STRAIGHT FROM MY DIARY: OTONDO OF LIFE!

I was going through a book/diary I took to orientation camp some few months back and stumbled on my account of my first day in camp. Yeah, it is very embarrassing but #pleasedontjudgeme

06/03/2013 (Abuja, Kubwa)

 “So I couldn’t make it to camp yesterday (05/03/2013)… hence my coming today… ok. My aunt already told me to reduce my luggage and that I wouldn’t be needing much stuff in camp,  buh mba!, my Ekiti head wont lemme. I packed times four of everything I ‘heard’ was needed, plus I heard there wouldn’t be time to wash anything, so u can imagine. I made sure I had each day covered. ..So I got to the camp with the biggest heavy brown leather box ever! (‘biggest heavy brown leather box’? That doesn’t sound right but whatever) And I got the ‘unexpected stale’ news – to carry my box on my head (sobs! Like for some weird reasons, I thought our camp would be fresh and excuse us all that stress)… thank God for my uncle that dropped me off…at least, he assisted me in lifting it onto my head, then the journey to the gate began.

…sobs..i really can’t describe the feeling of the box on my head, I could feel my neck singing adieu songs to me already… and then the long walk to the entrance of the camp (maybe not too long, but with the weight on my head, even the shortest distance felt like the journey of a lifetime!)

Ok. If it was just the weight on my head, and me trying to balance it, things would have been kinda easy, but some ‘irritants’ by the road kept jeering and calling me ‘otondo’…I guess I was the one with the largest box they had seen so far through all the camp sessions …#nuffsaid.

Victory at last! I got to the gate!…through that loooong box-on-the-head-walk, and with the probably hired jeerers, and then d pressure on my neck to give in or give up, I kept going, I tried to distract myself so d jeers and the weight and the distance won’t get to me, I was just a thought away from falling to the ground with the box crushing me…. Lol. I hope this inspires someone someday.

In short, we sat on the floor, did press ups on hot stony grounds, then as usual (as I heard from preceding otondos) they made us sing ‘otondo’ songs – “if corper marry corper, u go born mumu”, etc,

Again the box was back on my head and down to the hostel, I almost fainted.

Then in search for bunks, got someone to carry a bunk with – emergency bunky. Sigh, tbh the bunk was freaking heavy!, after halfway through, we had to pay some people to help carry it.

Registration time. Err, before that, we had to go to the store to get beds or should I say paper beds, cause they were so flat that…never mind, then we (yeah myself and the emergency bunky, remember?) secured a locker, then registration.

I was on this particular queue to submit ID cards with stuff written behind it, in short I got sent back to the end of the queue for silly mistakes, under ‘Abuja Sun’ for that matter, THREE times!. I am a dark-skinned girl for those that don’t know me, but at that point I felt like ‘darkness’ itself!, like I was evaporating because of the excessive sunlight.

Finally, I was done with registration and got my kit. Got a size 6 for the jungle boots (manageable though, ‘cause I wear a 5½, then I got an eleven for the sneekers! Hilarious.

Lunch was beans, so I skipped (as per first day, I still had money. Lol)… plenty ups and downs, hustle for space, for bunk (imagine, someone tried to steal the bunk we paid for! Mhen my calm ‘bunky’ had to go ‘local’. Lol no punches involved tho ;), for room, to fetch, to bath, twas secondary school all over again. The typical JJC.

Then the parade ground. Lesson learnt- “never go to the parade ground without sufficient WATER”. If you’ve experienced the desert feeling, you would understand perfectly how I was feeling all through those hours.

…INTERMISSION…

I got tired of writing with all the 3am waking and the boring lectures and the by-force vigilante (thief hunt) and the drills and the exercises, I even forgot I had a book.

…THE END…