroom than you met the previous day.

“Una still de waste time for bathroom. Na outside I de baff for myself o,” Tola said one morning as we hurried to leave. The soldiers would barge in soon to throw buckets of water on anyone they found in the hostel.

The next day, I tried the outside thing. The morning breeze hit my butt cheeks as I scrubbed and washed, and I knew that I wanted to do this again tomorrow. The next morning, it drizzled. The drops trickled down my body like nature’s teasing fingers, and I knew that I wanted to do this yet again. The next day, the hostel official was standing next to me, pointing his torch to my pintle, threatening to drag my naked ass to the parade grounds, and I knew that I had entered wahala.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. He would not hear.

Unfortunately, the rest of the story is not as interesting. I went back into my room. The man did not know me well enough to spot me in a group of five people. Even if he did, of all things to get decamped over, guy! Wetin I wan tell my mama? Abeg, dead that thought.

I resorted to waking up earlier to use the bathroom. Was it easy? Hell no. But how does the Igbo proverb go again?

When an ant stings the buttocks, it learns to be smart.

Lectures

I had decided, from the beginning, that I would join a group to keep me out of parade. The Red Cross was raising shoulders, doing “We’re no longer accepting members.” Everybody was rushing to join the OBS, and I did not like moving with the crowd, so I hesitated. One afternoon, just after lectures, Mr. Abraham said…

“We need creative writers to join the Lectures Committee. If you’re here and you’re a creative writer, meet me after the anthem. It doesn’t matter what you studied in school. Even if you did Microbiology, as long as you’re into creative writing…”

I was like, just call my name, sir. You don talk everything finish; na only my name remain. Just so you know, I studied Microbiology.

It turned out that he didn’t really need creative writers. He needed people to take lecture notes, set up and clear the stage now and then. The OBS was a better fit for me, but by the time I realized this, I was already knee-deep in the Lectures Committee.

One of the specs of being on this team was that we sat up there on stage with the guests and officials. Sounds fun and all till you realize that you are in desperate need of a nap and there are five hundred pairs of eyes on you.

As we got more drained, the lectures grew depressingly boring. It soon became public knowledge that lecture time was nap time. My colleagues would use me as cover when they wanted to sleep, while I fought to keep my eyes open. And brethren, it was war.

If you think you escaped lectures when you graduated, think again.

-Survivor, NYSC (Now, Your Suffering Continues)

Soldiers- Officials- Corpers

The orientation camp is a political sphere, and not one that very many people understand. You see soldiers everywhere, wearing their khaki and mean faces, shouting like escapees of a mental institution. Unless you have lived in the barracks before, this should be enough to keep you on your toes.

What you do not realize early enough is that they would not lay a finger on you. It’s safe to say that they can not. They would punish you by asking you to sit on the ground, to squat; just random things. And if you proved too much to handle, they would seize your ID and report to the camp director. This is the worst that could happen.

But if you saw them carrying sticks, peering at you from a distance, you would swear these ones were out to break your head if you were to misstep. Na lie!

It had to be the white we wore that made them scream at us like we were cattle.

-Survivor, NYSC (Now, Your Suffering Continues

The officials were first rude descendants of Hitler. The ones you met during registration were the worst. They made you wonder if you’d signed up for service or prison time. With time, you met the kinder and more accommodating ones. You began to work closely with them.

I’ve never seen anyone who loves the sound of his own voice as Mr. Abraham does. He wanted to talk all day, and he wanted you to listen. If you had someplace to go, you had to think of creative ways to excuse yourself. He would ask me one afternoon if he talked too much, and I would say “yes.”

“But that’s your job,” I would add. “It shows just how good you are at your job.” I would wear an innocent smile, and he would wonder if there was a bit of sarcasm in there.

Months after camp, I would run into him and he would lock me in a tight hug. And just how much I missed his stories.

The corpers were one thousand, seven hundred and fifty something people. Some were old, some looked fifteen. Some were ballers, some were popular in the kitchen. Some spoke about climate change, some were all about snapchat and the women.

Double

In my final month of service, I would run into one of my colleagues from the Lectures Committee. Right after pleasantries, he would flash a smile and say…

“My woman don born o.”

“Are you serious?” I would be surprised at my reaction—at how I wasn’t surprised enough; at how I managed to conceal my shock. I didn’t think any of us would be discussing kids just yet.

“Yes, twin girls,” he replied.

I would congratulate him and we’d part ways. I’d somehow know that this would be our last meeting. Thousands as we were, on white uniforms, we were on different paths.

And it is what it is.

written by Di MadWriter

_{The Corps Story is Di MadWriter’s recount of his NYSC experience. Just as with most of his writings, you will find humour, life lessons, and fine storytelling woven into these pieces. All parts of this series are published in the blog section of Direwords}.