Diary of an otondo ep8! Allowee! Camp fire night!

Ep 8 yhelooooooo

I was jejely enjoying the early morning view outside my hostel when a guy walked up to me and asked if he could see me for some help. I oblidged, he said he heard i studied in the uk that he wanted a favour, it was weird cos i have kept the lowest profile on camp for d many days i have been here. All he had was his dad's name and an old picture which he didnt bring to camp. His dad's name was a  popular kind and there could be several hundreds that have that name. Looking at the dude, i wouldnt say he was a product of a white guy n and ibo woman. Although he had a light complexion, he didnt certainly look like an half cast. I was thinking his mum told him that just to make him feel better about his disability(physicslly challenged), well i dont really know and it would be wrong to make conclusions. Anyway, i couldnt say no to his face so i will be trying to help him. Good samaritan things as a nice person that i am even though i know theres a low probability i will get a result

Allawee and strategy
Allowe (allowance) arived with 3 escorts during interplatoon activities and everyone cheered and smilled cos most of these ninjas wer broke lol. The state co-ordinator then announced that they would start paying allowance after the interplatoon activities and most of the audience just took sits next to the accounts section. Some actually queued up with sits in front of the accounts section, will post pictures when i gt  some 3g. Some certain faces ended up in mami market for the first time, some had the boldness to reject camp food for the first time all because of 19,000 lol. The ones already oweing some money in the market will have to settle before they leave. The ones that owe more than their allowance, i dont know what will happen to them. Some certain people felt the need to form bigman on 19.8k and decided to go with girls to mami. I saw some unfamiliar faces in that corner on the night of pay. All is well sha, when the money don finish, they will soak enough garri.

Guyz in my hostel went crazy with collecting allowances and some went as far putting thier money in thier boxers lol.. some wore their trousers ontop of their waist purse n slept like that lol. The security was onpoint, i dont know if it was serious or they done it as a joke but it was funny to see peeps act that way lol. For security reasons i will be getting mine on monday sha.

I celebrate your grace
My room is as bubbly as ever. I remember saying in an earlier episode that we had a pastor in our room who greets everyone back by saying "i celebrate your grace". He speaks in tongues at every given opportunity. I for one think he needs a check up due to his overhyper-ness. Another way of thinking would be to conclude that he has the 'holy spirit'  flowing inside of him but isit everytime? Lol.

Parade winners and controversy
Every interplatoon activity looked rigged apart from football and volleyball. We had the parade competition and before the day rumours had been flying that 1 platoon would win cos the commandant had a babe he was chyking. And the day came and offcourse platoon 1 won despite making several mistakes. Na so so pdp things full these activities and its a shame that a lot people put in efforts into this parade and deserved better judgement than what they got. All is well sha.

Emails!!
For some reason people think because i have a nice phone i can help them do all the shit they want on the web even with slowest connection ever. I just dont know how to say no to people and thats my weak point. The other day i helped like 10people from my hostel register their nysc details cos we wer required to do so. It was there i found out some people dont even have emails and we had to make up anythn in the email field. Imagine a nigerian graduate with no email in this day and age.
The next incident was 2 other guyz wanting me to help them open emails and they had no simple clue. I tried helping one of them and we took half n hour to do something that should have taken just 3 - 4 minutes. He wouldnt make his mind up about what his email should be and what his password should be. It was just a nonsense waste of my time

3platoon winners of footy competition!
My platoon won the footy tourney and we all went crazy!! We did our 3 platoon song (i will post a recording when i have a better internet) and gyrated for a good hour after recieving the cup, it was funnnn.

Camp fire night!!!!!
Best day on camp so far! The day started early with the usual 4am wakeup time and we all had to participate in d platoon preparation for the cooking competition. We all(well, the serious ones) carried firewood, rented d needed stuff for the cooking and kept the cooks company. It got boring at one point cos the other platoons were gyrating with kegites-like tunes. We rented a drum n started ours but it wasnt as good as the others so i jumped ship with a pal and rocked from platoon to platoon singing n dancing for hours like we belonged to their platoon, it was funnn and right now my back hurts from it lol.

The night was as good as the day time, everyone set up their tables n foods for the contest. Team-wise it was disspointing cos we didnt win and i wasnt surpised cos the supposed platoon food i paid for was completely shit. They made jollof rice that had no taste and didnt completely boil, fried rice that was dry and also had no taste. Aside that, the rest of the night was fun, my dude sorted us with some booze and we danced like crazy around the fire with some platoon peeps and the band.

This is the next day and the redeployment list just came out with my name on it. I am excited my plans are working out and that i will be in lasgidi for my service year. Only one day left till passing out day and i cant freaking wait to get out of this prison. . .

Diary of an otondo ep7

Ep 7

As i'm writing this, i am listening to some banging new nigerian tunes, i got a brief spell of 3g and was able to download a couple songs off my home blog(notjustok.com)

Days left in camp can now be counted with the fingers on one hand, people are getting ready, making plans to what n what they gonna be buying into their 1year homes in ekiti, some people talking about prefering to stay in a village rather than the city(well theres only one, ado ekiti). Some already planning where to buy their tv's cos of warranty issues, some want to furnish their temporary 1yr homes to the depth. Some might actually decide to reside in ekiti which is one of the purpose of the nysc scheme.

On to platoon things!. I have never seen a group of individuals so disorganised in my whole life lol. We never form lines ourselves during the morning call out, we are the ones who never listen, the ones who has got a stoopid person for a leader. Right now, its like a country that hates its president and theres like this revolt. The leader who was voted in has fucked up on a lot of issues and he does more harm than good, rather than resign, he tryna fix what is completely broken. Enough of the serious talk, we only here for a few more days and all this talk and arguements are just not needed. As it stands, we wont be having camp fire night because of the stoopid leadership and snitch in our midst. Donations for the food n drinks don dabaru. These lot spent a good 3hrs argueing n shit on the day they wer meant to be getting ready for the night.

As for me, i was doing some kitchen duties again. I jumped at the chance  cos i thought it would be as easy as the last time, boiy i was wrong. I had to do some shit i havnt done in my life before, things like cutting frozen fish into several pieces and also washing them. The most annoying was the head, where you had to take out all of the rubbish in there lol. Sometime i dnt even know why i turn up for stuffs like this cos i know some certain people in this platoon that dont do shit atall and i could just be like them. After that i had to serve meat for lunch.. all the peeps in my hostel did the usual and made sure they lined up on my stand, and as a sure boiy they all got either the biggest pieces of meat or 2 lol. The serving finished and i decided to have some of the food cos it would have been a SIN(joke ting) not to have any after the hardwork. So i made use of my cooler for the first time and got the rice. The most annoying part was unlike others i got enough rice, but the meat given to me was one piece and even that one piece was a bony piece. I was pissed and i just couldnt be bothered to conplain. As expected the food was shit, but i just had to eat cos of the work i had put in.

Thug of war conpetitions started too, it looked easy but i saw some girls faint or just lay down flat on the floor suffering from exhaustion. I would have loved to participate but there was bigger n more muscullar men there so i continued being useless to the platoon lol. The guyz eventually effed up and the girls did well to reach d final.

No endurance trek!!! 'This tin pain me ooo'. . .this was one of the events i was looking forward to! They said due to security reasons, they wont be having the trek. to some, it could have been an opportunity to see outside since our 21day imprisonment lol. I guess it kinda made sense with the yeye boko haram people causing mayhem in the country, one of them can let off a suicide bomb whilst having the trek!!

Redeployment! O boiy, i dont think i can stay in one village teachn for a year o. I didnt have ekiti in mind before i signed up for nysc. I was thinking lagos or abuja which wont be as bad. So i am in the process of redeploying to lagos sha and i hope it works out.

Talent hunt show! Some funnies were on stage tryna claim a psquare, an alibaba or a michael jackson. Offcourse the comedy was gona be the best part, alot made jokes about in camp activities since the first day we step foot in here. We also had some really bad ones that we(audience) basically had to chase out by chanting away lol. The dancing bit was controversial. The crowd wouldnt pick 3, they said yes to 6 different ppl so they had to use judges from the nysc officials and they completely messed up!! The fans favourite was given 3rd, the only guy left who desrved atleast 2nd was kicked out and the least talented was awarded the winner. If it was an election there would have been a riot cos' alot of people wer busy chanting "ojoro" in the crowds, some even went as far as walking up to the so called judges to complain. I guess thats how it goes in this part of the world, all this interplatoon activities apart from football and volleyball looked rigged. Even the parade n drill competition is looking rigged cos if the commandant likes any girl in a platoon, they will end up winning (what i heard a soldier said). The entertainment was good but the deserved winners didnt get what they should have got.

Washing!!! It was always going to be tricky washing our white n shoes. It was basically unsafe becasue of the large amount of ninjas in camp. So we had a certain local who would come to the room and make annoucements that she is here to help wash our clothes. She gained everyone's hearts by volunteering to help sweep the room so she could get the 'contract' of our room. More than half patronised her service, her annoucements became a norm, "good morning o, wash your clothes, wash your canvas, sherifa is around" eveyone liked sherifa and we all helped her hustle. She even volunteered at one time to help people get money off the ATM, she travelled to ado which was like 45mins away to help a broke guy out. She was one of the good things discovered in my time in ekiti!

The camp director!! Mrs fagbemi was one lively and lovely old (not that old) woman who was well loved by majority in the camp. Eveyday, she made announcements on the parade ground with starters like "good morning gentlemen corps members" and we all replied "morn sir".  This was a every morning, we all said all she had to say before she even said it sometimes. She"s a woman, but apparently on camp everyone is a man and is reffered to as one.

I think i will save the rest for the last 2 or 3 episodes and a review. Hope you enjoyed reading.

Diary of an otondo ep 6

As i am re-writing this i am soooooo pissed! Everything i am about to write again had been finished only for me to delete by mistake. I hope i remember all i wrote cos it was a spurr of the moment thingy.

Im gona start with 'I HAD A SHIT!!' lol. I wrote an application to leave camp so i had a confrontation with the camp director. She read my appication and said something like "you have spent all your money on that new girlfriend at mammy market abi, now you want to go and bring more". I just laughed and smiled but that wasn't the case. From day one, i was already short off my budget cos of d underestimation of fuel cost and the yeye police at ibadan so i was always going to need some more.

So i got the permission and left for the bank, some other dudes wanted money too so they done the risky,  giving me their atms and pin number to help them get cash. Done all the bizniz with money and asked the security if they had a toilet, he pointed towards a door, i was not expecting much but i was darn surprised!! I entered, it was 'world class' and maybe 4star or 3.5. I sat down on a clean wc comfortably for a good half an hour getting rid of all those toxins that had been pilling up inside of me. It felt like paradise, even i dont believe i can be talking about shit so refreshing like this, the toilet had tissue roles, running water and hand drier. It was blisssss, a million times beter than what this camp people call toilet! I am preety sure majority of these camps have the same issues. Only if some of these blockheads at mammy or officiald had some brains, they would build a good toilet/bathroom and employ one person who is just stationed there to maintain it and charge people for the service. Maybe 20naira or 50naira, it would be good business and corpers would actually patronise them. I know of people who havnt had a shit in 2weeks! And some plan not to have it because they might colapse in those bins they call toilet.

Anywayz on to other things. The enterpreneurship lectures!!! Some of these guyz are just plain thieves! They will copy and paste information that is freely available on the internet into a book and sell to this unsuspecting 'nigerian graduates'. They come on the mic spitting sense and nonsense( in some cases) and in a charismatic and motivational way. So some sections of the crowd will obviously buy into such a thing. The smart ones know what to expect when someone comes on the mic, it ends with them advertising thier book and wanting some ridiculous prices for some services they provide

Another thing i would like to talk about is the 'quality' of nigerian graduates we have on this camp, i find it disgusting that some of these people dont even have email addesses, how tha heck did you spend 5yrs in university and u dont have the most comon thing? some of the girls cant even put a sentence together in english. Pigin english is a norm and if u cant relate in that, dem go label you. Who do we blame for this fuckup na? The gorvernment, for the low standard of universities? The universities for not having some sort of 'personal developement' as a subject for students? Or the students for not being socially aware about what they can use the internet for?

Anywayz, on to other things, sunday is always the most enjoyable day on camp, you wake whenever the heck u want, no parade or shit like that unless u are involved interplatoon activities. This sunday was very rainy and these guyz played football in heavy rain! We are lucky in our camp that the state co-ordinator told the commandant he doesnt want any corper doing drills under the rain but with these guyz 'singing 'under the sun or in the rain' whilst playing under heavy rain, the commandant might change his mind o.

Bathing on camp!! Brings back child hood memories when i go to the village. Never seen so many grown ass men 'shadow bathe' in my life before. You know what shadow bathe is? Lol. Its an art, no one is allowed to put on a torch light, all u gotta do is strip naked and do some reflex bathing lol.

We got 8 days left in camp and i so much miss home. The whole camp thing is no different from a prison. We are in uniforms, we have strict sleep n wake up times, we cant go outside camp anytime we want, the facilities in terms of toilet n bathroom are nothing to write home about, the food is rationed to be very little (100naira per meal ration). Imagine a grown ass man or a grown ass married man with kids be getting one spoon of rice and a head of fish. The money is there, certain ppl need to stop stealing and shorting the ration of corpers so this service year can be worthwhile. . . . See ya next episode. . .i knw i missed out some stuffs but i just cant remember at the moment.

Diary of an otondo ep5

Yhellooooo o

Its been a fun couple of days on camp and i'm feeling more confortable with the people around me. Pigin is the norm and i've had to blend into the waffi kinda pigin to be more confy with these peeps.

The story about the other block being punished took a new turn. Apparently they were 3. 2 guyz  and one girl. A guy was drunk to stupor! The other pair were caught having sex on a bench at mami and when the commandant showed up, the 2 guyz ran away leaving behind their ID's and the girl (she got shyted upon, used n dumped) lol.  The 2 guyz wer paraded at the pavillion parade ground and the girl was spared d shame but certain ppl knew who she was from her platoon. The 2 guyz wer very close to being rusticated but their platoon leader (a soldier) had to beg on their behalf. He stepped up to the commandant and started doing push ups to try change his mindt. I lost count of how many, some other soldiers joined in to. Ultimately the 3 muchachos were spared. The guy had to do some laps around the whole camp tho with thier bags on thier head shouting "i will never do it again, it will never happen again" lol; offcourse, being marshalled by the platoon leaders n assistants.

Some people just wanna ruin a career thats not even started because of konji. You cant even hold ur konji urge for 3weeks? And risk it all for one yeye session inside mami market. I would think they have learnt their lesson from that day onwards.

To some fun events now. Interplatoon events have started and i enroled for footie to play right back for my platoon. I had 2 training session and when the draws where made, we were paired with 9platoon. I watched them train and saw all the huge muchachos they had training, i pulled out instantly loool. I'm not here to break a leg plus i would have had to buy a pair of boots i might use just once in camp offwhich i had a new pair at home in lagos, i did not anticipate footy on camp..

We'va also had some other fun events. My man'o'war training for 3platoon took place. We taken through all the training gadgets and we had to do them ourselfs. It was intense!!!. I hope i gt the sequence right. Here it goes.

We started off on the balancing bit with a tiny wood plank a yard or 2 long, then jump on some other wood planks. Then we had to cross a section with a rope like tarzan, next up was a huge tyre hanging we had to go through. We crawled underneath a bit that had thorns on top of it like real soldier shit lol. To  the walls, the 7ft was easy for some ninjas but not me, had 3attempts and i couldnt (no diss me o). I was let through anyway then i went on the 11 foot one that required team work. The huge guyz were our helpers making use of their hands as a step to go over. Some of you guyz might have seen this popular pic that saw some guyz try help a round lady with their hands on her back side lol. Alot of that happened at this stage and the girls didnt mind or they had no choice loool. When everyone finished, we took a group picture with our commandants.

Then we had a little game called know your neighbour where the man'o'war guy would choose someone and they would tell us what uni and what subject they passed out with, if you are single and if you are searching. All the guyz 'were single and searching' lol. All the ladies were on the other hand wer single 'and not searchn' like any one would bliv that. We had some honest ladies tho who said 'seriously searchn' lol, i would guess age is not on thier side.

I was spared, so i am good cos ppl got good beef against foreign trained graduates like its a big deal. The only foreign trained graduate who spoke was abosede from canada and everyone else was either from delta uni or some polytechnic in aba. A general observation was most of the girls that said something "in english" had some very conc ibo accent lol. Since pigin english was a norm in the camp, you wouldnt know what these girls sounded like while speaking english except for abosede who was trying very had to localize her accent. She had never lived in nigeria so she's what ppl in the uk will call a 'freshie' in nigeria. But i think shes coping very well and making good friends.

The other part of the drilling had to do with ropes, ropes, ropes and more ropes. Some scary high rope which some girls climbed and slid down perfectly (hats off to them). Everyone couldnt go on all the gadgets so that spoiled that bit, in d end another group pix was taken and wer wer diismissed. Had to drag my dirty self with my khaki looking like an agabada back to my hostel and had a nice well deserved rest.

I was meant to be resting but my rroom mates are just a bunch of clown. You can be having a bad day and begin laughing as soon you come in. I took some audio recording n i wish i could upload em. Internet is still shit with no 3g service. 13/14days to go. Niggas on red at the moment we considering patronising certain foods from the camp canteeen which is shit but free.  Mammy dey chop money ooo, i've had to give someone my atm to help we withdraaw some dough (unsuccesfull in end)

Its 5am again on wednesday 3rd. We about to have morning devotion. I've been compiling this for a few days and my schedule is too tight i dont have time to spell check or anythn like that. Enjoy reading, adios......

Update! - tryna upload pictures but its delaying d upload

Diary of an otondo ep 4

Yhelloooooooo

Today is sunday on camp which meant that there was no 4am waking up for most of us. Unfortunately for me i'm part of 3 platoon which meant i had to report for duty at 4.30am. The whole 207 of us in 3 platoon were grouped into kitchen, sanitation, utitlity and maintenance. I was with the kitchen group so i had to do some washing, sweeping and in the end i was the usher of the hungry thousands of the whole camp. Directing people where they take their bread n teas and showing them the right way out.

In the end, i got my share of bread and boiled egg which was my first time getting food off the camp kitchen. I guess its alright to get something like that off them since its not some yeye food that they will cook to no taste. Its midday and i really wanna sleep but we will soon be called out again and i cnt risk being tired for the tiring exercises.

Yesterday night was short for me. Had some banging ogbona soup and pounded yam at mami before heading straight to bed cos i knew i had an early morning.

The other male block next to us were the ones that had a story to tell. Do you remember the story of a corper calling a soldier "white hawk" in one of my earlier posts? These lot had a similar encounter. A certain group stayed out late at mami markrt and ignored the call for night out. They were all called out to the parade ground, told to sit on the cold grass for about 30mins, then told to do frog jump drills. A race of 3 persons, the first goes back to the hostel while the 2nd and 3rd had to wait lying flat on the floor for a chance to compete again for an opportunity to go to back indoors.... they were also asked to roll on d floor and do some other yeye drills all because of one or two stoopid muchachos. I'm so happy this didnt happen to me cos we were a tiny bit close to recieving a similar punishment. Mo sope temi.

My room was lively today cos a "politics" arguement was going on and alot had somethn to say. From nigerian affairs to russia, usa, iran, iraq and isreal. It was quite informative listening to them talk, i heard alot of knowledge as regards history of nigeria being passed around. Kudos to the history students!

Goos day so far. Cnt wait to shit as usual.. i think its gona be a suya and fries thing at mami tonight. Ire oooo.

Diary if an otondo! Ep 3

Hi muchachos and muchachitos.

Its been a couple of days on camp and all is still going well apart from the fact that i havnt had a shit i n 4 days. I heard some terrible news about the toilet from day one that i have been here. Am getting close to my limit i might have to do something oh. My belle just bloat and i don surpress too much..

Did i mention that 90% of the population on camp are ibos or south souh and south east? and nearly half are from delta state university and auchi or whetever its called and they somehow have this chemsitry between them. Pigin english is the norm here, if you nor fit relate and u dey speak phone, oyo lo wa. The parade went well, done the horray ish with our caps, will upload a video i took in d next episode. Although a lot standing was involved, my gel heel cups came in handy as it reduced the pain of standing long hours.

The night wasnt that great. I was jejely sleeping during light out, and some of ma funny room mates where cracking jokes n laughing. A soldier came and told us all to go to bed . But an otondo didnt know it was a soldier talking. He replied. "Shut up, you white hawk" the soldier got vexed and demanded the person to come out. But ma guy didnt stand up, he told us all to come for drills after and we all just turned on the dude to come out. My guy did not even bulge. I'm using the term 'ma guy' not because i know him but just as reference. He wouldnt come out and it was either him or the whole room full of 42 different charcaters. We got lucky sha cos another soldier pleaded on our behalf. I swear if i had done some yeye drills for this dude i dnt even recognise i woulda moved out that room.

Anyways its all going good. I still never shit for 4days o. We have some dumb ass lecture now sha. Teachn us how to speak yoruba. Like i said over 90percent of this ppl here are ibo. . .we also had a lecture on ekiti tradition or yoruba tradition of using "magun". Half these muchachos did not know what it meant lol. They explained to them and invited ppl for some questions and there was loads. One of the guyz asked this; "our mission here is to be productive, so wouldnt it be better for us to reproduce? Everyone laughed at d silly question which was stoopid one way thinking.  The lecture don almost end sha, I never chop better food in days. I plan to branch mama nonso as soon as this shit done.. Safe muchachos

Diary of the otondo. Ep 2

Hi guyz..

First day in camp was filled with so much excitement!. The journey to camp was kinda tricky, got stopped by police in ibadan!. Fucking bastards just said "this vehicle is stolen" beCause we had customised plates..blah blah blah! My guy was taking me to the station and we just had to settle cos if we went to the station, they would make us do some long processes and probably detain us because they know they can. but i got there in the end and met up with some guyz i had connected with on nairaland and twitter.

The day started off with a bag search, my stapler, and all important sim cutter was siezed because they termed it dangerous. I'm kinda struggling with network as glo is kinda shit. I messed up with this one vos i could have got an airtel or mtn before coming to camp which i knew was the better option. So far we are expecting mtn and airetel to bring a full load of sims to camp so we can buy n do the stoopid process of 'registering'

So far, nothing about accomodation is imprressive.i guess this goes the same as other camps. We are in a room the size of my living room and have a flipping 21 bunkers! Thats 42 people cranked up in one little place. It was very dirty with loads of rubbish all about the place but we all contributed 20Naira for an outsider to help sweep it. Looking better at the moment but i have a feeling these muchachos i'm staying with will start dropping pure water bags n shit on d floor again.

In this small room, we have a comedian already, a warri boy who doesnt stop complaining in a funny way. Last night was fun but we had to tell him to shut up cos we had only a couple of hours to get some sleep for the 4am early call; which we all had to be on the field as soon as we heard the clarion call.

Clothing provided by nysc is nothing compared to shit. Shit might actually be better lol. The socks looks like something i cnt even describe. It was a good idea bringing extra pairs from home. The khaki looks big but i will manage it, aint nobody got time to pay N1500 to amend shit . The annoying thing about this is that there could have been a better way of sorting out issues of oversizing. These lot just give u a kit , they dnt care what size you are. You can be a size 8 and end up with a size 11. And they dont give a shit. You can ask a simple question and they will land you with a rude reply that doesnt even answer your question.

The parade training!!! Everyone is being trained with codewords on how to march n shit. We line up in platoons and our platoon leader (a soldier) gives us d training. Looking at other platoons and their captains, i think i ended up in the wrong platoon cos its filled with too much unserious people and our captain is kinda dry compared to the others. We r still far behind in the training compared to others. Our guy is just plain lazy.

Foood!! As soon as we got released! I ran straight to mami market!! Mama nonso!! Having being told by 3 different people about mama nonso, i just had to try it out. I had d jollof rice and i was dissapointed! Will try her other meals in d coming days. Food provided by nysc? Dont even go there. These lot give you one spoon of rice and one small fish, sometimes u end up with d head of a fish. I dnt think i will never step foot in there to queue for that crap. Then i wouldnt say that out loud with these people especially infront of our comedian who spent a lot of time raking about the food. You gotta be considerate about stuffs like dat cos some people are not priviledged to enjoy mami everyday.

Its 2nd day esrly morning and i have been up since 2am. Queued to get some water for bathing wich was long cos a lot people was surprisigly awake tryna get ready. Bathing will be an issue cos i saw a couple of peeps bathing outside and i thought wetin thes guyz they do? But after going into the bathroom once this morning. I think i will be copying thosr guyz bsthing outside in the dark the coming days.

Its 10minutes to 4am.  Gonna get ready to be called out for d morning shitzo.
Looking forward to meeting some new people in my platoon today.
Otondo!!! Call to attention, coooooooode 1!!!!! Lol. Ciao

Pardon any errors. All this was from my phone.