Sunday 24 February 2013

NYSC Orientation Camp Preparation


Preparation Tips you should know before going to camp:

This piece was compiled to educate the prospective Corps Members and any other  interested party on what to expect in and outside the NYSC Camp. You can share with your friends too.

Let's go!

MIND PREPARATION :
You need to prepare your mind that you are leaving home for a regimented life in the camp. Life in the camp is deliberately made stressful so as to prepare you for any challenge that may confront you outside the camp. You will not find it too comfortable, It' s a camp and not your flat! Just be ready for anything.

ITEMS YOU WILL NEED

1. Very Important Ones
a. Statement of Result
b. School ID Card
c. Passport photographs (30 copies, Surplus is better than inadequacy)
d. Call-Up Letter (DO NOT laminate it please).
e. A Clear Bag file (To house the above items)
f. Most importantly, Your Bible.
NB: Get 10 photocopies each of items A,B, and D above. The copies may be surplus.

2. Important Ones ( For your Convenience)
a. Stapler, pin and office gum (will save you the stress of 'borrow-me')
b. Two or three white T-shirts and shorts (You will be given two sets but you may not like the quality).
c. Two or three pairs of socks and a white rubber tennis shoes (for d rainy days).
d. Bathroom slippers. Dettol
f. Two plastic buckets (You can buy it in the camp but it will be more expensive) and a permanent marker.
g. Sponge and its case, bath-soap and detergent
h. Bedsheet, towel and wrapper and two pairs of casual wear. Just have them.
i. Mosquito Net (not compulsory)
j. Handkerchiefs (very important especially for those dat sweat like xmas ewu)
k. Waist bag (very very important for housing your phones, ID Cards, Handkerchief, biros, etc)
l. Novels
m. Small-sized Torchlight/Rechargeable lamp (small one please)
n. Your ATM card(s)
o. Cooler (not a party cooler please) cup and spoon. Fork is not allowed
p. Phone and charger
q. Beverages
r. Ladies could add any other few conveniences. I believe you understand me
s. Money! Money! Money! Hold good cash please depending on how you spend.

GO EARLY!
Even if the camp is on your street, go early. If you are posted to a far state, go the day before the camp opens. They will allow you in. Going late will make you go through registration stress. Be warned !

SCREENING
It starts at the gate. They dont want u to bring in prohibited items like iron, knive, bombs, etc.

REGISTRATION
The first one is for hostel/bedspace. Then the paper registrations proper. Make everything ready. Look out for information pasted on walls. Follow instructions strictly.

YOUR KITS
During the registration, you will get your kits - shirts, shorts, etc. Use the marker to write your Code Number (CN) on them 'sharp-sharp" You will also be given a tag that will show your CN. That will be your ID Card temporarily. You take it EVERYWHERE in camp. You will be given a meal ticket. Misplace it and forget about NYSC food (hunger will finish Ʋ if Ʋ no get moni) 

DURATION
You will be in the camp for 20 full days. The 21st day is the day you will leave camp.

THERE YOU GO!
Immediately you have your kits, only your T-shirt and shorts with the tennis shoe are allowed on you. No room for casual wears. Parade/ marching training starts immediately. The soldiers will not give you breathing space at all. You will have the first one that same Day One. Watch Out! people could be fainting on the Parade Ground. You won't faint, calm down... 
So eat well. It's the stress that causes their fainting. Don't form superman o, EAT !

YOUR MORNINGS
A small trumpet wakes you at 5am. Everybody gathers at the Parade Ground (PG) at 5:30am. You have your praise, worship and prayer the Christian and Muslim ways. Blah-blah-blah till the day breaks finally. Breakfast follows!
After eating, you will be called out again for the series of programmes lined up for you. Then you have your lunch. Rest a little and you are out again for evening parade. Then later your dinner. This will repeat itself everyday perhaps except on Sunday.

THE FOOD
You may not like the food. You can always go to the Mammy Market (MM) i.e the Camp Market to fill your 'tank' with delicacies at your cost.

STEALING
This is 'legalised'. They can steal anything. Be wise.

SOLDIERS
Hmmm, Obey them o. They can punish you. No walking, its all jogging wen they call u. Dont postrate or kneel down greeting a soldier. Do it the soldier way. They could be friendly anyway. Be wise.

ALLOWEE
Your first allowance will be given to you in the camp cash. All other ones will be through the bank. You will get Bicycle Allowance.

PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographers are ready to snap you every minute. Manage your cash.
...............

NOW, YOU ARE ABOUT GOING OUT OF THE CAMP YOUR POSTING
You will be posted from the camp to where you will work. The place you work in is called your Place of Primary Assignment (PPA). Hear this: most Corpers, I mean about 90% of the Corpers will be posted to schools (especially primary and secondary schools). Only VERY FEW will be posted to the universities, polytechnics and Colleges.
Please! Don't lobby for your posting. Don't pay ANYBODY for assistance. Pray rather than pay. Gone are the days when Corps Members are posted to Banks and Co. Receive the shocking or expected postings as you receive your letters with joy. It's a clarion call to service; that's what dey call it.

GOING OUT: TRANSPORTATION
When you get your Posting Letter, the first place to go to is your PPA. If you are identified with the Fellowship in camp, you may first report at the TEMPORARY lodge they will provide. Then you could report at your PPA later same day or the following day.
Please, when you leave the camp, home-sweet-home will be on your mind, having been used up in the camp. But please, don't go home straight. Please!
Very few of your employers (i.e. PPAs) will send down vehicles to convey you from the camp to their workplaces. Private and some Govt higher education institutions do. The Fellowship too make arrangement for you at your cost.
Commercial transporters will likely be available at the gate too. Be wise.

ACCOMMODATION ::
You don't know anybody in Damaturu or Ekiti! Where will you sleep on the first day? The Fellowship may give you a TEMPORARY accommodation pending the time you will HAVE TOGET YOURS. You could be lucky if your employer gives you a room. Many of them don't give Corpers accommodation anyway. So be prepared to rent one at your cost. Your first 'allowee' which you received in the camp is already going down!

REGISTRATIONS
This is why you don't have to go home straight. Your registration at the NYSC Office in the Local Govt you will be posted to is important. Failure to complete it before going home is the beginning of a Corper's cup of tea. He may begin to have problems with his subsequent monthly allowances. Do all registrations first. Then you can take permission to go home. Permission to go home? Long process! You will know why it's so. Well, I hope dese few tips will go a long way. 

All the best 2-b-Corps, One love!
However, you might want to read my ownpersonal Experience at my Camp. Well, here they are:

Part I: http://goo.gl/DOPOEx
Part II: http://goo.gl/mGyGe8

Tuesday 19 February 2013

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LOVE LETTERS?

If you are looking at this topic in a strange manner, then it's safe to say, you were born in the late 90s and maybe your secondary school education was later in the millennium. Or how else can we explain your ignorance of the word Love-letter? Haven't you written or received a missive of this kind:

Dearest Bolanle,
                         How are you doing? Hope yourself and every member of your family are doing fine, if so, doxology!
                       My aim of writing you this missive is to express my love for you. You are the butter in my bread, the sugar in my tea, the egg in my egg-roll, blah, blah, blah...
                       My love for you is as deep as the 5 oceans in the world poured into one, it has no size, no volume, it cannot be measured. Bolanle love, my love for you dries only when the water in all the oceans dry.
Blah...
Blah...
Blah...
                       Dream sweet dreams my love, as I must stop. Every letter, unlike every love, must end. Do not close your mind to the content of this letter. In any case, I will be forced to write again. And I shall not close my eyes until I read from you, as I know you will write.
                         Looking forward to an affirmative reply from you.

Till very soon,

Your unsuspected love,
Adewale Bambo

Pardon me if I missed some lines that are pro'ly running through your mind right now, I only wrote such letters like twice and received like five.
If you have never written or received a letter of this kind, then *LipsSealed* for you ni o. The thing is, we don't get to see these in modern day wooing. Gone are the days you deliberately give a lady a letter on Friday after school only to anticipate all weekend what your fate is with her since there was no means of communication. Approaching school on Monday morning, your heart begins to race, several questions running through your mind. What will her reply be? How did she take the revelation? Has she mentioned it to her friends? Will she report me to our class teacher? Is she going to say yes to me? Does she feel the same about me? All these and many more keep running through your mind all through the assembly ground. A mere eye contact with her sends cold shivers down your spine.
It's so sad this doesn't happen these days. As we now have everything modernized. Even the fragile feeling called LOVE has had it's own share of modernization. These days, relationships are birthed, sustained, consumed and terminated...ALL on the social network platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, 2go, Y!Msgr, mobile phones, voice messages, etc. These may in their own way have advantages, but trust me, the glamour, intrigue and suspense of asking a lady out has drastically reduced. Nowadays, even the use of the word LOVE on social platforms will almost drive you crazy. You will be a learner for you to think that a tweet at you that reads “Good Morning Love @holyparcel” actually means the person who dropped the tweet has affection for you. The concept of modernization, technology and indeed social networking platforms have undermined the romantic feeling that accompanies the period of asking a lady out.
You ask a lady out during the day and before nightfall that day, you have bombarded her cell phone with a deluge of messages, tweeted at her, sent her FB messages. She on the other hand has tweeted about it (maybe in codes), called like 3 or more of her friends to inform them about the latest development and before we say Jack Robinson, the eye of the world is on you both.
Every new development has it's own advantage and disadvantage. While social networks and mobile phones afford lovers more communication, to me, it has made the process of wooing a lady less interesting.
A friend of mine once told me that there was a time herself and her landlord's son do not communicate physically, but guess what, every night, they are both locked in lengthy conversations on Y! Messenger, talking from around 9pm till the early hours of the next day. Yet in the morning, when their paths cross, they just walk by each other smiling sheepishly. I tell you, that's one of the wrongs of social networking platforms.
I also had a friend that will talk all night with her boyfriend during the time Xtracool (Free-all-night) calls started. They will talk all night from 12:30am till 4:30am. 4 good hours of only God knows what they discuss every other day of the week.
My opinion, I think I enjoy the days of love letters better. It however has it's disadvantage. Imagine seeing the letter you wrote a lady a few months ago in an awkward place. Probably on the floor in a public place or in the hands of younger ones.
As I write this post, I have a letter in my possession, written by a female coursemate of mine, pro'ly to be given to an admirer, but which she forgot in her note, a note which I borrowed and saw. I have since kept the letter, one day, just maybe one day, I'll return it to her.
Bottom line, if the lady is the care-free (careless) type, writing her a love-letter wont be a good idea, just stick with the calls and messages, at least everyone jealously guard their mobile phones.