Nobody wanted to come here – trust me, I asked. Everyone who got posted to this Jalingo camp had hoped for one of the camps in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Lagos, or Calabar, big cities with promising job prospects for a young university graduate after one year of National Youth Service. And if you don’t do Service, forget about working in Nigeria. You can be the child of a corrupt politician and get sent to study on the moon, but if you want to do anything in this country, even run for any office, you first must come back, report to the camp you’ve been posted for duty and wear the khaki uniform for your year of service. Ever since I graduated, my Lagos besties kept asking me why I didn’t just go and join my mother in Yaoundé, since Cameroon doesn’t have a compulsory youth service. I told them it was because she never taught me French, and if you couldn’t speak French in a francophone country, people will get vexed. The real reason I wouldn’ join my mother is deeper though. Let’s just say we fight all the time.
She thought I was fighting her when I chose to remain with my father in Nigeria after the divorce, and she didn’t understand why I was studying theatre in school. She didn’t like my boyfriend when I sent her pictures of him, because according to her, his beard didn’t look like it belonged to a successful man and so I was not surprised last month when she didn’t approve of my enrolling for youth service. Why didn’t I just come to Yaounde and live with her? I told her “but mom you say no to everything I choose to do.”
“Then at least, let your father use his influence to get you posted to a safer place. If you’re going to give up one year of your life for that country, you better take advantage of anywhere you can find it.”
I should have listened to her.
Even my father, who did everything in his power to make sure I got the ‘authentic’ Nigerian experience, thought coming here was extreme. He lined my bags with cash and chattered a taxi that would drive me 7 hours through the horrible roads to this place. My secret reason for coming here was because I needed space from my boyfriend Tunji, I don’t trust myself when I am in the same city with him. The last time I caught him cheating, he said he was depressed. Tunji sleeps with other women as a means to ‘purge out his demons.’ When I asked him why he didn’t purge them out with me, he looked at me like I asked to lick his shoes and said “I respect and honor you too much for that.”
All my friends have stopped talking to me because of Tunji. I can’t even tell my mom, she will book a flight to Lagos and kill him. I know I shouldn’t repeat the family pattern, she had to leave my dad for cheating on her while I was in her womb. I kept going back to Tunji because truly when he is kind, he is kind, he is the best man you can ever ask for, he will never raise his voice at me. The sex is good and he reads me romantic poems he finds online. I can forgive him and move on, but I no longer know where his mental health issues end and his bad behavior begins. I need this space to think about how I really feel and after my three weeks of camp I will apply to be redeployed back to Lagos where he has promised to wait for me.
In the morning after I arrived, the soldiers stormed the hostels shouting and whistling at us as if we were prisoners. Soldiers are in charge of law and order here; you sense it once you walk through the gate. I was barely done with my bath that morning, but they didn’t care; I had to wrap myself in a towel and follow the other girls into the morning darkness. I hissed and cursed as silently as I could but my situation was better than the other girls dragged out of sleep. Very few were prepared, and they adjusted their white T-shirts and shorts in front of us, looking like bodiless ghosts floating ahead of us, behind the soldiers, to a destination we didn’t know. I was furious the entire time we walked; I couldn’t wait to call my mom and tell her everything. We stopped in a field where other girls were in a small commotion; someone had said we were to form a small circle; another had said it was a square.
A voice boomed in the darkness “Form a big U!”
We formed a great square ‘U’ and he walked into our center, holding a giant flashlight.
“Black cockroaches!” He shouted, “come this side” he pointed his free hand to the left and we were confused. Who were cockroaches?
“White cockroaches!” He shouted again.
To my shock, half of us shouted back “Sir”
“Separate yourself from the black cockroaches.”
In less than a minute, everyone in white shorts and tees shifted away until we found ourselves ‘on this side.’ The ‘White Cockroaches’ had reported to camp a day earlier and had gotten their Youth Service kit so they were appropriately dressed in white. Those dressed in casual clothes were warned to get our kits when the officers in charge resumed work later that day. The commander made it clear that morning would be the last time we would appear as black cockroaches before him.
The commander went ahead to enlighten us on the general conduct while on the parade ground; he informed us that nobody marched into the camp with the identities they had come with from home; henceforth, we were his dear cockroaches. Some of us grumbled and that was when he promised us an hour squatting on the ground. I thought he was joking. Believe me when I tell you that squatting was the least stressful thing we had to do in those three weeks. We had drills with soldiers, climbing nets, jumping over hoops, my goodness. Then there was the marching, the jogging, the transporting of chairs from our assembly hall to the field for competitions then to the church chapel on camp. I knew my mother would scream when she saw how much weight I had lost.
Maybe it’s something about being kept in this fenced area, away from the outside world, but soon, almost everyone fell into a temporary love, a love that didn’t require any past or future.
In camp your body is not your own. On the parade ground you are pushed, pulled, pinched, grasped for support by people you have never met in your life. But interesting things happened on camp too. It was possible to see your exact doppelganger in another platoon. It was possible to get distracted with the dancing competitions and the marching band and forget to call your boyfriend. By the second week of camp, it was possible to fall into love.
Not me, I’m talking about other people. Maybe it’s something about being kept in this fenced area, away from the outside world, but soon, almost everyone fell into a temporary love, a love that didn’t require any past or future. They were not interested in who each other had been before the orientation camp or where they would be deployed to after the three weeks. If you ask me, I will say it was dangerous. The heart is a soft thing you know. But I still had Tunji back home, even though I hadn’t made up my mind about him. I made myself think of Tunji when I kept running next to the only handsome guy left in my platoon who hadn’t tied himself to a girl yet. Tunji was finer than this boy, right? I checked my phone to see Tunji’s pictures again and tried to push back my disappointment. Tunji was one of those people who looked better in person. This guy was so dark I could barely see him in our morning assemblies on the parade ground field, but his teeth were as white as the slice of the moon that still lingered over us, and when the sun rose, he almost turned golden, and I…
Anyway, yes so camp. Different NGOs were invited to talk to us about career stuff, some gave training for those who wanted to learn how to make shoes, and you had to find yourself in a group. Tell me why I had to stand next to this guy in the assembly hall, with about 20 others who hadn’t found a group to join? I quickly turned my face from him and faced the Camp Director, who was introducing the last NGO. to visit our camp.
“-these children,” the man was blaring into the megaphone, “have fought to be here. Let’s clap for the Leaders of Tomorrow, our wonderful visitors, who have taken time to bring these little ambassadors.”
I joined in the thunderous applause, and tried to catch up on what I had missed. The ‘Leaders of Tomorrow’ was an N.G.O. that selected kids from secondary schools in less desirable parts of the country to emotionally blackmail corp members into staying to serve their full year after the 3 weeks camp. Four students, or should I say children, each climbed on the podium to sing their secondary school anthems. The rest performed cultural dances from tribes I couldn’t pronounce. When one of the kids threw a somersault in the air, I caught the guy I had been avoiding smiling out of the corner of my eye. Something happened again and he laughed. He had huge teeth that shone against his dark skin. He had shifted away from me so I couldn’t hear him laugh.
“And we have our first volunteer.” The camp director was saying. “Let’s clap for her.”
Everyone in the hall turned to clap for me. Can you imagine! I wanted the ground to swallow me. What was I volunteering for? All the corp members in the hall made way for a boy who looked not older than twelve in his crisp purple shirt and shorts uniform and shiny afro, to walk towards me.
“My name is Vosiuten” he said after a Leaders of Tomorrow staff member had led us outside to a nearby mango tree. Behind me, I could see the handsome corper being led with an albino kid to a bench outside the hall. “And I am sixteen years old.”
I was about to say my own name, but the age that came out of his mouth made me stutter. “Six-sixteen? What do you mean Sixteen?”
He rattled off a World Health Statistic of malnutrition the N.G.O. must have taught him. I zoned off thinking about the handsome corper, maybe asking him for his name would make him less mysterious, yes, that was it. I kept thinking about him because I knew nothing about him. Some soldiers were jogging away from the hall, towards the main gate of the camp, where other soldiers had gathered. I was wondering what was going on, but everyone else continued with their assigned students under trees, in empty classrooms as far as my eyes could see. “Where do you come from?” the boy asked me, pulling my attention back to him.
“I-um-I am from Lagos State,” I replied. “I am Nigerian but my mother is from Cameroon. Where are you from?”
“I am from Atta, that’s where I was born and my parents are from Takum.”
I remembered seeing Takum on the map when I was getting ready to come here, but I didn’t remember Atta. “Isn’t that in Cameroon? Aren’t you Nigerian?”
The boy laughed and shrugged, “Me I don’t know that one o, the same yam that we grow in Takum is the same one in Atta.”
Before I could press him more, one of the Leaders of Tomorrow staff came to thank me for my time and took him to join the others in a big green bus. I jogged to the handsome corper and asked him, “sorry, but where are those kids from?”
“If I remember well, they all mentioned when introducing themselves,” he said with a smirk, “I don’t remember them all.” His voice was lighter than I had imagined, it made me pay attention to him. “I am Christopher and I think we are in the same platoon.” He said, giving me a handshake and I apologized for my rudeness. Then I told him I knew the kids were all from Taraba secondary schools, but my assigned student told me he was born in Cameroon and moved back and forth so I wanted to know more about their origins. Christopher had learnt more than I did. You could call some of the kids Cameroonian, some you could call Nigerian, but culturally these didn’t matter, borders were invisible to them, in fact some villages sat right on top of the borders if you could imagine them. English as well as Kutep was spoken easily between these villages and in times of crisis, people took refuge on either side.
“If you choose to serve your one year in Taraba,” Christopher told me as the sun went down “you will be more likely to be deployed to a secondary school to teach and more than half of your students will be refugees. Countries don’t are not important like that to people who live on the border.”
I thanked him and went to Mammy market, to buy food for dinner, thinking about the question Vosiuten had asked me. Was I really from Lagos? My friends had always preferred going to a restaurant to eat or hanging out at their place because according to them, I didn’t use enough pepper and always found a way to introduce vegetables in every meal. “Even egg sauce, you must add veggies!” laughed Tunji, the last time he ate my cooking. “You cook like a Calabar babe.” Calabar wasn’t far from Cameroon, where my mother had raised me on a heavy fish and vegetable diet. My father only let me grow up with her, on the condition that I schooled in Nigeria and he selected my nanny, who had to be anglophone.
The result was I couldn’t play with kids in Yaounde, I couldn’t do any errands for my mom. When tried to take French classes in secondary school, he would tell me it was a waste of time “English can take you to the UK, to Europe, America, even Australia, but French, French will take you nowhere! Even your mother, who was born in the French language, had to learn English. You will look at the Eiffel Tower in France and get tired and it won’t give you a job.”
Where was I really from? And more importantly, what would I do with my life after Service?
“Madam,” the food vendor called to me, in the open air restaurant. “We don dey close o, security alert.”
“What security alert?” I asked, my heart skipping as I saw other open air restaurants packing up their wares, but the woman didn’t hear me, she cleared up the rice and stew that had gone cold in my plate. I stood up and grabbed the arm of a corper in white uniform, hurrying away with a Nigerian flag. “What’s going on?”
“Boko Haram.”
I told them I loved them so much and I was so lucky they had met somehow and had me, in spite of the Nigeria-Cameroon border, in spite of the French-English border, in spite of the things men and women will never understand about each other.
My brain rang in my ears. I ran all the way to the girls hostel and saw my roommates already there, some praying, some making phone calls, others hiding under our spring beds. My mother was right, I shouldn’t have come here. I called her on Facetime but the network couldn’t go through. I called her three more times, then I called my father’s office line. His phone didn’t even ring. I left a voice message in the whatsapp group I created for the three of us, even though they hated being together in any form. I told them I loved them so much and I was so lucky they had met somehow and had me, in spite of the Nigeria-Cameroon border, in spite of the French-English border, in spite of the things men and women will never understand about each other. I told them I was deeply lucky to be loved by them and that mom was right about Tunde, he shouldn’t even come near my funeral.
I felt light and happy after pressing send, and my life flashed before me, I saw my father’s big laugh and tribal marks, I saw my mother’s high heels click-clacking on her office terrazzo floor, I saw them coming together at my secondary school graduation ceremony to be in the same picture for the first time since I was born. They were good people at the end of the day, they treated their staff and co-workers well, made sure I didn’t lack anything, they did the best they could.
A loud whistle rang in the air. “To the Parade Ground!” blared the voice of our camp director. Feeling assured that he still had some authority, we followed his voice and marched into the cold evening. We organized ourselves into platoons without any hassle or noise. Then finally, he thanked us for coming. He informed us that we were a blessing, it was because of our presence that the federal government had rushed up the building construction of this camp and we were the first corps members to be camped here. He told us he knew we had heard some rumors but wanted us to know we were safe.
“If we are safe” screamed someone from a platoon closer to him, “then where is the commandant? Why has nobody seen him today?”
The camp director looked down and terror moved through us all.
“Black Cockroaches!” came a voice from far off that made my skin sweat. Was I the only one who heard that? The voice came again, amplified by a megaphone. “BLAACCK COCKROACHES!”
“YES SIR” We cried.
Our camp commandant marched to the center of our U and continued speaking, looking us all in the eye. I never knew I would come to thank God to hear his voice.
“There was an attack on the border, in Borno, but the enemies have been vanquished. Tomorrow, many of you will apply to get out of this state. I respect that. I understand. If you choose to stay, there will be able members of the Peace Corps, protecting you and the school you are sent to. You will be teaching brave children, some of them who have sneaked through enemy lines from refugee camps, to come back to this state and get some education for a better life. The camp director will continue.”
My mind was racing. For the first time since I got here, I wasn’t afraid. What if I didn’t have to go back to Lagos, back to Tunde? What if I stayed back here and figured out what I wanted to do with my life? The cost of living here is definitely cheaper, and it would be easier to get my parents to send me money for upkeep if I wasn’t under any of their roofs. I am an only child, don’t judge me. I could get a nice place in Jalingo, the state capital, which was sure to have more security. Or I could get posted to a small town, maybe meet Vosiuten again. I will give it some thought though, no hasty decisions.
“You’re cold.” Said Christopher behind me, “want to share my blanket?” I nodded and smiled at him. He wrapped his massive blanket around my shoulders and I leaned into him. A year in this place wouldn’t be that bad at all.
Help us tell the world to you !
Frictions is launching its club : by supporting Frictions, you’ll be supporting a community of authors and journalists who tell the world through intimate stories!
