The Switch

Thanks for checking out my blog, it's been fun here but something's changed. No, I've not stopped blogging , just switched blogs to misguidedreflections.wordpress.com cos...it was getting too difficult to get this one to work correctly. I was spending more time fixing site errors than writing.
So, guess I'l see you there?

Tolu O

The Clarion Call III!

Yes it's ready, with a just one little change.
I'm switching blogs.

If you've ever tried to leave a comment here, or navigated here with a Blackberry device...you might have experienced annoying problems. I've tried hard to fix the problems but it seems the best, most elegant solution is to simply switch.

my new blog is www.misguidedreflections.wordpress.com

Clarion Call III is at http://goo.gl/fb1s7

Feel free to leave comments this time, it's now very easy to.

P.S : If you followed this blog earlier, you'll get a message later asking you to confirm your subscription to my new blog. 

Thank you! :D 

On The Clarion III

“It is impossible for an iroko tree to fall and the forest to remain quiet, and so the world mourns my people's greatest writer ”

I am very sorry, you expected the Clarion Call III and I readied it , but ultimately this week I find myself unable to present it, as I should.

I would much rather post a full-scale eulogy of a great man and consummate storyteller but as you've likely read several already I won't...even as I sadly wonder, why the stars must crash and fall, as the black-holes remain vibrant.

Next week, I'll continue my tale from where I stopped (with at least double the usual word count) and tell you a whole lot more of what was. 

Thank you for understanding.
Tolu O.

The Clarion Call II

Walking up from the field, the illustrious Mammy Market was set in a small, uppermost north-east corner of the camp. It had little less than one score canopies spread out in all directions, including centre. I think most people went there primarily for food, I know I did and the majority of traders there sold food, and drink. From protein-rich sandwiches, to egusi with gummy semo-vita, spicy, gleamy barbecue, and stripy, 'exotic' ofada right up to my personal camp favourite, pounded yam and divine ambrosia soup. If you had money to spend, food was not an issue. But if you had to rely solely on camp kitchen food which was not infrequently 'flavoured' with charcoal, other times just wood...you deserve a formal NYSC salute. The 'hearty cheers way'. I should also add, that Mammy also contained an impressive number of nameless make-shift night clubs.

But I knew little of the pleasures the mysteriously named market offered that day, after all it was only my first. After an adequate tranquil meal, I returned to my room well before sunset, just in time for the short drama to unfold. All of my roommates had arrived by now, or at least enough of them to validate the swift 'election'. A tubby, rather dark, friendly guy walked into the room carrying his baggage and inquired who the room leader was as he settled into his bed. We looked at him with amused smiles,"Room leader? Who cares about that. We don't have one". He seemed relieved. "From today, make una they call me Firstborn", he casually declared. The room erupted into laughter. "Firstborn?!" I found it hilarious too but by the time the laughter ceased, Firstborn was the informal leader of the room. He had no power or responsibilities but that was to come.

Before night fell, from my vantage top bunk facing the entrace, I watched another heavily built corper howbeit taller, stroll through the double wooden doors. One thing led to another till he was named, just guess :"Last-born". If Firstborn was black, Lastborn was white-complexioned. He also gave a succinct, moving one-line speech. Something about us roommates looking after him since he was the Lastborn of the room. Imagine! I am not exaggerating. If "Terminator" were a Nollywood movie, Lastborn's physique would make him perfect for the lead, eponymous role that Arnold Schwarzenegger played. But this was merely the start of countless episodes of room politics and comedy, some of which, as you will see  I unintentionally became entangled with.

I slept late, woke early, way before I heard what I and some of my pals called,'the trumpet sound' a daily, peculiar bugle call. I hustled maybe as far as a kilometer before I found bath water. For most of the first week, this continued and we learned the cause. "Rain had fallen days before, and they were still drying the electric cables in the sun " or so we were told.

Later, I had to go to the field for 'parade practice'. Basically, there were several circles of corpers with soldiers in the middle of each teaching the fresh 'otondos' how to march. Camp can obviously not mould you into a soldier but they will try their very best to instill 'discipline' into you. Unfortunately for us, as far as they were concerned, discipline is the process of testing for the roasting point of the human brain under the sun while screaming one unintelligible phrase or the other, and raising your legs at precise intervals for hours. Now I was in a circle, under the hot sun, sweating profusely and shouting "Left-right, left-right, left-right!" I couldn't have felt more foolish. My friend, Christopher was right beside me also trying to learn the motions, and in intense discomfort. So, Christopher made a mistake, I did too. The tall, brown-skinned, soldier with a loud mouth marched up to us, and without warning extended his long stick to bestow a solid, brutal thump on Christopher's head. "You dis goat!". It resounded and each of us in the circle briefly stopped marching to stare in shock, especially me. I was next in line. When he looked at me, I kept my face level and waited. Christopher was gingerly rubbing his sore head without a word of complaint. My own response would be quite different, but he did not hit me. He returned to the center of the circle. I observed his departure from the narrow slits that were my rage infused eyes. "Is this what camp will be about?”

 "Did we complete degrees just so we could be unjustly oppressed and imprisoned by violent men for three weeks? "As I pondered on such thoughts, contemplating the “nysc problem” and how I would survive it... practice was called off. We were dismissed. I dialed Tanya's number repeatedly, without success. Maybe camp would have gone differently, if I had reached her.

P.S : This continues next week, on Saturday. I think I'm almost done covering basic background stuff and the story can move a lot faster now.
I have updated the comment system! It's easier now. You can sign in using ur fb, twitter, or google(including blogger) credentials to leave comments. I think the easiest way is to use the 'D' icon and register with disqus by entering a name/nickname and your email. Disqus is a platform for comments used by many popular websites, including CNN so if you create an account now, you can use it elsewhere. Whichever you choose, be sure to click the 'subscribe via email' link ,just below, so you get notifications of any replies to your comments. Thanks!...see you next week.

The Clarion Call

The subsequent stories will be shorter, I promise but this is the introduction.

On that day, one hundred thousand young men and women were summoned from the solace of their homes to one of almost three dozen centers across this country. I was one of them and like each of my colleagues, I had no choice in the matter. We were all going to 'serve our nation' with our hearts, bodies and souls whether or not we wanted to. Notice the irony?

I arrived at the camp gates about 8 o'clock that morning, shortly after listening to two small children as they sang on their way to school,
" Omi garri (trans: the liquid of garri) is water;
  Eja didin  (trans: fried fish) is fish "
The town itself was an ancient one with lots of thatched roofs and small red mud houses but there were quite a number of modern, stately buildings too.

The first thing I noticed in front of the green-white-green camp gate was a prominently displayed, black-painted, life size sculpture of a male otondo(corper) and he was not smiling. He looked very unhappy, in fact. I took one step past the armed policemen at the entrance, and impressively there was a checkpoint. Once it was confirmed that I was not carrying any dangerous 'equipment', I got the 4-digit tag that assigned me to platoon 6.

A couple minutes after settling into a hostel, I went out to get my kit. It was rather fast, my platoon commander was helpful and kind but the kit itself was a mixed story. The jungle boots and cap were well-made. The belt looked and felt as if it had been made from fresh banana leaves, and it became clear that the voluminous,'agbada-style' 'white' tshirts, were actually cream once I compared them to the white t-shirts I'd brought from home. Other than the fact that I probably lost a button each time I wore the khaki, the rest of the kit was passable.

I changed into my whites and calmly headed out to inspect the camp. My first stop was at the fairly large parade ground where a lot of corps (pronounced 'core')  members had already gathered; a few played football and many more from the stands. I'm certain that a lot more was happening then yet I quickly found myself drawn to a thin, deserted strip of the field, just next to the fence.

There were less than a dozen people there but coincidentally, all belonged to my platoon, and three were just about to race. I was on time. On a sudden whim, I decided I would be the fourth contestant and they agreed. We slowly spread out over the foot-high bush, picked suitable spots and drooped to our knees, waiting for the signal. I was tense.

"On your mark!" Blood pounded through my veins, overwhelming me.
"Set?" My heartbeats echoed, and I heard each distinctly.
"Go!" I shot off with every ounce of force I could muster. The world became very silent and still as I instantly forgot that it was merely a friendly race. My brain issued a furious, short and urgent command. "RUN!", it roared. Even if the earth had opened her mouth to swallow the ground from under me, I could not have possibly moved any faster. My muscles were drawn tight, subjected to great tension. My head and shoulders were bent, to assume a diagonal posture as I swiftly closed in on my target.

And then? Broken twigs. Not one or two in my path, a whole bunch and my right foot became immediately entangled. I leaped into the air that instant, reflexively hoping to evade the branches and continue my run but my leg was stuck. I fell back to the ground, fortunately in the fetal position  and rolled off the track for a few seconds, into the brown grass ,rough sand and sharp sticks

Perhaps it defies reason, but my first reaction was to get back on my feet and huddle into a nearby secluded spot behind a stack of grass and wood to privately examine my wounds. Remarkably, I was generally unscathed but more importantly, and to my great relief, 'it' was intact, and un-punctured. I vowed then, that I would not run again!,at least not in camp. I had come so close to...I turned because someone was asking how I was.

"Are you okay? "
"Yes, yes..." I gasped, " I am fine".
"You should go to the clinic"
"Oh, there's no need, I'm uninjured. What happened to me?" I asked.
"You were second until you fell into that small pit"
"A pit?!" My eyes widened and I moved closer to confirm. In truth, there was a small depression where I had fallen.
By now, the pain of the impact was dwindling and finally my eyes opened. She was a girl. Quite the girl. She told me she was helping the platoon's athletic team and while I was still thinking, I heard my voice volunteering to help her oversee the remaining races. She agreed.

"Should I put your name down for the platoon's athletics practice? " She asked
"No, don't bother, I'm never running again"
In an insistent tone, "But you were quite good and..."
I cut in, "I was?..." mused a bit, looked around then decided. "Tolu, Code no: "xxx6".
As she wrote my name on the paper she was holding, she said, "Tanya".
When the real races ended, we slowly walked back to the finish line .What I convinced her to do over the next five or ten minutes, I am not at all proud of, and immensely grateful that there were no watchers. I 'won', convincingly.
However, it boosted my dampened spirits and strengthened my commitment to run for my platoon.
We split.I headed to Mammy Market for a much deserved lunch thinking that NYSC camp might not be so bad or hard after all, and I could probably, easily enjoy it.
I was foolish...and naive.

P.S : This is the first installment, of a weekly series summarizing notable events and experiences from camp. I will cover more ground in the next one, go deeper.

I'd love to hear your comments, long or short, whatever you think of this. You can leave one just below and I'll definitely respond.  

UPDATE

I'm not sure if you'll see this, but starting this week, I plan to do new posts each Saturday about topics of all sorts, memories(you won't believe all that's happened), fun experiences and fiction too :D

I hope you enjoy reading my blog.

It's difficult to leave comments right now, cos of the way blogspot.com is structured but by Saturday, 9th of March, I expect to have found a solution to that problem.

Thanks.

Touching Her

She smiled at me, she winked, she laughed…but I couldn't touch her. She was right in front of me but I could not adjust her long, dark hair, tilt her oval chin or trace a playful line down a side of her glowing face. She wanted me to hold her, I saw it in her eyes yet I didn't.

We talked for several short hours throughout that day on life, love, politics and the future. We made and played beautiful music and told tales of the nostalgic past.

I looked away again, made no attempt to hide my false interest in the surrounding scenery because I’d somehow noticed how her smile got brighter when she thought I wasn't paying  attention. I totally deceived her. She thought I was staring at other things…but I was only trying to get a better view. All of my optical focus was directed to peripheral vision so I could ‘scope’ her face, optimally. No harm in that tiny bit of dishonesty, eh?

It was wonderful, being with a woman who understood me. I was filled to bursting with a strong soothing sense of peace and balance. Work and hustle, fights and tussles would inevitably resume the next day, but that moment, that night, all I wanted was to reach out, take her hand and savour the feel of her warm skin against mine as I fell asleep.

But then she stopped smiling, because I got cocky and told her about my little observation. She held her face stoically,summoned that impressive self-will I admired, and I knew I was in trouble .Nothing more that I said, however funny, sarcastic or satirical elicited a change in her facial expression. I contemplated capitulation but my pride disagreed. I refused to humbly retract my statement, therefore our petty mind-game continued. I bet I could have ‘won’ easily if I’d played dirty by subtly reminding her of my feelings for,  and perception of her.

She admonished me to give up but I cheerfully retorted with references to gallant heroes of history and lore, and some very current and contemporary, thieving villains. I opined that if even the vile and contemptible were dedicated, how could I do less?
Needless to say, I lost that contest. She didn’t budge even when I attempted way to obscure and obfuscate her sterling victory, by suggesting that I had a bigger plot in place which she’d been unwittingly subject to.

Perhaps it was compensation for my ‘loss’, but when I finally said farewell, she bid me come closer, and plastered a swift, crimson seal on my lips.
OR, that’s what would have happened, if only I could have touched her.
I smiled at the IM audible she sent, and signed out. My webcam’s blue light, fizzled out and yielded to the darkness.