Mira's world

We got to camp on Thursday afternoon after a very long journey. We were stopped by security men at the gate for a quick search. Then we headed straight to the registration office. At the registration office we were given mattresses and rooms, when I saw the mattress even mat is better than it. I called an errand boy to help with carry my bag and mattress to my allocated room. When I got to the room, I saw other female Corp members. I picked an up bunk dropped my stuff on it and headed straight to the medicals to continue my registration.

On getting to the medical center, I had to wait for my turn. When It was my turn the nurse checked my blood pressure and screamed that I can’t register that I have to go home, I was surprised and confuse, she said my BP is high and she don’t want anyone to faint on her watch. I told her am not going to faint, that it because of the long journey all I needed was good food and enough sleep. After so many hours of waiting, disagreement and agruement, I was asked to sign an undertaken before registration. After, the wahala at the medical center I was tired to continue the registration. With the help of Victor I managed to get my kits and headed straight to Mamie market to eat. I managed to catch some sleep after dinner.

As early as 4:30am, I was awoken by the noise of Corp members getting ready for the morning drill. I sat on the iron bed, confuse and sleepy. When bunk mate walked up to me and told me to come down and prepare before they come and I do frog jump to the parade ground. I jump down from the bed, still feeling sleepy and pains from the iron bed I slept on. I got ready as quick as I can, trying to avoid morning punishment. I was told to lock up all my bags or keep them up to avoid snakes from entering. I quickly said a prayer to God and headed straight to the parade ground.

At the parade ground, the cold was much, I wish I had a sweater on. I located my platoon and stood there. I was lucky to have my school mate we traveled together in same platoon with me. After the morning parade and all, it was time for breakfast. When I saw the red blooded akara and watery pap, I just knew that camp food wasn’t for me.

Camp was interesting, from the parade (which I found a way to escape by joining red Cross occasionally), to the hostel gist, the boring lectures (which was my sleeping time), to the trainings, the matches, the competitions. My favorite time was time with my guys at maime market, I was the only girl in the mist of 8 guys, you can imagine the care and attention I received. I remembered the drama we acted that got everyone calling me a Yoruba girl. Our dance competition which my platoon came second. The carvinal day was interesting too, I had make up on for the first time in camp.

The last day of camp I had missed feelings, I wanted to go home and eat good food and also sleep in a more comfortable bed, and also don’t want to miss my friends. We did our passing out parade, been drenched in the rain. After, the parade we headed to the lecture room to get PPA letter. I found out I had been relocated to ogun state before the parade ended. I slept in Taraba that day, and left taraba very early the next day straight to Lagos.

As early as 5:30am on Tuesday, I was on my way to the park to join the bus straight to sibre jalingo, where the permanent orientation camp for taraba is located. On getting to the park I saw many Corp members and their families. I try to locate the bus going to jalingo, it was quite hard. I meet a friend going to Taraba camp too from my school, that gave me a relieve knowing won’t travel alone.

We finally found our bus, it was a luxury bus. I bid my family bye and settle down in the bus. We were only 3 Corp members going to Taraba, the rest were going to kogi, Abuja, Benue, Nasarawa, the bus was filled up. After many argument we left the park finally.

The journey was a very exciting, scary and funny one. I meet a lot of cool people in the bus, we sang, danced and told lots of jokes. I met a very smart, creative and talented guy, Victor, we bonded like we knew each other before. Micheal my school friend was very helpful too. I remembered when our bus broke down at ondo state we had to wait for a hour 30minutes for the bus engine to cool off, later that day we slept in a fuel station at kogi for the night cos it was too dangerous to continue the journey.

After dropping Corp members in kogi we headed straight to Abuja to drop another set of Corp members and changed our bus to a more faster and convenient bus. We had another stop over at Nasarawa and headed straight to Benue. The journey from Benue to Taraba was the longest ever I was so tired.

We finally got to wukari ( a local government in Taraba, close to Benue) very late, we couldn’t continue the journey. We had to sleep in the university at wukari after begging the security men there. As early as 5am we continue our journey to sibre jalingo excited and happy that we are almost there, so we thought. We got to Orientation at 1pm that day, tired, stressed and confused.

I ask a friend to check my call-up letter for me, when he called to tell me it is Taraba I did not believe him, cos he always tease me that I will be posted to Taraba. So I decided to check it myself, when I saw TARABA STATE, I was angry and confuse. I checked the map to locate Taraba state, I discovered it was beside benue state. My mum was dramatic when I told her, she said “but you can’t travel that far na”. I had two days to prepare for camp, so I started packing my bags. I went to jibowu park to book a bus ticket on Monday. Got everything I need for camp ready and first thing early on Tuesday morning I was off to the park to start my journey to camp.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton