The Second Coming

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While the saying “Whatever has a beginning, has an end” is debatable, it is mostly true. This blog, which started some months back, has come to its natural end. Will there be another blog? (No doubt – because there always will be things worth writing on.) So, here’s the concluding part of my NYSC story.

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The breeze was hot and the sun shone strongly on the tar, as the bike I was on turned and descended into Olla community. All I had was my school bag, and my senses. It was my second coming. I felt, to a degree, like a man who woke up from the dead. I had a surreal feeling of awe ‘ so I had come back.’

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My alarm sounded at exactly 5am, and I woke up with a jump. It was a mixed jump; it started strongly, but ended weakly. Strongly because the day I had long sought after was here I was gonna be free from all the many rules of NYSC and weakly because chasing the day’s dream implied forgetting my many friends and dear students.

After all the sendforths, it was time to pass-out. (In NYSC speak, I had slept late the night before because of three things: nostalgia, ‘exhaustion’, and procrastination.

“Uk! Uk!” Came Hillary’s loud voice from the opposite room.

“I don wake.” I replied – equally loudly.

And so the morning ritual began in sequence: Praying, brushing, bathing, and dressing. In a couple minutes, I was ready, with my three bags: a school bag, a big box, and another bag –  which contained the elaborate glassware gifts I had received from the sendforths. 

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Fast-forward twenty minutes. I am downstairs, with my bags waiting for a means of transportation under the Gmelina tree in front of Chief Abanishe’s compound (Our lodge). I wait for ten minutes, no vehicle comes, and then I remember that I should say a final farewell to my other colleagues. So, I stroll across the tarred road to the other ‘corpers’ lodge

‘Bang Bang bang.’ I knock at their metallic door.

“Good people! I’d be leaving for good O!” I say in a mellow tone.

 Silence. And then the door creaks open.

“Co-ordinator – so it’s true that you’re leaving us.” Christy said.

“No mind Uk, I no sabi where him dey rush go.” Seun added.

“Co-ordina – mebong mebong..” Deborah adds whilst clapping.

I respond gently, almost snobbishly the irony is that I miss them so much; I sometimes wonder why feelings and actions don’t exactly match, particularly at moments when they ought to. Take a few photo shots with them and off I go – with Hillary – heading for Ilorin. 

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In the middle of nowhere the gray-stands stand

In the middle of gray stands the green berets rise

In the middle of green berets the red hearts beat

In the middle of red hearts the blue clock chimes

‘It’s time to go home’

The entire Passing Out Venue and activities can be compressed into these five lines above.

Hillary and I have just alighted at Post Office Bus-Stop in Ilorin, and we are thinking of how to get to the venue of the POP. An elderly woman strolls gracefully past us, and I hazard to ask her for directions.

 “Please Madam, how do we get to Asa Dam road.”

“Cross to the other side of the road and board a cab.” She motions to the other side of the road.

Bingo.

A couple minutes later the quarter-elliptic amphi-theater like structure rises from the right side of Asa Dam road. My thoughts run.

Hmm. This is really life. Wasn’t it yesterday that I ventured into this state? How soon! It seems the older I get, the faster time flies. I should research on that. And why am I just knowing this road, and this massive event centre for the first time. Uk when will you change?

The sounds of the band hit my ears and my memories raced back to the Yikpata NYSC orientation camp. I remembered an occasion when I joined the band.

We had marched for two hours under the hot sun in the morning. My skin was sun-burned. Yes, it was visibly red. It was the first week of camp and we were to resume marching by four in the evening. Not on my life would I go back to stamping my feet and swinging my arms. So, when 4 pm came, I joined the band. The band unit was clustered with people around the different types of instruments: bass drums, tenor drums, rolling drums, trumpets, cymbals etc. I quickly noticed some ladies around the tenor drums with an instructor – and they were hitting those drums well. I gravitated there. My logic was simple: ‘if these girls can play so well, then, maybe, those drums are easy to play.’ I couldn’t have been more wrong. My turn came: I got the beats right the first time, and then I got it wrong. Right then wrong. Right, then right, then wrong. Wrong then wrong then wrong, then I left – with a grin. I realized then that not everything was mathematics.

We alighted from the cab, paid the fare, and dropped my bags at a vulcanizer’s shed. Come on, how could I have carried big bags into the arena – it would have been swaggless?

The arena reeked of smiles, and corps members, and Ice-cream sellers (for the sun was overhead), and soldiers, and photographers, and hugs, and hand-shakes, and you name it! The perimeter of the open-air arena had unpainted concrete stands fitted with green plastic seats – as in a stadium. (In the middle of nowhere the gray-stands stand.) Corps members sat according to their local government areas of posting. I saw many faces that I could remember, and I waved every so often to someone while I walked ‘half-majestically’ to the section of the stands reserved for Isin Local Government Area.

In the middle of the arena, some corps members were marching past the Chair of the occasion (In the middle of gray stands the green berets rise.) being prodded on by soldiers in their ceremonial regalia. It was a cool display. Oh, and I heard the ‘marchers’ were those serving in Ilorin, and I heard some people ‘fainted’ during the rehearsals. Don’t mind me, I hear things!

I could smell anxiety in the air. Everyone almost everyone was tired and wanted out of NYSC altogether. It was as if every corps-member present shared one giant heart that was beating to the sound of the bass drum’s boom boom, and saying, “home home.” (In the middle of green berets the red hearts beat.)

The ceremony didn’t last too long: a blink and a half at most. I thought this was so because of the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the country. My conjectures notwithstanding, big men gave their speeches – most were boring, big men drove in in motorcades with big black cars and angry looking security men. Talking of security men, I saw an officer having a laugh with one of the corps members far ahead of me, I did a double take, and my memory flashed back again:

It was day nine, or thereabout, at the NYSC camp, and, for the first time, we woke up around 6 am – instead of the usual 5:30am. Six years of boarding school life had taught me that it is better to wake up automatically than to be woken by another – the consequence of the later being a headache and slower brain processing time, so by 5:30 am, I had brushed but not bathed and lay on my bed awake with my eyes closed – meditating and waiting for the refrain “if you’re still sleeping you’re wrong.” I was wrong, for I never heard it.

By a few minutes to 6 am, we trudged along to the parade ground and lazed about, waiting for the soldiers to call us to order, to shout “cover up in threes” to swing their sticks and to blow the bugle. None of this happened. Were the soldiers were on strike?

At the first break of dawn, we saw no soldiers. I sighed, we sighed, the atmosphere sighed ‘where are the soldiers’. Then the words came rushing: “O! make this soldiers come now, see as every where dull.” One guy said beside me. And complaints in like manner continued till 9 am when the soldiers returned. In fact, when they returned, corps members were hailing spontaneously and jubiliating. It was funny, but instructive. Only yesterday, we had complained of their harshness, their brutality, but today, we were missing them like… That experience, for me, was ironic, but I learnt to love soldiers from then on, I have ever since.  Well things changed from then on, the soldiers became nicer and our drills became less physically demanding. I later overheard that a ‘big man’s daughter’ had called some big people in high places complaining of the harsh drills, and word had come that things be made easier – after the briefing, which was why they were absent earlier in the day.  

By the time I came back from my day dream, the event was over, it was time to collect that one piece of paper that encapsulated my one year – the Discharge Certificate, I was about to cross that ocean. (In the middle of red hearts the blue clock chimes.)

The remaining events happened rapidly. I joined the queue to collect my certificate, did so, and took a couple photographs.

                      

Hillary and I - Passing Out

About to collect Discharge Certificate - Queue at Foreground

Thereafter, Tony and I took a cab back home. (‘It’s time to go home’)

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“Uk what are you thinking about?” Tony asked looking in my direction from across the chair where he sat.

I lay on his mattress looking at the ceiling. His small room was half occupied with luggage – his, mine, and a friend’s. “I miss Olla – seriously.”

“Then go back. Why don’t you spend a day or two there.”

“But I’ve left for good, packed everything. What a shame that’d be.”

“Go back jor, is it not one or two days?”

And so we argued back and forth about whether or not I should go back. Then we stopped – sleep took over. I awakened by 4pm and went on a walk around the large compound of the River Basin Authority where Tony worked – weighing my options: cashwise and emotion-wise. Images of the sleepy town of Olla fleeted across my mind’s eyes and by the time I returned to the room, I had made up my mind to eat the humble pie and go back to Olla.

Egro, Friday 14^th February, I was in a cab heading for Omu-Aran, an ancient town in Kwara state, and soon I was on a bike descending the hills into Olla community.  The breeze was hot and the sun shone strongly on the tar, as the bike I was on turned and descended into Olla community. All I had was my school bag, and my senses. It was my second coming. I felt, to a degree, like a man who woke up from the dead. I had a surreal feeling of awe ‘ so I had come back.’

I had pinged a few colleagues that I was coming back earlier on. I wasn’t received with pomp, or circumstance, but I could see it in the eyes of all my colleagues that I had been missed – deeply. The eyes can sometimes beat the mouth in the conveyance of the heart’s contents.

I stayed in Hillary’s room, for my room was empty and uninhabitable; I had given out my property and food stuff. The afternoon was quiet and I did nothing but lie down. I took a sick colleague to the medical centre and laughed a little when I heard shouts of tears coming from the injection room. So adults still fear injections. It was good to be back. By evening I had no regrets – so I loosened up and said:

“good people, let’s go pluck some cashews.”

“Uk uk – you don come back with cashews abi.” Ufuoma responded laughing.

Well, Hillary and Nnadi came along and the pictures tell the story.

Hillarious! Deriving pleasure from Cashews

In the evening I went to the other lodge, to see how my ill colleague was faring and I met mama. Mama was the seventy-something year old land-lady of a big one-story building which housed the female corps members. Until we came, she lived alone in the house, for all her children, now big men, lived in the city. She was our NYSC mother, as well as our Yoruba laboratory. How so? Mama couldn’t speak English, so whenever we communicated with her, we used the clauses, phrases, and words we learnt, as well as gestures. I remember a time I met her at home:

“Mama, eka’ale.” I said.

“Yellow. Shey O wa dada?” She responded.

“Mowapa mama.”

She went on. “Shey o ri adiye ti mo fi si inu apere yen. Mo no o. O’n ja pelu awon iyi’oku... .”

So mama was reporting one of her chickens to me. She said she beat it and isolated it in the basket because it was fighting the other chickens and not allowing them to feed properly. With mama every being was family. She spoke to her goats, feed her chickens, and disciplined them when they erred. She was so at peace with life, with nature – It was a beauty to behold.

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It was Saturday night, and I had made up my mind to go away, finally, on Sunday morning after the church service. One of my students came to the house and asked me to explain the “Mole Concept” to him – which I did. Thereafter I just lay still and reminisced on some funny things. In my computer exams, I had asked my students: “who is the father of the computer?” and while marking, I saw a script with an answer “Corper Ukeme.”

The Father of The Computer - In the Red Box

And I remembered my best student in Jss 1, Semilore – who scored all correct in the Objective questions:

Perfect Scores are Possible!

And I remembered corper Deborah’s rope bags:

Deborah Akinrefon's Rope Bags

And I remembered when our Community Development Service group presented a project to the NYSC Local Government Office:

Project Presentation to NYSC Isin LGA Officials

And, finally, I remembered when I handed over the co-ordinatorship of the Olla Maintainance CDS group to Ufuoma:

Handover

And Sunday came uneventfully.

It’s hard to say goodbye

The first time

It’s easier

The second time

Seize your second chance

After the church service I hung my bag, entered the RCCG pastor’s car, waved good bye and off I went into manhood.

There Were Send Forths

It was the Monday of the week in which I was to pass out. When I woke up early on that morning, and stood on the balcony of the top floor of the corper’s lodge, I never knew how my day would go. The goats bleated as usual, the hens ran about in their frenzy, and the hills on the horizon were still where I saw them last night. Chidioke, a dignified she-goat, who had begotten two generations of stubborn goats, sat on her sofa – a wooden table.

 (We, the corps members, had given her that name, for though she was a quiet goat, which is rare, her kids were incorrigible. I remember a Saturday morning when one of her kids climbed the stairs to the first floor of the building. We heard the kid bleating in the kitchen and scattering the dustbins. This particular kid had been doing this for long and we had borne it patiently. Alas, it was payback time. Hillary, Nnadi and I, closed all the escape routes and beat the goat black and blue until it started crying. We thought we had trained that kid and that its tears were an audible vow never to return upstairs. We were wrong, for we saw the same kid upstairs the next day prancing as if nothing happened the day before. It was then I realized that calling a human being ‘goat’ was the worst insult imaginable.) 

The Stubborn Kid

Statutorily, I wasn’t expected to go to the my place of primary assignment - the secondary school - but I went. I figured there would be no Chemistry and Computer teacher after I passed out of the NYSC for some time to come, so I thought it wise to teach as much as I could before leaving Kanturu. Moreover I thought, what will I be doing at home.

Ergo, I had my bath, did my morning rituals, and was ready for school. I arrived the school about thirty minutes late and as I made for the staff room, I heard a voice.

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Over the weekend I had been going on strategic visits because I knew I would miss Kwara state. I visited a friend and colleague who was serving in a remote village called Ekan Meje in Oke Aro L.G.A. In addition, Hillary and I visited the mother of our student – Lucky – who was delivered of a baby girl. It was a fun way to round up our NYSC experience. My feelings were ‘dilemmatic’. One the one hand I wanted to be free, to pass out, to be my boss and not have any NYSC official to fear. On the other hand, I was feeling nostalgic, but I always suppressed the thought.

That Sunday, in the Redeemed Christian Church of God Hillary and I attended, a section of the service was dedicated for our sendforth. We had front seats in the service, people were invited to speak about us, and we were given the privilege to talk about our experience. Something funny happened.

“We want to call on Corper Seun to speak about the soon-to-pass-out corps members.” The Pastor’s wife said.

Seun came up and took the microphone with a smile, looked at both of us and smiled again.

My heart skipped a beat. I thought: ‘Make this girl no fall my hand for church o.”

Said she,“….I appreciate corper Hillary he’s a good guy and a good leader, but I must say that he beats me too much.”

I burst out laughing spontaneously and looked at Hillary who, at that moment, bore a shocked look on his face where he sat beside me.

Hillary and Seun were one hell of a pair who always played and fought and played, but I never thought that she’d bring their playfulness to the front of the church. Thankfully, everyone took it with good humour and laughed it away. Friendship.

 

RCCG Abundant Life  Send off

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“Uk! Uk! Please come.” The voice called strongly.

I stopped in my tracks. In a split second my brain was searching its voice data base to identify who was calling, and before I turned, I knew it was the Junior-Secondary Principal.

“Good morning sir.” I replied as I walked briskly towards his office with my shoulder bag still hugging my back.

“How was your weekend?”

“Very fine sir.”

“We want to do a send forth for you and Hillary.”

“Really? That’d be great sir. Thank you.”

“Yes. We must do a send forth for you people. You deserve it. What day is your passing out?”

“Thursday sir.”

And that was how the idea for a send forth came up. Hitherto, and to the best of my knowledge, sendforths were not done for outgoing corps members, so the news was a surprise.

The sendforth was slated for wednessday and here was how it went.

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By 10 am the timekeeper’s metal rod struck the trailer-wheel that hung from the tree in the centre of the school. It was a make shift bell, which was jingled to convene all students.  Soon, seats were arranged in the centre of the cashew plantation in quadrangular fashion, and a table tennis board was placed in the middle. A day before, we had been told that a novelty table tennis match would hold as part of the send forth activities.

The event started with the table tennis match. The games-master chose two students each to represent Hillary and I - they wore yellow and blue vests respectively. It was a fiercely competitive match, and I thought it ironic, for Hillary and I were best of friends and never competed. The white ball flew here and there and everywhere – whithersoever the players willed it. 

(I was reminded, by the match, of the movie “The Great Debaters” starring Denzel Washington – who played the character Melvin. Melvin was a teacher who tutored his highly intelligent students for debates all over America. Before any debate practice, he always asked His students some questions, and required that they shout the answers at the top of their voice in a call and response manner - thus:

Melvin: Who is the judge?

Students: The judge is God.

Melvin: Why is he God?

Students: Because he decides whether I win or lose, not my opponent

Melvin: Who is your opponent?

Students: He doesn’t exist.

Melvin: Why does he not exist?

Students: Because he is just a mere dissenting voice to the truth I speak.

Anyway, at the end of the match a team won, and if you really want to know which, watch the video below.

Even the cashew trees shed tears for us and many a cashew fell down during the event. We were lucky that none of them fell on either the staff or students. Thereafter, the principals spoke, Hillary and I spoke, we were given gifts, and we were sent forth.

Receiving My Send Forth Gifts

Hillary Receiving His Send Forth Gifts

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That same day, by 5 pm our colleagues, corps members, sent us forth. We had a modest get together at one of the lodges with music, and speeches, and dancing, and food. It was fun, but it was hard, for I was hard hit by the reality of my departure. 

Corpers Send Forth: Receiving a Gift from Leye

The passing out Parade was the next day and I had already packed my baggage for a final exit. Hillary and I were to leave by 6am the next day. But was it a final exit?

Watch out for the Next Episode.


 

Scaling Mount Kanturu - POP Season!

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"It was psychologically jolting, and for a second, I thought we might not be able to descend the hill. My funny mind kept flashing back to episodes on discovery channel where survivors were rescued using choppers, and I imagined myself being hauled into a chopper."

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EPISODE 1:

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After my not too honorable break from posting on this blog in mid-October, I thought it wise to, at least, round it up honorably. In NYSC speak, POP stands for Passing Out Parade, which is the event that marks the end of a service year for a particular batch.

Being a part of the passing out batch, I decided to make my last days in Kanturu community exciting. My goals were to: have no reason to think or say ‘I wish I had…’, catch as much fun as possible, and catch such fun legitimately.

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 Ergo, I decided, alongside Hillary, to climb a nearby hill. Kanturu community’s access road passes through a valley between two hills. As a result, the hills when viewed from a distance look like the pillars of a city gate and the intervening vegetation seem like the leaves of this imaginary gate (I assume your mind’s eye can form a decent image).

A batch B corps member, Nnadi, decided to join us for the expedition and we all wore our jungle boots to provide us sufficient traction for the steep mountainsides. I quickly grabbed a knapsack and packed in my mobile phones, a sachet of water, an indigenous snack (which I won’t disclose because it may shock you), groundnut, and Nutri-C.

We strode on the tarred road until we got to the entrance of Kanturu and then veered into the surrounding bush approaching the foot of the hill from a bird’s eye view, which is a straight line. Although, at first, I quivered for obvious security reasons, when we entered the thick bush, the smell of adventure caused some ‘fight’ adrenaline to drop into my bloodstream, which gave me boldness and heightened sensory acuity. In NYSCese, I was “good to go.”

I walked, ran and sometimes crawled on all fours up the hill. I had a good grip of the rock thanks to the NYSC boots and I did well not to look downwards. I noticed that I ran out of breath sooner, and so did my companions – perhaps because air gets thinner with an increase in atmospheric height.

Either way, whenever we stopped to regain our breaths we used the time to snap photographs. At some point in our ascent, I had to get a hold of Hillary’s hand for I felt I could easily miss a step and tumble down like “Jack and Jill who went to fetch a pail of water up the hill.”

At about fifty meters into the climb, the view of the surrounding thicket and nearby Kanturu was panoramic. I could see herd of cattle, with their faithful shepherd agrazing deep in the bush, and I wondered why cattle had to go so deep to feed. I wondered even more for the herdsmen who faithfully watched over the cattle, and I remembered Jesus who is the Good Shepherd.

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In say twenty thirty minutes, we were at the summit of the hill. The sun was just setting over the horizon and its indirect rays made everywhere surreal, but beautiful. I quickly lay on the flat peak and basked in my exhaustion. 

“ Hello – Ufuoma, Seun…. Make una come see us oo.” I heard Nnadi say on the phone.

Apparently, my colleague was calling the female corps members who were left behind in the corpers lodge to take a look at us from the peak.

“We dey see una came the almost chorused response from the phone’s speaker…”

One atop the hill, we began taking photos and enjoyed the conspectular view of the village. It was instructive to me that the towering houses in the village seemed as mere dots when viewed from the mountain top.

I believe that life has the same principle. While we struggle to achieve one worthy goal or the other, challenges seem insurmountable and the top looks like a dream, but when we do arrive at the top, we see that those challenges weren’t really so big after all. The lesson I have kept to my heart is this:

“Problems look different based on perspective, and I have a right to choose the best viewpoint – the top.”

I remembered to concoct my make-shift snack and enjoyed it too. You may call it high-level snacking if you wish.

 

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While the sun and moon fought for precedence in the sky, darkness appeared in the interregnum and we thought it was high time to go. As we walked to the side of the hill, we noticed that the precipice was much steeper than first anticipated.

Our first reaction was “how we take climb am sef?”

It was psychologically jolting, and for a second, I thought we might not be able to descend the hill. My funny mind kept flashing back to episodes on discovery channel where survivors were rescued using choppers, and I imagined myself being hauled into a chopper. I even fantasized about my celebrity status when national dailies would carry our pictures with the headlines “NYSC members rescued from a hill by the Nigerian Air force.”

We soon figured out a less steep path – although longer – and we traced a gently sloping spiral until we got to the foot of the hill. We arrived to a much darker semi-forest and soon got lost in the vegetation. 

Double wahala.

Somehow, we roved and roved in the bush until we found a bush track we recognized from our journey to the hill. The cashew trees in the bush were glad we had found our way and they cheered us temptingly with their ripe and big fruits. We eagerly fell for their appealing beckoning and ate the fruits with gusto.

We were soon home.

“Them don come O.” one of the ladies shouted upon our arrival.

“Una bin resemble three tiny dots for on top that rock.” Another added.

We laughed and laughed, but I remembered my lesson:

“Problems look different based on perspective, and I have a right to choose the best viewpoint – the top.”

WATCH OUT FOR EPISODE 2