FIRST CAMPING EXPERIENCE; ORIENTATION CAMP OBUBARA

the best picture i took in camp.

Up until December 2016, I have never been camping. Growing up as a child with a very protective dad did not make it any easy and I was not the rebellious type so I almost never went against my dad. So, my first time camping was for my NYSC orientation course in Cross River State.
So, I started out on my journey to Cross River state from Port Harcourt with the notion that it was a 3 hour journey to calabar, but what I didn’t know was that from odupakni junction to the orientation camp was a journey in itself. LOL. So, I left for cross river state at 12pm and arrived at the camp at 10:45pm, naturally I was exhausted but the drive to the camp was all boring because I was my cheerful self and the life of the party in the bus, I practically talked everyone’s ear off; lol that isn’t was it looks like but yes I made some friends and we ended up sharing a room and the one of the boys asked me out. What can I say he liked the chatty me.
Getting to the camp, I was greeted by stern-faced soldiers screaming orders for me to carry my box on my head and run down to the gate. In that moment I thanked the heavens that my box was big, else I would have buckled under the weight seeing as I was already tired. So I obeyed and ran like a wild card into the camp ground. After entering the premises we were asked to open our boxes as a search was to be carried out to check for contra bounds; at this point I moved to the man-o-war lady that was free and she was like “I am not in the mood to go through your things so find me anything way you get and carry you bag dey go”. I was like, “madam I know get change oh, nah 500 dey my hand and she was like, bring am I get change”. So after the above interaction, I moved on to verification of documents, bed collection, and room and bunk selection. I already had two friends, Ukeme Inyang and Efe Favour and like all girls this was the squad, it was going to be three of us till we leave camp and so it was.

Favour and I

Ukeme and I

So I finally slept after a very long day at 2am and the worst of it all happened when they blew the beagle at 4am; I was supposed to get up and be about my day said my Bunkie, but how could I???? In my head I was screaming NO NO NO, this can’t be happening because I had barely slept and I was still exhausted, eyes puffy and red, I felt like crying. It was chilly outside and to add to it all I had to bath cold water, I knew then that “I dey street. Excuse my pigin it was the only way I could describe what I felt.

So,it began. At 5am there was already a very long queue for registration, it was a different world out there, and at about past 2pm I was finally done with the registration and had gotten my kits. I was assigned to platoon 7, I liked the number 7. Then the regular routine of waking up by 4am everyday and morning devotion at the meditation ground, then morning exercises, the man-o-war instructor for my platoon was a lively one so I looked forward to the morning’s jogs and exercise.

first day, meditation ground

Then came the parade, it was hell because the dust showed no mercy to both my nostrils and my white.
Then the lectures started, to me even though it was an avenue to learn something new it was annoying to me because the environment was never conducive and I wish I was sleeping.

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At this time I already had cold, and could barely breathe properly cos my nostrils were blocked.

my sick face.

So one boring lecture afternoon, I met a boy and his name “YAZEED” and his friends George and Christian, so it became a clique of 3 girls and 3 boys, made pairing easy. LOL.

Thank you for reading.

to be continued.......