It’s 4:30am. I wake up seeing myself in a jungle with nearly two thousand strangers, and the lady soldier in charge of blowing that bugle is more than glad to interrupt my dream. I try as fast as I can to slide into a white t-shirt, a pair of white shorts, wear my cap and fix my reluctant feet into a pair of sneakers. The tap predictably refuses to lend out water that morning, and I’m just lucky to get my teeth cleaned before I am chased out to begin the day. In spite of all my efforts I’m deemed too slow in the opinion of the men in khaki, and for failing to ‘double up’, “Kai, Otondo I dey mad, go down” said one of the men in khaki. So I get to the parade ground in frog jump motion.
7:30am means breakfast time, and the morning’s menu is bread and tea but I choose to have breakfast at Mammy Market. My trip to Mammy only happens however after I witness a little drama at the hostel. A stranger wails about his two missing Blackberry phones and threatens to involve his hometown’s “Eze Dibia”. Upon close scrutiny it’s discovered that he dozed off with his phones on the bed rather than in his waist-pouch, and everyone nearby berates him for his naivety and carelessness.
My meal barely digests when the bugle sounds yet again. It’s time for some unnecessary yet compulsory lectures, my speed lets me down once again, and again I would have to get to the lecture hall in frog jump motion. “Which kain soldiers be this sef? Person nor go fit chop make the food enter body again?” mutters a fellow stranger who’s also unfortunate to be frog-jumping with me, expressing his obvious displeasure at the really short interval laid out for breakfast. “Guy, na true dem talk o, camp nor be the same thing with excursion”, I catch enough breath to tell him in reply.
The lectures begin, and I wish I had brought my pillow along. Well it can’t be that bad, I say to myself. The lectures eventually end after four tortuous hours, and well aware that there are no ATMs around, I opt for camp lunch in a bid to be nice to my pocket (waist pouch). The jollof rice is poorly cooked, and my stomach begins to rumble, but I know better than to give in when I think about the deplorable state of the toilet facilities. “Guy, dem no dey price school fees o” replied the stranger whom I complained to about the badly-cooked meal.
Another bugle sound means time for another parade, in comparison with which that of the morning proves to be a mere warm-up. The marching routine is more intense, each instruction takes much longer before perfection. My limbs are almost losing their usefulness, and I wish the stranger next to me has something nicer to say. “You think this is suffering? Wait until man o’ war drill”, he says, sounding like someone who has previously been in this jungle. “Ehen, shey dem talk say enough fun dey this place,” cuts in another stranger, who looks rather old to be in this jungle. “Dem even talk say dem normally dey share ‘bulletproof’ for here. Why dem never share give us for here now?” All of us within earshot hand him a curious stare, to which he reacts by smiling sheepishly.
The day’s torture ends shortly after sunset. It’s beans for supper, and I’m are not ready to do further harm to my bowels, so I stroll out to Mammy Market, this time in the company of 736, a lady from a neighbouring platoon, whom I had got to know days before. She tells me of her favourite colours and the names of her brothers as she helps herself to food and drinks on my bill, surprisingly I don’t seem to mind when she orders some more for her roommates. We both appear to share a whole lot as we engage in witty conversations that evening, and I feel something special is brewing, not minding the fact that on each of the last four consecutive days, I saw her with different guys, and ultimately, with my platoon commander. The 10:30pm bugle means lights out, and I try to steal a kiss, but the killjoy man in khaki nearby keeps screaming “Lover-boy, oya go your room.”
I reluctantly head to my hostel, where the stranger sleeping next to me quizzes me as to where I've been all evening. “Decamping is real o”, he teases me, reminding me of 271 and 467 (a married woman) who were decamped the week before after both were found expressing their new found love along the grasses beside the camp clinic. Darkness ultimately engulfs the jungle, and I close my eyes in sleep, not so sure what to dream about.
Few hours into dreamland, I am awakened by loud bangs on the doors and bunks with sticks, whistles blowing from every nook and cranny of the jungle and a loud cry “FIRE FIRE!!!”
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