Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Diary of an Ibadan corper 4

Time flies, time waits for no one. Service year is gradually going, if there is one thing I am constantly glad about it is the fact that my struggle for monthly payment voucher signing will soon end. Also my weekly CDS signings to will be history. How I hate and dread  PV signing queues. Asides from the sometimes annoying officials there was frustrating queues but there were funny CDS personalities, friends I met. This made the experience a bit of fun. As it was interesting and fun to watch different young people, different nature, different behaviours. I met this young lady, who was a movie freak she was always rushing about, looking for whom to download, get films from. She never lacked nollywood movies on her phone. She even made friends over this. She became my friend because she thought I had movies on my phone and she wanted some! She is so flighty and loud.
One experience I mustn’t fail to mention is the nationwide NYSC headcount experience. That experience was a bad one. I had sincerely gone home  that weekend , I wasn’t the only one that had travelled sha. A lot of friends travelled too, I had friends  travel from the north to Abeokuta  yet they were not Ogun corpers.  Then I received a call the following day I arrived, Saturday. we were to assemble at our various local government. My first thought was “this must be a joke, are they serious at all?” I made up my mind to ignore the news and continued my activities that Saturday. But later that afternoon around 4pm I received more calls which confirmed to me that this “shii” was real. I began to plan how to get to Ibadan, I was told we had been given grace to come on Sunday. I began to plan, thank God I had extra Khaki and my sister’s jungle boot was still at home there was no church for me the other day obviously.
I began to see corpers in uniform very early the next morning everyone was obviously trying to beat traffic rushing to various states. That they the bus I boarded had just corpers which was a bit unusual. The last time I saw so many corpers was when I was going the first time to heed the clarion call. As much as there were corpers, we still had few passengers travelling with us. This headcount really got us, especially the part that anyone who missed it will get 2 months extension of service without pay. Service year was tiring enough, who wanted an extension. Funny dps of corpers rushing to meet up with the head count was everywhere. This very day, I made new friends in the car I took. I was the only lady in the car, there was

Mr. dark and slender, who sat beside me at the back seat, he seemed to be more of an extrovert, we talked a lot and within the few hours of our journey I realized he was almost a talkative. Because even when all of us kept quiet he was still talking.

 There was Mr Dark, huge and gentle who sat in front, he hardly spoke, but I was later to find out that we were from the same local government. There was a third guy with me at the back who seemed aloof. He didn’t look like he was from the west anyway but he was a corper too. On getting to Ibadan, i was a bit relieved to part ways with Mr. dark and slender as he belonged to a different local government. Surprisingly Mr. dark and gentle guy engaged me in his own episode of “let me get to know you” conversation .
To be continued…..    

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