#fromthisplace

But that’s not why we are here. I don’t even know why I started this on a sappy note seeing as I’m in such a good mood today. 1 because church was glorious as in water for my drenched soul glorious and 2 because I’m re-inspired to take all that is mine in 2016.

Now, I know at the start of every year if you’re a person of faith, there’s usually this prophetic word/theme for the year. It varies from church to church and at mine, Elevation Church, the year was declared one of Immeasurably More. For some reason (it has never happened before) this year, I had the conviction that this will be very true for my life.  

So imagine me going into the year with so much fire and anticipation and the first thing I get hit with is a punch and several punches to follow. My little brother gets diagnosed with lymphoma about 6 yrs after he beat the first one. I experience one wahala after another living in this chaotic city called Lagos. I get out of a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere much to my disappointment & well, life just plain sucks.

Being awake meant that I had to deal with the chaos of life, so bedtime was what I looked forward to as I didn’t need to think or deal with anything for a few hours. So I became very quiet because if I began to explain where I’ve been, fam...

To be honest, I’m good. I know bad things happen and we go in and out of seasons and that’s all that it is. I know the sun will still shine and mercies are new every morning. My brother’s chemo treatment is going well, thankfully this time around, it’s not as drastic as the last so he’s still able to do normal people stuff.

My life is still somewhat upside down but God’s got me so I’m good. For some reason I’ve been asking myself what my aspiration in life is. It’s changes over the years but this is it:

To be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its season.

For those who have no clue, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is a one year mandatory service required of every Nigerian who intends to join the workforce. There’s a 3 week orientation camp after which, you get posted to a school, government agency or private company to serve there for a year. If you ask me, it’s a pointless scheme, but let’s carry on.

I met Belzy (Belema) on the first day of camp. From the very moment I asked her if she had a pen, we became inseparable. It was so bad that people began to ask us if we were sisters/cousins/long time bffs and all that. Truth is, once you find your “people” in camp, it becomes so much easier and it just flows from there.

A typical day means waking up at 4:00am, getting read for the wake up call at 4:40am ish and being at the parade ground at 5:00am. Then from that time to about 7:30am involves some exercises, marching (sometimes) and then a lecture of some sort. During the lectures, we are made to sit on the hard ground and if you’re that good, you get catch up on much needed sleep.

This cup of Nescafé was an absolute lifesaver.

Once that’s done, we are dismissed for shower & breakfast after which, we reconvene for even more lectures till about 1pm. Lunch/siesta ends at 4pm for a compulsory parade which goes on till about 6:30pm. Believe me, evenings are the best part of camp. Most times we had activities planned like pageants, dance & drama, talent shows and all that. Then, on the days when nothing in particular was planned, we chilled in mami market (aka everything you’ll ever need in camp market). Literally, everything you absolutely need in camp is in mami: tailors, laundry people, plastic buckets, sanitary stuff, provisions, clothing, all sorts of food, even small chops!

Lagos camp always has the best sponsors. We had so many artists come in to perform like: Burna Boy, Chocolate City them, Vector, Falz, Wande Coal and so many others I can’t remember. 

Living conditions?

Well, well.. Let me just say that you don’t have that much wiggle room in the hostels. Obviously when you have 28 people living in a small room, it’s bound to end up that way. I got lucky because my Room 2 babes were the absolute best. I hardly spent time in the hostels because it was always stuffy and I had to chill with all my camp boyfriends (u better get you one!), but when I did, (mostly after lights out) it was always fun. 

We were all divided into platoons (just as we were during inter-house sports in secondary school) and competed against each other in various activities. Each platoon had an evening for Man O’ War activities which involved climbing over walls, crawling under barbed wire and some other stuff that got a lot of trousers torn with not hope of recovery. 

From the looks of it, it seems like camp was the best time. In a lot of ways, it was but it was also very, very tiring. I mean very, very tiring and frustrating. Truth is, whatever it is, you make it work somehow. I can’t count the number of times that I walked around moping because I was just fed up. 

The annoying thing about camp was how we always, always had to wear white on white. You couldn’t even look cute in that camp *tears*. Even when you tried to look cute, you look in the mirror and realize how much the sun has messed up your face and how the camp struggle is so evident so you just give up. I rarely bothered with makeup (I don’t on a normal day even) and besides, you’ll cake your face only to start sweating stupidly. Ain’t nobadi gat time fo’ that. So, white powder and lipgloss were my bffs. 

It was worth my 3 weeks, really. I had withdrawals for about 1 week post camp because I had gotten so used to the routine and life in camp that being home took a bit of adjusting. If you move back to Nigeria, don’t miss out on experiencing this. Seriously, if you go with an open mind, you’ll enjoy camp; it’s the fun part of NYSC. After camp, everything else is just shit. 

Who says the camp love must end in camp? The people I’ve been chilling with on the regular since I got out, are all camp buddies :)