High, I hope.
I want to believe this post meets you well. What you’ve been up to, who you’ve been connecting with, and how you’ve been generally has been so worthwhile, I trust. Thank you for coming. A bear hug to you, and if that doesn’t do, how about two hugs and a tall glass of chilled Blackcurrant Viju Milk? Mmm.
I’ve been good. The 3+ weeks I spent at the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Orientation Camp, Zamfara State have taught a lot of us (and me, especially) stuff…
1. We are many that initially believed: ‘God is punishing me, that’s why I’ve been posted to Zamfara’ (A 2007/2008 Corper observed that all of us walked through the camp gates with very, very long faces. I didn’t notice cuz I must have been attending my very own pity party at the time). I can believe it sha, and it would explain the ease with which we all bonded. QED: Misery loves company…
2. We can stand almost perfectly still under the baking-hot sun while flies happily kiss us every other second, (and we can stand in dust storms too)…
3. At night we can bathe outside while we shout on the naughty guys who want to "see their Mamas"…
4. We can drink satchet upon satchet of pure water and still pee only once a day…
5. We can do shot put/bush attack/shit-in-a-bag quite well (indeed the very fact that I can mention this undignified abunga can tell you something about my state of mind)…
6. We can eat food that has been offered up to the Tsafekuda god (aw-wite I was just kidding about that one.
Tsafe is a local Govt. in ZM (By the way, ZM has to be the State with the coolest abbreviation. Plateau PL, Rivers RV- good and fine, but ZM… totally cool- and I’m not consoling myself, you ma you know)…
7. I can fervently wish to be rejected by a potential employer…
8. I can cry and flail my arms about non-stop for an hour plus if I think it’s going to help my case…
9. I can fly off a bike and land face-first in the coarse sand; stand up, dust myself and calmly tell the biker, "mu ci gaba" ("Let’s continue") within forty five seconds…
And of course:
10. I now understand why Corpers often look so cross.
Having people say "Shun!" or "Cofa!" (Corper, in a Hausa accent) when you’re trying to navigate around a strange town whose employers refuse to accept or reject or house you is thoroughly irritating. Teasing me in this foreign land, are you? Well, like the Soja Men taught us to say, ‘Baggas! God punish your Local Govt. Chairman!’
But enough about what I’ve seen, tasted, experienced and discovered. Lemme ask a serious question for once:
How do you persuade a young, teenage girl whose major obsession is marriage to learn about the Kinetic Theory of Gases? Or about Malthus’ principle? Or about… (aw shucks! Physics & I were like shark&bloody human, so I can’t/don’t want to remember anything from that side).
How do you encourage her to be serious about her education?
And then, how do you persuade a class-full of such young women?
If it helps that I am a fellow female who has made it through the system, it doesn’t help that I am consistently losing faith in the country’s educational system. So, how?
How?