CHRONICLES OF NYSC CAMP - DAY 4
18 – 10 – 2007
21 – 4 = 17 more days to go.
Tired. Woke up tired. It drizzled on us in the parade ground yesterday. So so tired. Hippy helped me to get water – she should be the time keeper anytime its needed. The group has expanded – it now comprises of Ben, Kanny, Lola, Hippy,
They gave us our first “alawi” today (Corper allowance) = just one thousand five hundred naira (N1500) but the queue was exceedingly long. Uncle Wasiu (my ex – neighbor) came to my rescue and helped me skip the line. I called Vicky, and he was just laughing at me. My feet are killing me! I was elected Treasurer for my platoon today. God help me. We committee officials had a meeting till around 9p.m. I am tired already.
Before I go further, let me explain about the platoons. Every corper is put in a platoon, about eighteen in all. Every platoon is excepted to compete for first to third prize in several categories. There’s football for the guys, volleyball for the babes, Miss NYSC Osun camp, and Mister Macho. The platoons are also graded for their participation in the Camp kitchen when their turn came, and then on Camp fire night, when each platoon cooks for the cooking competition. Its grueling really, especially if you are the Treasurer and you have to make everybody pay their dues. And added to that, there is the trouble of trying to get everybody to do their job the right way – the Socials Committee assistant was a heady, troublesome, trouble – rousing girl from LASU. The gist about her will definitely come later.
There’s a soldier that goes around with a red sash across his chest – we call him names like “Devil”, “Red man”, or “Red”. His main joy is making people moan and suffer. What makes it worse is that the guy has a conk (Naija abbrev. For ‘concentrated’) Hausa accent – “Ju are bery stufit” “Neel down tear” “shat ap!” his job is to go around looking for people to taunt and destabilize.
Tomorrow is the drill competition. God have mercy on my platoon.
Comments
In my camp, there was no drill competition. What they were doing instead was trying to select the final "marching squad" for the last day. So they were weeding out the marchers from the spectators.
Me, I no fit shout, I was a spectator oh.
You see, I developed a very mysterious ailment that made me limp very seriously whenever it was time for marching. It was very mysterious really, as it made itself known ONLY when it was time to march.;-)
My platoon soldier (or whatever they call themselves) actually came to ask me what happened to my leg. Speaking with a conc. hausa accent (I really dont know what northern jungle they harvest these soldiers from).
With a straight face, I told the semi-illiterate man that I was suffering from an ailment which was largely psychosomatic in origin and it results in an acute inclination towards being a visual partaker of needless endeavours. Or something like that sha, I dont recall exactly what I said, but the man looked at me with renewed sympathy.
Wetin I go do na?