No Jobs!! Get Certified!!Start a Trade!!
..in case you missed them, here is part1 and part2 of Olumide's Camp story
It’s
the first weekend in camp and we know from prior knowledge that we only will
get Sunday off. The Saturday went as usual until the evening time, when
corp members had as much fun as they could muster and I think there was an
event that day, yes, the Mr. Macho and Miss. NYSC contest. Funny event really,
left everybody awake till about 0300 hours on Sunday; this made waking up early
enough for church service difficult for most. Sundays, however, are weird days
in camp; especially of you are an introverted fellow. This is because there is
practically nothing to engage you hence you tend to loiter around in the mammy
market or force yourself into a sleep phase you don’t want.
Monday morning; we went
through the daily routine until about 0900 hours when the bugle sounded again
forcing us to the auditorium (quite an exaggerated term if you ask me, “Hall”
would do) to attend lectures. The lectures were to occupy a five-hour stretch
throughout its days. “How can I listen to a five hour stretch lecture”, I
thought. I mean whose attention span is that wide? I decided to give “Day One” a
try. It turned out to be a nice choice, since most of the talks given were
interesting, akin to comical. It was more of an interactive welcome conference.
The lectures got boring as the days
passed. Most of them involved the self-empowerment kind of story; telling us
that we do not need to work in a white collar firm to be successful and other
similar clichés (they were quite right though). With the droning on of the
speakers on matters perceived as old news by the corps members, it was
understandable to see most of them “snapping back” and shutting eyes. It even
got to the point where most people decided to absent themselves from the
lectures, and instead relax in their hostels. But, of course, the ever agile
camp officials were on patrol to check for, chase and in worse cases, punish
defaulters with the popular “squat down” and “lion standing” drills.
To be fair, some of the lectures
were quite interesting, but the speaker always spoils it with the Nigerian “buy
my book” syndrome. I happened to be listening to a very interesting and
informative piece about Resumes/Curriculum Vitae. I enjoyed the piece to I
extent that I decided to give the speaker a resounding applause, mind you, I am
one those laisser-faire ones that just silently put hands together without
producing sound, but the ruined it when he uttered the words “I have these
books that I would like you to have”. Funny thing is he kept going on about the
importance of the book and how it is in limited supply; meanwhile there was a
continuous hail of “how much ooo?” from the attendees. He was trying to
persuade us into buying them and he was right to do so because the books were
quite expensive and trust me only few corps members would have obliged if he
had not incessantly praised the books. Cheap me, you might say, but we are
corps members in CAMP for God’s sake, we don’t have that kind of money to
spend. After a week of lectures, the skills acquisition program was introduced.
The instructors here were another issue entirely. Though most of them were
quite good, others were perceived to there under ulterior motives.
Now with all these mixed feelings
about some of the camp’s activities, some of us, corps members decided to get a
little bit of lee-way by joining some organizations in camp.
…to be continued in
Camp Organizations
