THE JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES, they say, begins with a step. Through dusty roads, red-earthed for most, with hills that stretch to the sky, as I’d seen from my window pane. The farther we rode. The farther I and my travel companions found ourselves in a newer land.
Our luggage strapped to our back, yet
another rolled on the ground. This journey had brought us to Iselle-uku. A land I previously saw off the screen of my Google map—devoid of people, relief and landscape; now a reality, fluttering with damsels and misters of all walk. Here, my new home—the orientation camp.
I spotted uniform men, with booths and camouflage regalia. The ones I would only admire from afar, now, before my very eyes. I was ordered into a queue, somewhat of a cluster, with faces I had never seen. In time, muteness turned to a conversation and the stranger I would never have spoken to, I gladly shared my dry jokes that sure made her crackle.
The queues never stopped and for every line a conversation laid in wait. One with a newer person to call friend or someone you’d wink at every now and then. Like chickens trailing behind the mother hen we sort these queues like they meant our
life, as we did write our names in a book called THE BOOK OF LIFE , the title a mockery, perhaps they (the Officials) thought it to be a civilized joke or not, or something to puzzle our curious heads; it turned out to be a registry that required our details. Even a meal on camp ground, would require that we queue up, this meant order, and this was the orientation.
As a caricature I heard NYSC meant, ‘Now Your Stupidity Continues,’ that would mean we were goons in platoons , I do beg to differ, because the multi-cultural and religious atmosphere, was more of a
learning; As I came find: that not all
Muslim girls wore the hijab, and being a northerner didn’t mean you were Muslim, that I was an omo-igbo , if I weren't Yoruba. So I would say, NYSC meant ‘Now Your Service Continues’ , this wouldn’t be a first, I probably heard it off another’s lips
or not; Yes indeed as we were always
told: serve the father land; or so the
pledge alludes.
My first night had I and others clustered in our dorms. Atop metal double-bunk beds, stacked side-by-side, space a scarce commodity. Echoing within the walls, Muslim brothers exchanging their assalamualaikum’s . Or shall I mention, my northern friend that had never tasted the sticky-soup called Ogbono. Other nights would be heated up with conversations,
about one state or the other, which had more wealth. Or even professors, Ekiti it was. We had our bunch of crazy clowns, need I mention one was more, he played the sax, gave him some edge, something to raise
his shoulders a little higher.
Makes me wonder why we hate, when at the very core, beneath the hijab of my Muslim comrade and the military caps that settles atop the heads of military commanders, is a beating heart, thumping with life. And yet I would like to remind us that we are the ceremonial white fowls
with patches of greens, but unlike the
terrestrial birds we were meant for the sky. And on the twenty-first day we would take flight, dispersed like soldiers into unfamiliar terrain, we would thus need to keep heads high, gliding through this Deltan sky.
What’s that I hear? The clarion call? No, wait! ‘Yeye Corper your food is ready’ or so the bugle eludes.
YOU ARE READING
Diary Of A Deltan Kuffa
Non-FictionN.Y.S.C. is a milky way of adventure for young Nigerian graduates. The trill, the suspense, the drama of life as a Deltan Kuffa is unpredictable.
