Serials


The Service Chronicles 41: Okro Soup



It was Ola I called, I have mentioned him before but I didn’t tell us the depth of our relationship. He is just not a friend and at this point I warn that if any of you should attempt to see me in any other way than I really am; which is an angel who knows no evil but enjoys experimenting, I would bring out my pot from under my bed (it is even getting dusty). Don’t ever get that image out of your minds until I tell you so. 

Ola is a guy I used to extensively make out with, extensively the major word in that sentence. You see the problem with doing plenty grown up things especially bad grown up things is that if you are a learner like me you may catch feelings and heck I caught them o. Was sick on them for a long time and because Ola said he just wanted to live his life and to me that means he wanted to just have lots of fun, I knew nothing would come out of all of that. In the beginning I didn’t mind, I was thinking I was a boss ass bitch, until I caught feelings and I remembered I am just a learner. 

Due to the sickness of catching feelings I had to get out of it and we didn’t really speak for more than a month. This is a guy that is in my CDS that I used to talk to everyday and go to his house more than once a week and we live in at two different cardinal points in Ilorin, him in Ilorin West and me in Ilorin South, I still found a way to carry my ass to his house, plus my school is not far from his house. 

Now six weeks later I call him on a rainy night and I drop a bombshell on him. It’s not pregnancy (I’m sure my enemies everywhere are thinking it is) and this girl prides herself in being extra extra careful. I told him about the sickness I had (catching feelings o not AIDS) and we just had a talk that made me realize I should have gone to bed instead of calling him. 

To make matters worse I was going to see him at CDS the next day. 

I got there late as usual because I am a landlord and shareholder in that CDS and I really don’t care if I get there late or early. 

I am a liar, I really tried to get there early but my Khaki started raining buttons and on this particular morning I looked like a whale in mine, and I sure as hell can’t go there looking like I belong in sea world with my other whale friends. 

I did see him and because I am a sharp girl I told him a different reason for calling and saying all the nonsense I had said the night before. The new reason was also true but it was less silly.

I headed to school for my classes and I had as much fun as I always do in my classes, collected some money the schooled owed me, they still owe me more. 

My madam moved our office to a new office in the library and I have to say this room is every bookworm’s fantasy. It is filled with Old books, books form 1958 and 68. I just keep taking more books that I am not ready to read but will read eventually. I swear I can’t wait to move in there. I will just forget myself in this office.


I took one more book from the library and I headed to a gym. Not for the reason you are hoping for. I am too lazy to get my ass to a gym or even exercise and I am too broke to sign up to a gym. Allawee is way too small. My next episode on radio is on physical fitness (don’t call me hypocrite) I want to advice people to work on themselves while I ginger my ass to run one day. I went there to look for a gym trainer and I found one who is more than willing to do it. Hallelujah for that.

Went to use the ATM and after waiting in line forever and getting to the front I look into my purse for my ATM card. Ta-da it wasn’t there, I almost ripped all the machines out, but because I don’t even have the power to lift myself out of bed sometimes talkless rip out an ATM I just walked away and went to get my card.

It is my turn to cook on Wednesdays and it is Okro soup. Chai! I had prayed all day that there won’t be okro but I didn’t tell God in tongues so that he would understand the gravity of my reluctance to making this soup which is why when I returned from my second trip to the ATM I met Jennifer grating Okro for me. I am telling you now that I had a terrible evening, grating Okro for thirty five people. 

I don’t even want to think of the horror of the stress I went through. God bless Maggie. This is the only girl in the lodge that has no qualms cooking in the kitchen back to back. She loves cooking, I thought I liked to cook until I met Maggie, her name fits her. And she can cook o. I don’t care if I sound corny, her husband will enjoy her for this! She came in and took over. The meal was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jennifer the wicked girl was there and she was just carrying face, I don’t know who annoyed her big head.

We had devotion that was turnt, cool stuff and after that I called Boye and the last thing I remember is taking off my clothes.


 Nkem Oyaghire



The Service Chronicles 40: Social Menace



I think in this life there should be a written decree that once you and an Ex go separate ways any form of relations should just follow both of you on your separate ways. That may have been possible eon years ago. Devices for instant communication would have been limited to a few powerful people like witches and magical beings. But now we have contraptions like phones and social media. 

 Social media is just the worst; the stupid last seen on what’s app, the notification of DP and Pm change on BBM, the DMs on Instagram and twitter and these other mumu functions on Social media. 

One time I pretended to have sent out a BC to an Ex just to be sure he was online and noticing the subs I was sending him via DPs and PMs
The most devilish of all these things is the phone. You will say you will not call that boy that broke your heart which most of the time is usually a Yoruba Demon, but before you know it. You will pick your phone like a zombie and the next thing you will hear on the other end of the line is the voice of the boy you swore never to talk to.

I know we all do this, girls especially don’t deny it na. The funniest time is when we use a hidden number, why we do these things is beyond me.
Well I spoke to an Ex (don’t judge me, he is a very sensible young man) and he told me the wisest words (I think). This stupid phase of my life that is even worse than puberty is okay and like all things in this world, time would fix it. No need to rush the process.

I wish he hadn’t said that. My people I have been cursed with impatience. It is the virtue I have in abundance. I cannot wait for anything or anybody, it is something impossible for me to do, but maybe I will try. For crying out loud I am almost through with learning tolerance, what is in patience that I can’t learn.

I went to bed a little bit better and my eyes so much drier.

The next day I stepped out of the lodge around 7:30, I had an 8am class. Now if you had seen me you would know I was looking for trouble with my school.

I was wearing a pair of red pants with a green blazer and a black tank top. The tank top had a few problems, my cleavage in it is really huge and it was worse this week because I now look like a nursing mother (I need help with this stupid problem).

I managed to avoid the eyes that pry and the tongues that wag from beneath scarfs or hijabs. During break my madam had to see me and I just have to say she is one of the nicest people I have known in my entire life. She is so nice and kind. It is safe to say I adore her.

Well she had to see me and she was in a staff room with eyes that pry and tongues that wag.
I come in decked in trousers first of all, that one was already a red flag, I had contacts on and my hair looked like something I was breeding to turn to dreads. As I left that office oh boy! These women talked and talked. Thank God for tolerance. I had every mind to tell them that girls that look like me are the reasons their husbands come home late. I am not sure if they would have understood what I meant but I still didn’t say it.

Before I forget, there is this man in my school who won’t leave me alone. His name is Mr Farouk; he is bent on calling me his wife, I have tried to run away from him but I have failed terribly. I swear I am tired of this, since the first day I entered Queen Elizabeth he has been following me up and down. October should come and go fast let me pass out.

The love of my life, my guilty pleasure, my one and only, the only thing that will never fail me was on my table when I got back. No other thing than food and this food had plenty sugar.

If you haven’t noticed I love food, my size is evidence of this and if you still haven’t noticed I love sugar. My once flat stomach is a victim of this. Let’s just say I ate and my smile was wider than river Niger.
The height of the day was when I was in class. SS 1 girls are currently reading Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, it’s a beautiful play and although I don’t like the B class we had fun that afternoon and all of a sudden the tears of the previous night and the sobs of the present morning seemed unnecessary.
You see the thing is that I was still a bit down about the previous night and as I taught them my spirits lifted.
The light of understanding in every girl’s eye made every tear I shed a thing of a distant past. I had made a bunch of girls I don’t like understand the first Act of a play and that is all I cared for.

I walked home with a spring in my step, I was expecting an alert from popsy after waiting for NYSC for so long and yes two days in the month was already too long.

I tried to watch a movie but sleep wanted to have some fun and I let her. When I awoke I saw the awaited message but it was NSYC now wahala. Shopped for some toiletries and I headed back home.

I really don’t understand me or some of the actions I take. I am too impulsive; this is a bad thing and that doesn’t mean I am changing that part of me anytime soon. The rest of the day was quite uneventful until the rains came to interfere with the conversation I was having with Ify (my crush), Koch and Jennifer (we all know her; it’s the wicked girl that I will show pepper). In my room all huddled up in my blanket I dialed a number.

Fucking mistake if you ask me.


Nkem Oyaghire







The Service Chronicles 39: Workers' Day  




You know when you are making a mistake and you just can’t help it, you are enjoying your sin (sin is too strong a word). You are sha just falling in and into the sticky mess of nonsense you are doing. I found myself in such a situation on Monday morning. Lanky was ringing the bell and I saw myself rise form my sleep, but I really didn’t stand up. I honestly couldn’t. The sleep had tied me down, it was when he rang the second bell I stood up. 

It was a public holiday and the first one I will enjoy as an employee of labour. Happy Workers’ Day to me.
When devotion ended I crawled back to my room, popped a pain killer and went to bed. See the way I just sounded like a drug addict, it was ordinary Panadol, and it was not even extra. I just had to deal with some stupid pesky pain. By the time I woke up it was almost afternoon.

I had promised Rose that I would follow her to her makeup studio by 11. I know oshey modella. It comes with the face. *big smile*. I cleaned up and then I got the sad news we couldn’t go. Long story that involved the lack of a key, so we couldn’t go

So I settled down with my series, Layo came around with some snacks and I had a mini lunch, which was more than welcome. You know poverty just makes you wanting things you can’t afford. Like when you had the money it was not sweeting you to buy but when money has finished that is when they will release one dope ass movie or you remember you have not eaten Pringles in two months or that when you will be see Sharwama and grilled fish.

God bless Layo who gave a girl some rich tea in a time of intense lack. We loosened her hair, I abandoned it for a while seeing as Dark Angel was calling. Then a real call came in, no other person than that my personal kidnapper. He wanted to hang. If you ask me, I don’t know what I could possibly say to an older man. Okay let me rephrase that what I could possibly say to a way older man (I believe nine or ten years my senior is way older) I do not know, are we going to discuss the politics I don’t know or the drama of celebrities he might not know. This is where my respect for some girls comes in, girls who are down to just let loose with people really old. I always have that fear that I might just do something stupid. Like I make tons of mistakes in my social relations with people in the same age groups as me talk less of someone that is older than me with a century.

It might seem like I have not grown up or I am not mature enough, I will agree with all of you ancient of days, all these nineties babies that will be forming grandma and grandpa for people like me, we who are also nineties babies. But I just don’t really get how to sit with older people and swap stories.

Anywho, kidnapper wanted to hang, so I told him I would be set by 5pm and this was around 3:48. By 5:15 I was fighting with my brows. Brows can be a tricky thing and if you get them wrong you just loose the morale to continue with your make up. And they are not always easy to draw.
Like we have bad hair days and terrible brow days, I was having one on Monday. I managed to whip up something sensible and then came the problem of hair. That passed in a wave, God bless whoever invented scarfs.

By 5:30 I was ready, I called this man and waited for him o only for him to call me by seven and say he was still coming. I just told him not to bother.

I had a talk with Churchill which yielded fair results. We had a pretty pretty long devotion and then I had a talk with Nnamdi. Let’s just say it ended with me crying. A lot.

I called Gbade and hashed out things with him. I don’t know how to not talk to my friends. Tragic flaw is that I am a lover of people and a lover of plenty talk.

Somewhere in this boy’s mind, I still want to date him. E ma gba mi (see me see trouble)

I was still very distraught by what Namnam had said so I called someone in desperation.

Mistake? 

Nkem Oyaghire









The Service Chronicles 38: No Coal



I know I know I know, I shouldn’t be missing church so often but I swear this last time was no fault of mine. This is the third time in an elongating row I didn’t go to church again. The cooking rooster was changed and Jennifer made sure I am not partners with Gbade or any of his friends. 

Let me explain this; when a person is on duty in the kitchen it is not uncommon or unfounded for his or her friend or friends to just sit and rally around or even help in the kitchen. Now if one of Gbade’s friends is my cooking partner, it would be expected of him to be in the kitchen and since I am trying to avoid any form of contact with him, so he won’t mistake my good morning for please be the father of my babies. I want the minimalist form of contact with either him or any of his friends. For now.

Well Jennifer made sure her boyfriend, Prof Lanky is my cooking partner on the two occasions I will be cooking so that there won’t be any misconceptions about the nature of our relationship, which happens to be purely platonic.

Back to my reason for no church yesterday, on the new rooster I am to cook on Sunday mornings and erm Wednesday evenings. Although I had to switch with someone for the Wednesday evening because they had done that back to back cooking mistake again.  

It was supposed to be rice and stew but there was no coal, hence it took me hours to boil water for the rice. Just water o. In the end I cooked a meal of approximately one hour thirty minutes for more than four hours (no exaggeration). This was because there was no coal. While we; that is Jennifer and I waited we chatted with some people. There is this thing people have been saying about my physical appearance that is bothering me a lot, I kinda like it but I don’t know why it is so obvious. Apparently some parts of my body have grown bigger, that is where I will stop no further explanations.

One of the guys we chatted with; Chima (Nnamdi calls him a Sharia barrister) said I looked stressed and suggested I have some sex to relieve myself. I really don’t understand what kind of advice that is and that yeye, oniranu Jennifer girl concurred. This guy could have suggested a massage but no he had to suggest sex. Well I don’t know if I will take that advice or not. 

After my four hour meal I was exhausted. I am honestly not made for such ridiculously hard work. Like I will not even argue about me being butty here but ah… I have no words.
When I was done cooking I just lay in bed and took a very hot picture, there is something about looking exhausted that I think is hot (don’t ask me what it is)

Kidnapper called saying he wanted to see me, but I couldn’t see him, looking like I had just gone through labour (that meal was like labour, sorry not like. It was labour). Told him I was sorry and promised to see him later. Nope I wasn’t going to. Hehehe

I didn’t even know when I crashed but when I awoke I felt slightly rejuvenated. Had my meal and crashed back. A girl needed two tonnes of beauty sleep. I had mistakenly not put stew in Nnamdi’s rice. I felt so bad about it. 
I awoke couple of hours later and dragged my smelly self to have a bath which was so refreshing. With that out of the way I settled to my Dark Angel. This series is da bomb but it is also a huge distraction. I have not read anything this weekend; all I have been doing is to watch Dark Angel. That is how I will get to class on Tuesday (Monday is a public holiday) and be stammering like a mumu. And I am not a mumu o (if any of you should contest that I will put you to shame in the most embarrassing way. (Very straight face))
Well my fear of embarrassing myself before a bunch of teenage girls has never stopped me from being a lazy person. In fact nothing has ever really succeeded in not making me lazy.
I have that super ability to just ignore things I have to do until they become things of a very distant past.
I watched plenty Dark Angel and wrote a little. For a writer I don’t write a lot (that makes no sense, take it like that)
I chatted with an old friend; Irene, super-duper cool girl, she’s the kinda person I would have no qualms renting a flat with. We talked about radio gigs and stuff, she showed me my first ever blog post, which was on her blog. Cool cool stuff.
I went to get some garri that we finished under thirty minutes.
You know what more I did, just a little idea it involved me watching something that starts with a D, went for night devotion and got back to you know what. I don’t need to repeat the title over and over again.
O, before I forget. Boye is fine, very fine in fact. We’ve been talking a lot and his babe is out of town maybe it is time I swooped in to conquer.  

Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicles 37: The Next Cut


I woke up by seven on Saturday like I had told that doubting Thomas Jennifer girl. Set myself to my hair and loosened it in less than two hours. I have to say my hair is not growing longer but bigger. Koch and Ify (my latest crush, he will kill for this. I love you honey) have started calling Huey from Boondocks (unnecessary exaggeration). I don’t even know what the niggas hair looks like. 

Washed the mini monstrosity of a hair and had my bath. With that out of the way I waited for the almighty beans they were cooking to get ready, the wait looked like it would be too long. I went back to bed. 

By the time I woke up, I couldn’t see in front of me. Hunger was my new sight, so I walked out and looked for garri, which I got. When I was walking back into the lodge I saw Gbade coming from afar and I took another path. There was a point where he would have gotten to and he would see me. To avoid that I almost ran (true to God) but I didn’t and because he is trying to mend that stupid thing he did he yelled a greeting out to me and I replied with a grunt. Kidnapper still wanted to see me but I honestly could not be bothered. I don’t want somebody to come and spoil me I am a good child ( I know that is not what he meant) 

Had my lunch of beans and plenty garri. As I ate I watched my Dark Angel and almost forgot I had a movie to get to. Oh yes that is true I didn’t tell you guys. At Ray Power they have this show where you call, answer a question correctly and get a movie voucher that gives you free access to a particular movie with free popcorn and a drink. So I had asked my boss to give me one of such tickets and she had obliged. I hadn’t been to the movies lately; no money. 

So I earnestly looked forward to this movie which is why missing it would have been disastrous. I got to the cinema at the time they had said the movie would start and I saw Alex there. The previous day when Alex and I had had a chat I got to find out his numerous nasty nicknames, some I can’t be bothered to remember. Did I say some I meant most; the only one I remember is Sugar Puff Daddy. Like I really don’t know what that means. Al ex is not a tall, dark and handsome nigga; he is a short dark and handsome nigga. That loves chicks BBB (big bold and beautiful). He is a cool dude in all.  Well I saw him and he said they movie was now for 6:30 this was a movie that had been initially scheduled for 5:30. 

No qualms, I asked Alex where he was carrying his ass to and he said GQ lounge. That place had a retarded name; the full meaning of GQ is Gentlemen’s Quarters which makes the name of that mumu place Gentlemen’s Quarters Lounge? Like shoot me. And the worst part of this place is that every night they disturb my sleep with their terribly loud music. I got in with Alex and it was just there, like just there. I met his friends and I thought one of them was cute but all he wanted to know was if I had any friend that looks like a model. He kept saying fit. With each time he said fit I wanted to hit something. Alex likes BBB girls and he likes fit girls. I just have to say that the general conversation was funny for me and disappointing for them.
By the time we got back to the cinema I parted ways with them and found my way to a seat.  Few minutes later they dragged themselves inside.

The movie was fun, a lot of laughs and Nicki is just hot. I swear I have no words.

The movie ended and I found my way around Shoprite and then home. There was no food for me so I had coaster. Oh yes! I forgot I am poor. I have never been this broke in my life. Prostitution seems like a great idea to me right now. (Layo thinks I’m joking. Somebody tell her I am not)

After night devotion I had a talk with Churchill and his new shadow was hanging around him like usual. Like I think of two of them and my empty stomach churns in anger, what do you think happens when I see them together? Good thing he is going away this weekend.

The rains fell heavily and I just had a terrible night. I kept waking up and the mosquitos didn’t leave me alone.

To compound matters Gentlemen’s Quarters Lounge (SMH) was making a lot of noise as usual. Mumu People.

Nkem Oyaghire



The Service Chronicles 36: Longest Friday  



When I woke up on Friday morning I was still seething from what Gbade had said the previous evening. Like immediately I got back in I had to tell Yemi my lover. I was really embarrassed by what he said. 

I rallied everybody for devotion did the routine and hurried inside I didn’t want to mistakenly see him or anything. While I swept I told Jennifer what had transpired between us. The previous night Gbade had taken me to a secret and secluded spot in the lodge (the story is not going where your dirty minds are expecting it to). He said he had three things to tell me. Firstly one mumu boy had said something about me (I usually have too much controversy) and how some other boys had concurred. The thing is that I have a sharp and wicked tongue and sometimes I can come on a little bit too strong when I address some things and  people don’t like it especially boys. He didn’t tell me the name of the guys or the names of those that agreed with him. All he said is that I should be kinder to their sorry asses. That I can do, most of them are not even worth the bother I swear. 

Then we discussed something about his future that he needs my help with (once again it is not what you guys are thinking). 

And he dropped the bombshell; he had a lot of difficulty saying what he had to say. Like the way he was acting I thought he was going to go into the routine of “I really like you and I think you are a cool girl. I was wondering of you would consider dating me.” I really don’t know how it goes I have had only one proper relationship in my life and he didn’t even ask the regular way, Make it two proper relationships; I keep forgetting Ayobami. To the bombshell, he said the things contrary to asking me to be his girlfriend. This guy entered into a speech of how he was not ready for a relationship I want to work on myself blah blah blah. 

The last guy that told me that is still asking me to be his girlfriend. Why this is embarrassing for me is because I didn’t send any coded message to this guy telling him that I wanted to date him. I swear I don’t know where he got that idea from. Okay they have been teasing him about me and me about him. But that is no reason for that speech, like that is what you say when someone has asked you to be in relationship with them, he fucked up our good friendship (forget language). There is so much I want to say about this but I have to stop here. Jennifer was livid when I told her. Why he would do that was beyond her understanding.
 I finished my plenty chores, prepared for school and went to see the doctor. Upon getting to the hospital I saw the doctor they said would be willing to do the interview and he asked me to come back by 11 AM and I agreed.

Got to school for my class and told my students that I will be unable to come for their class because I had to see a doctor, no further information. They didn’t need to know that I wasn’t sick.

I left school a few minutes to eleven and went to buy some books, by the time I left the bookshop for the doctor’s office it was 11:15. I still got there before 11:30. We did the interview with no hassle and I was on my way. As I was entering the lodge the Ford Explorer guy called me, funny guy. He said he wanted to see me, these men don’t know that when I have made up my mind not to ever see you again it actually happens. I can be in my house, I might even see you drive by but I will not come outside. That’s just how I am.
I got out of seeing him claiming I had work to do, which I actually did have to do. I had Brunch and headed to Ray Power. They didn’t even let me in; I had to sneak in past the gate men. That has to be fixed. After my recording, sorry rcordings i hat to do about fifty million takes (somebody help me)

I went to see my boss in Ray Power, she had to go to the bank and she asked me to wait. Chai! I waited o. I slept and woke up so many times. Good thing she has a sofa in her office. Funny story, the day that sofa was brought to that office I saw it, like the cab it was in passed by me, only for me to get to the office and see it there.

Well I crashed on that sofa shivering because the AC in that office has no chill (pun intended)

Before she came back Alex did. Remember the guy I mentioned last week Friday that would become important well he was the one that came into that office and saved me from death by boredom. We had a chat. Shared a lump of goat meat and a bottle of malt with me and then he turned me into a pimp. I swear I hate it when guys do that. 


By the time I left that office I was exhausted but kinda refreshed maybe cos of all the AC I had gotten.
Got to the lodge and Ford Explorer guy ( I have a confession; I saved his name as kidnapper on  my phone and now I can’t remember his real name) called saying he wanted to see me. It was Jennifer that spoke to him; nigga said he wanted to spoil me blah blah blah. That kind of talk just turns my stomach if it is from somebody I don’t really like.

Oga was a no show, I wasn’t too mad; I didn’t want to go in the first place. 

The drama team which I so just happen to be on had a rehearsal for the vigil of that night; I am currently wondering why and when I was subjected to this mumu life of a busy bee, somebody save this lazy girl from this life of unnecessary and too much hard work.  

I went to have a bath and nap before the vigil, when it was time for the vigil Jennifer almost had to carry me. 
A girl was fagged out but I still had to turn up. All this hard work is what gives grey hair early.  

Like I told Yemi my lover when she asked; the play was good but I don’t know about the vigil. Once it was two am I walked inside, took off my bra and crashed with the rest of my clothes on my back. Mi ole wa ku (I will still marry that Yoruba boy so why not practice the language) 

Nkem Oyaghire






The Service Chronicles 35: No Zonal Meeting


Thursdays are the worst days of the week for me. I guess it is because nothing ever really happens. It’s my free day at school so I don’t get to go anywhere. Although; last term I had evening lessons on Thursday but that was all. 

This Thursday was a tad bit different from my regular Thursdays here. I had some writing to do and many errands to run. My phone is acting up again so I had to take it back to the empty headed stupid technician that fixed it, then I had to look for a doctor to interview for my show on Saturday and I still hadn’t written my script for the show. 

I swear I don’t know what my problem is; maybe I need to learn how to manage my time or borrow some from some people. But that is also impossible. 

Well I did my normal morning devotion business. Oh before I forget, we were supposed to have zonal meeting but thanks to the mighty God I serve who will not allow me to spend money I don’t have on transport to that ridiculously far place where my zonal meeting holds or let me engage in any completely unnecessary event like zonal meeting, it didn’t hold. 

Ilorin South had zonal meeting but we in Ilorin West didn’t. My mind just knew it wouldn’t hold and even if it was going to hold I had made up my beautiful mind that I wasn’t going anywhere. 

I did my hallelujah dance which is a twerk to the one and only lover of my soul; Jesus. After devotion I did my chores. I tried to set questions I would ask the doctor I would interview for my show but I didn’t know what I could possibly ask about malaria (topic for the week) so I cheated (this is my confession; not in Usher’s voice). I won’t tell you why and how just know that I did a very bad thing. Then I faced my one true boyfriend; my laptop and went to a hall where there was light to write. I had a lot of laughs while I did that, I swear I don’t know why maybe it because sometimes a screw is loosened somewhere in my head and my beautiful mind turns into a nightmare. While I wrote I got a call from Gbade which was quite shocking, he said he needed to see me.

 Anywho after writing, the realization that my phone was bad again hit me with so much force. The panic mode I entered was uber crazy. I was so mad. It was the kind of situation that requires pills, vodka and then sleep to make you calm. The only pills I have are antibiotics and pain killers. They are not even super pain killers. I also lack vodka and all kinds of alcohol. I really don’t know how I am supposed to calm down in such a terrible situation. Oh yes! I have sleep. So I slept and forgot my problem, pity that they were still there when I woke up. 

When I woke up I had my bath and headed for that stupid technician’s shop. I wasn’t even this angry as at that time it is just that the anger has elevated from its previous state. The only thing this idiot (yes I get very insulting when I am angry) did to my phone was make it charge when it is turned off. Like I don’t know how that is supposed to help. I sha left with my very dilapidated phone. 

Off to a hospital to talk to a doctor, I picked one not too far from the lodge; the doctors on seat couldn’t talk to me. One had a cold and the other said he didn’t know a lot on malaria (like really!!!) so they referred me to another one. 

When I got back to the lodge, fellowship was going on so I stepped into the church and joined the service, which didn’t end to long after I had sat sown. 

Yemi my lover was around as she had promised earlier in the day. And she had come with food; Yam pottage, yum yum. 

After fellowship we settled down with our food and remained for that Jennifer girl. The nonsense girl shortened my ration. I have to punish her for it or I shouldn’t’?

 She had even gone out, when she came back she told Yemi and I that someone had told her we were gossiping about her. The girl that told her that lie is a straight up bitch. We all here know that, she is the kind that likes to gossip about people and sow seeds of discord amongst friends.

When I was done with my meal I continued my Dark Angel.



Around nine or so I went to see Gbade because it seemed like he really needed to talk to me, only for this boy to do the worst thing ever.
 
  Nkem Oyaghire 





The Service Chronicles 34: Ford Explorer


Wednesday dawned with darkness, there was no light and I had to do some things with electricity. This week so far has been a horrid affair of timelessness; like I need more than twenty four hours. We had devotion and gave the people travelling to camp our final words to them. 

We got their bus ready and we all just hung around. Jennifer told the story of how Morakinyo rejected me from OBS (Orientation Broadcasting Service) simply put it is the radio on camp. He does not take graduates of private universities hence thwarting my dream of radio while on camp. 

In my restlessness I went to the kitchen, Miracle aka Police baby was on duty with Gbenga my barrister bae. They were cooking beans and I have to say the one they cooked the previous week was dope! I could not wait to eat another one. So I went to the kitchen and saw Jennifer talking with Gbade and Segun, I joined in and I have to say the conversation was interesting. 

We all tabled different people’s matter, when it came to my turn it was turning into an embarrassing affair for me. Like don’t put someone on the spot and ask him publicly if he likes a girl, thank God for Jennifer who applied her brain to the situation and turned the gist around. 

Food got ready and like usual I relished every spoonful of that meal. I got ready for work hoping I was not late and rushed to school. I had planned to read Native Son in the cab on my way and even in school in case I got there too early. Only for me to realize I had left it at home. 

By the time I got to school break was just ending and my class was second and third period after break. Sad stuff.  I sat in my office with nothing to do. 

After the class which required that I explained Native Son again I rushed to my house. I said hello to some of the Corpers I saw outside and boarded a bike to a bookshop that I wasn’t too sure of its location.
At this point the story gets scary. So I am on this bike for less than two minutes and these two men in a cream coloured Ford Explorer are flagging me down, now I am afraid because I was wearing a sleeveless blouse and a skirt that kept hiking up and the men were Muslims and I know this is a stupid fear but I was just afraid that they were going to give me some talk. I was sha afraid and I didn’t even see the need to stop my bike and listen to them. 

That is how these men started chasing me o. Like I took a detour and they followed me, o boy; I was afraid!!!! So I told the bike man to hurry and speed off, they still tried to follow me and I have to say thank God for the bike man who speed off and the men were off my tail. 

I got to the book shop made enquiries regarding the books I wanted to buy, made an appointment to see them on Friday and I left, took another bike to my house and I don’t know who sent the bike man to take a shortcut.  That is how I was looking for a song on my phone. Ehen before I forget I just download this new song Chris Brown, Usher and Zayn Malik. Pretty hot stuff, just that Zayn didn’t sound so sure of himself and his sexual skills. It’s a very hot song sha. 

Anywho back to my story, as I looked up from my phone you will not believe who I saw in front of me, it was no other person than the driver of the cream coloured Ford Explorer!!!!!! 

OMG! I was afraid o. I told the bike man to overtake the car and as I speed past this car, the man started blaring his horn, this time it was one man in the car. Chai the bike man couldn’t go fast enough. You know when how a car with a powerful engine sounds as its speeding,  that is how this car sounded and I was not in the car!

My brothers and sisters, this man followed me again o. There was even a time when we left him far behind at an intersection he still caught up with us and as I came down from the bike this man stopped his car telling me he wants to be my friend blah blah blah. I am too old for new creepy friends who would be chasing me in their cream cars.
It was a harrowing affair.

I got in, calmed down and told Jennifer and we laughed about it only for us to enter her house and Lanky her boyfriend played a prank on us. We were scared senseless.

I started watching an old series I used to watch on STV that time. Layo my love brought some food for me. God will bless her and then around five I set out to go back to the park for more fishing. 
On my way to camp you won't believe what I saw, a girl on a bike was being harassed by some guys in a car. Ilorin men are wonderful fellows.

None of my original partners turned up and the funny thing is that I almost told the person that was asked to follow me not to worry because I was riding on the assurance of some guys who classified football as important enough to skip out on a previous engagment.

Then at the park something strange happened.  I attempted to shake this guy who even called my name and was all smiles with me, only for him to decline my handshake, he turned out to be a Muslim, I didn’t know Muslims didn’t shake girls. Well now I know.

I had a little quarrel with Churchill, I don’t understand him these days and it really breaks my heart, good thing I am over him. Only God knows what I was thinking in the first place. 

I got back to Fate went to Shoprite and then home. A new girl came last night funny story; two of her classmates happened to have spent the night in the lodge the previous night.  

I watched more on the new series I am watching the name is Dark Angel by the way and my phone is bad again o. I am going to kill that guy that supposedly repaired it

Nkem Oyaghire





 The Service Chronicles 33: Pre-Fishing



Tuesday I woke up early had my bath and arranged myself for school, I even polished my shoes. It was all methodical. When it was time I rang the bell and we all went for morning devotion after that Papa had a meeting with the Batch B executives which I am one of, after he dismissed us he retained my partner and I, by the time he was through I had to rush to get ready for school. I had an 8 AM class and I wasn’t even ready for it. 

I took a bike and started reading on my way. The book for SS2 this term is Native Son by Richard Wright, as I read I kept wondering if it was appropriate for the age group of that class and even their exposure and knowledge of the things they know about life would not be prepared for the deepness of this text.
I believe some of them will struggle with the things they will learn in this class. 

It is one of the earliest novels that really addressed the issue of racial prejudice and racism in America.
It is sha a very deep novel; if you are not strong at heart don’t read it o. That’s how I was telling these wonderful girls about the novel and when I got to each gruesome detail in the book they all chorused ahs and expressed shock.

It was a good class. Then I went to my office and read some stuff on the internet after that looked for food and then I watched more episodes of Tyler Perry’s For Better or Worse. 

After that I played some games, snoozed a little and went to class late. I did that on purpose I really was not in that mood for that class. I don’t like that arm of SS1, I don’t know why. Okay I know why I just don’t want to say why. 

After my class I went to get my money but it was not available. 

Came back to the lodge to get ready for the Pre-fishing, then I pranked Ennie. Funny stuff.
When it was time I went to get ready to get those new Corp members that would be going to camp on the 27th.  The act of getting them is called Pre-fishing the main fishing occurs when they leave camp that is how I came to ACF. 

I had seen some fellowships in front of my school as I left, the front of my school is a major bus park and people drop off there. 

By the time we got there they were teasing us that we were just coming. We sha did our work.
And I have to say it was not an easy something. I was fagged out, we all stood there waiting for buses to come and drop people we would take to the lodge of just inform about our fellowship.

That’s true before I forget, one girl had come in the afternoon and I got to find out that she is form the same village as me, and we come from the same clan in my village. Cool stuff. I was so excited I kept telling plenty people who she was. It’s not every day I get to meet people from the same village as me. 

Back to the pre-fishing, we managed to bring three people back to the lodge and it wasn’t easy.
I got back had my bathe and got everybody ready for night devotion. 

It was an amazing affair, we had a good worship session and then praise was almost bad but thank God for Nimi who stepped in and chai! We danced o. 

The house was full, we wanted to show them what they would be missing if they didn’t stay at the lodge and I think we did a beautiful job of it.

Then came the time for them to introduce themselves, it was like we were buying them. When one person would say their state and if people in the house were from that state, they would shout. It was like an auction. Dunni the former MD (music director) kept shouting that she was from every state that everybody mentioned, even the Igbo speaking states she claimed, courses that she did not even offer or can ever offer she said she studied them. The excitement of that night was high. 

Then when we had to come and welcome them, we all ran forward like we wanted to eat the properties we had bought. 

It was too much fun, we said the grace and then I came to eat I even tried to read but I was too tired.
 
I had a chat with a guy from Covenant and it was the kind of conversation I normally like. 

I went to bed completely tired, the best way to sleep. I felt like we had all done a good job. 

Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicles 32: Egusi Soup



This Sunday is the second Sunday in a row that I didn’t go to church, God forgive me. After dilly dallying and having a beautiful long nap I washed my clothes and had my bath had a meeting with Koch and I made him frustrated because I was hungry (it’s good for him)

I had not eaten that day and by two-thirty pm I was already feeling the strain of the hunger. I hurriedly ate and then went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. Eba and Egusi soup; I don’t really know how to cook Egusi I haven’t cooked as often as it would require for me to become an expert in it. So I started and even tried to start the fire but as usual I failed at it.  Called my barrister bae and helped me with it. When my partner came he did the eba and as I set to start the Egusi I noticed that I didn’t have any vegetable to cook with. From enquiries I found out that they didn’t buy any and I had to use bitter leaf, once again something I am not very conversant with. 

Mildred helped me with it, beautiful lady. As I poured my palm oil on the fire to bleach it, the smoke was too much and then Jennifer had an asthma attack, it just started with her really coughing and it became a full blown attack. We got it under control and I ran back to the kitchen to my burning food and once again God bless Mildred she helped. 

Segun my partner was really afraid I don’t think he had ever seen anyone have an asthma attack; it was funny to see him react that way. The Egusi wasn’t terrible. 

We had night devotion and I tried to do some work on the internet (not yahoo yahoo o, I am a child of God)
Monday dawned well, I woke up on time got to the kitchen and met Gbade waiting for me and the welfare officer was starting the fire. 

We generally had fun in the kitchen with Jennifer and Police baby teasing me. 

When I we finished I rushed to get ready for work and in thirty minutes I was on my way to school. I was a little bit excited to see my students. Now I am about to confess to something that I have been denying for years. I love teaching, but I don’t want to be a teacher. It is a lot of work and so much rides on the efficiency of your work.  

So I got to work late, slept for a while and then all the corpers in my school which happens to be all girls; my school doesn’t take male corpers cos it’s all girls’ school. We all converged at the Bursar’s office for our pay. They still owe me for February.

I got back to my office and bought a drink with three puffs puffs and one buns; the only edible thing in my school is flour and groundnut oil. They don’t sell food and that is why I have added some weight. 

So I ate watched some episodes of Tyler Perry’s For Better or Worse cool series. It’s a spin off from Why did I get Married? and Why did I get Married too? You guys should check it out.

When it was time for my class I went to SS2 although I teach SS1 I am standing in for my boss this week.
I didn’t know their text so I just revised their past questions. Then I went to SS1 and I had fun. 
I explained what dramatic irony is in literature, because we are doing a play by Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer, and let’s just say it was the height of my day. It is very easy to tell when people are interested in what you have to say and every day that I teach I look forward to seeing my students at the edge of their seats with their eyes gleaming in excitement waiting to know what I will say next.

I quickly rushed my class and rushed back home, I was feeling a little bit frisky with money and I decided to take a bike, the ride was amazing I absolutely love bike rides, the air whipping my face and my hair in my face.
Anywho as I was I enjoying my beautiful ride and trying to persuade the bike man to take me to Fate he hit the rear of a cab and I saw myself fly in the sky with each leg at different cardinal points you know how it is in the movies na.  But that is not what happened, I just saw it happen and I went cold with fear it was just a small thump and we apologized to the cab man.  Nobody was thrown in the air.
I got home safe and ate and went to Raypower, I couldn’t record and I couldn’t do anything. I just sat down there for two hours and did nothing tangible. I was really angry at myself. I came back to the lodge and watched some guys play ball.

Went to Fate roundabout and bought dinner, they made Eba in the lodge again and I couldn’t take it no more. Had dinner and then while I was inside chilling somebody came to kidnap and me and like that I am in the play that would hold this Friday, nice plot and all.

We had a family meeting where Papa prayed for more than twenty minutes and then the meeting kicked off. It wasn’t as exciting as the last one.  But it was good. It was about the pre-fishing of the next day.

After the meeting I had a chat with Godswill and I ran to bed, completely excited for the next day.

Nkem Oyaghire








The Service Chronicles 31: One Day and A Weekend 



I am tired of skipping days in my chronicles but this used to be so much fun, but I really don’t know. Maybe I am losing the ginger. I shouldn’t lose ginger that would just be bad. Don’t mind me joor. I am being a little but silly. 

On wedensday I had been fed with some bad news that I we had clearance on Thursday and Friday. That would require I wear my khaki again, now I hate wearing my khaki and once a week is more than enough for me to wear my uniform, plus where I live is very far from where I do my clearance.  Only for me to hear that mumu news, well it’s not like they did it on purpose a new batch is coming next week and they will be needed at camp.   

I woke up that morning happy, I had watched Kung Fu Panda 3 and I felt good. Nice cartoon on Chi and defining who we are. In my opinion some cartoons are not meant for children because they discuss issues that can be lost on children. Well that day was not wasted, did my chores then rested. I wrote my scrip for radio, slept and did nothing. That’s a lie I did do something, I tried to familiarize myself with my father’s website and I think I did a good job of that. The day couldn’t have been more beautiful and then there was light. God will bless NEPA in Fate.  I had decided I would go for my clearance the next day which was Friday. 

We had fellowship and I have to say it was very enlightening; the person that preached was a great teacher. He defined success and although when he started it was a little bit shaky but as he progressed it became a beautiful message. After that I cleaned the fridge, heard some stupid rumors. Tongues can wag faster than that of an excited dog’s tail. The things people would just say out of spite or ignorance I don’t know but people can talk and if you listen it would bring you down to depths of insane lowness. I have managed to learn that  if you don’t want tongues to wag against you don’t wag yours, but the tricky thing about this is that even if all you do is sleep and eat tongues will still wag. You just have to fortify your skin.
That night I went to bed in a wonderful way, I played some music and some games, read a little and went to bed.

Friday started on a good note, until Jennifer said some hurtful things and because my skin is not a semi permeable membrane it does not even have semi it is very permeable I got into a riff with her. Minor stuff nothing seriously hurtful was said and that is a skill I am slowly imbibing; the skill of not saying the most hurtful things when I am immensely hurt.
Did my chores, had a terribly long chat with Koch and then I went to school to get my clearance letter and then off to Ilorin West LG to do my clearance. I saw Yemi my lover she was just doing hers when I got there.
She was my bunkmate in camp, we both got posted to the same LGA and in the clearance book thingy my name is after hers. We were both in the lodge, we rented a house together but that didn’t work out (story for another day).

Finished my clearance under forty five minutes and then headed to Ray Power, saw my boss who edited my script, met a trouble maker who I think would become important to me (let’s keep our fingers crossed especially as he is a fine boy) and then headed to a studio to record.
Hmm. It was not easy I did more than four takes, when we were finally satisfied I ran home, looked for food. As I ran away my producer said the most beautiful words I have heard, he said I will edit it and tomorrow we will play it. When I got home I chatted with that mad girl Jennifer (the morning quarrel had been forgotten).

After I ate I went to sleep, woke up in time to watch a movie and then we had devotion, that was beautiful too. As usual I went into hiding; I just lay in bed and tried to watch my New Girl and Once Upon a Time. Cool stuff and then I got a call.

No other person than Ennie and my o my, we had fun. I can’t remember the last time a telephone conversation made me feel so good. And he sounded so happy, whoever said you can’t be friends with an ex lied. He even mentioned coming here to Ilorin; we will just have to wait for that. After that I just went to bed with a wickedly large grin on my face.
I have honestly made it a priority to have beautiful days.
The mosquitos here are demons. They are so evil.
 They are no respecter of people.
Saturday dawned bright and beautiful I was so anxious to hear my voice on the radio; I cleaned up and moved my stuff to my permanent room. Then exactly by nine I heard the soundtrack of my show and the dream I had since I was eight came to pass. I heard my voice and I said “Good morning”
I just screamed and ran up and down the lodge I was like a crazed rabbit, I had my fifteen minutes of fame and oh Lord!!! Was it beautiful?

The rest of the day passed away as uneventful as the rest of my life.
I have to say my days here are getting more boring as the day goes by; I really need a source of fun and fund in my life, a steady one at that.
NEPA did us bad yesterday, no light for more than eight hours. There is God o. 

Nkem Oyaghire 




The Service Chronicles 30: Puppy Faces


Wednesday came and I woke up early enough to brush my teeth and put on some clothes. Then I woke everybody up, the usual people dragged their feet but I was nursing my anger from the previous night so I just played games while they did their business. I honestly could not be bothered. 

By 6 I strolled to the church and Jennifer was just leaving her apartment to join us for devotion. She is a Corper whose PPA is in the Bishop’s Court and she doesn’t need to stay at the lodge with the ACF corpers. So she had accommodation behind the lodge but she had to wait for the girls staying there to vacate the premises before she moved in and now that they have passed out, she is now a landlady. 

I can’t even wait for the mumu girl to buy her kitchen utensils and gas so that I can cook in her kitchen and not give her anything I cook. This is my pay back plan for all her wickedness. She will beg me to give her food from her kitchen and I will refuse and hide the pot. This is all so exciting. (if you like call me naughty, na you know)

During the devotion the committee for Pre-fishing and Fishing; Fishing is what we do to get more people at the fellowship. It’s in reference to when Jesus told his disciples in Matthew (or so I think) that he will make them fishers of men. Blah blah blah. We even need to take this very serious and get more girls to stay at the lodge because we are currently just five batch a girls at the lodge. I have to say that it has not been easy. 

They prayed for us and introduced us to the house. After devotion I quickly did my chores, and then prepared for CDS. I didn’t do it with much ginger after all Boye would not be there. I got there just in time with Koch and Tobe, we all stay at the lodge and are in the same Local Government and CDS group. We are actually four of us with this same statistics (I hope that’s the correct term) but IK travelled. Anywho we got there after blowing so much money on transport. Chai!!! Times are hard. 

CDS finished on time, our new president does not send and our supervisor was not around. So by twelve I 
was back home, since I had eaten my breakfast since, there was nothing else to munch one. 

I quelled (big grammar is part of me ma binu) my boredom by doing the funny snapchat filters for everybody. Some people had really cute puppy faces others didn’t. Koch had a cool one. 

The heat was getting to me so in my excitement I asked some people to follow me to the pool. At the end of the day I had to resort to taking just a shower and change of clothes. All these wicked people that want heat to kill all of us here refused to follow me to the pool. 

Then I sat down to write my interview questions. They weren’t dope but I think I tried. I had gone to see the Pharmacist and I was going to go to here house by Five p.m. 

Layo came around and she helped me with the questions. So we set off to Tanke; found the Pharmacist’s house and got in. the place was beautiful. Large compound and cute rooms, it was a hostel of self-cons and the arrangement was really nice. Everybody had a blue DSTV dish (I think that is GOTV) and it just added to the beauty of the compound. 

She previewed the questions and said she wouldn’t answer a particular one. Then we started the interviews, hmm. If you ask me how it went I would say I am not so sure. I just wasn’t okay with it, I still feel like I underperformed. This is my first time doing this kind of thing. 

I wouldn’t know for sure until I see my boss at Ray Power. Then Layo and the Pharmacist lady didn’t get along quite well. 

Around seven we left her place and headed to our different locations. Layo to Basin and I to Fate ( I just realized that those locations have English spelling but Fate doesn’t not have an English pronunciation Basin does) as I walked into the compound I quickly went to submit my cooler and as I lay on my bed to snooze a little.
One of the people I don’t like called me, I agreed to see him but as I was rounding up the call a call from Boye came in and I picked it. 

He said he was leaving work and was wondering if he could drop by and of course I said yes, called the other fella and told him not to come again. 

Boye came and we just talked for a long while, I think he has trust issues but in general he is cool guy. He is a regular dude in fact, but he is a funny person. While i sat in his car with my feet on his dashboard, two people from the lodge passed by. The first person was Police baby and he is a cool somebody, the second was the President of the fellowship; Papa. I am still waiting for him to mention it to me, but so far he hasn't. 
Got back in time for devotion walked into the common room and saw people gathered before the TV watching; Guardians of the Galaxy. We had devotion which spanned longer than unnecessary and we were supposed to have a meeting, that is the fishermen and women committee. You see why I hate committees. I ran away to eat and watch Kung Fu panda 3.

When something beautiful happened.   

Nkem Oyaghire



 




The Service Chronicles 29: Traditional Cooking and Snapchat Filters.  



I rose up as Lanky; Jennifer’s boyfriend rang the bell. First of all his real name is Noah, he is called Lanky because of his size and he is the Male Organizing secretary (OS), I am the female OS.  I quickly stood up and looked at my time it was 5:44. I was supposed to have started the fire by five and even be boiling water but no I had overslept. 

No p. I quickly woke everybody and begged the outgoing OS to help me with ensuring everybody went for Morning devotion. As I got to kitchen Dami; we also call him Gbade and here he is known as Hot stuff was already fetching water. I scrambled to start the fire but the fire was very weak. So I called Nimi the militant to help and then she brought the fire to life. Then we started to cook. I have to say; regardless of the fact that two butties were paired together we still slayed, the food tasted nice, it was dope like I am not tooting my horn, we both slayed on that food and this goes out to all them butty haters; I have been sent to tell you something dope I can’t remember what now but I promise to drop that punch line soon. 

Gbade was very helpful too helpful in fact and I would have to say I was shocked, but that’s what nice about him. He is a really cool person. I couldn’t go to work that day, I was fagged out. I just went inside and crashed I didn’t even have my bath, I ate and crashed woke up three hours later and had my bath. Then I did some writing and proceeded to watch a movie. I couldn’t go for my Monday ritual at the Cinema because of times are very hard and a girl can’t afford that luxury right now.
In general the day was not particularly eventful, stayed home all day and God bless NEPA we had light for most of the day. I am beginning to love Ilorin o.

Oh yeah! I just remembered. I saw one very strange Chinese (okay I am not sure which of the Asain countries) movie with Jennifer, but it was sha very weird. I can’t go into details  

The night was beautiful, they made Gbade pray and he closed to prayer session in Yoruba (dope stuff) I heard the prayers were really deep and I went to bed without much ado.
*****************************************************************************

Tuesday dawned like every other day, nothing spectacular or amazingly surprising. We went to church and Godswill took the message and the naughty boy mentioned the falling off the chair incident.
I fell of a chair during devotion one day and the story still haunts me. (I think I have mentioned it before here). 

After devotion I proceeded to clean, it was my turn on the roaster. Let’s just say it was no easy but after it all I conquered.  Before I forget, Uju went back to Port Harcourt yesterday; she was one of the people here that understood me. She understood everybody; she was one of those people. Her brother and I were close, I kinda liked him but it couldn’t have worked out.  It is safe to say that he didn’t like my type. 

After cleaning I quickly ate, the food was really nice and it was boys who cooked. Cleaned up and then headed to school. 

Nothing was happening there; I sat in my office and just let time fly. As I sat in that chair something that had been bothering me for a while came to mind. There are these new filters on Snap Chat and I have not been able to access them even after all the multiple upgrades. So I went online, ready and determined to know how to get those filters, I refused to believe the problem was with my phone. And so I searched and I found how to get them and for about forty-five minutes I took tons of pictures. I deleted so many. 

It was a good laugh. I had so much fun. Then I got bored with them and played games, chatted with Zonal meeting guy and went home. 

Before I got home I went to book an appointment with the pharmacist for the radio show. That done I went home. 

Had a bowl of cereal and went to wash a bathroom. That was not easy. Immediately after that I crashed and woke up to see Yemi my lover standing over me. She came to get some things after I escorted her out. I went to buy fish to eat my dinner with. Played a ton of games I had such a good night until…

While performing my OS duties some stupid dumb girl (and yes she really really annoyed me) was acting up. Like there are ways to handle situations like this but her case is just really special, she acts up around me and I would never know why. After managing to soil my mood I went for an executive meeting.  I am even angry 
at myself for letting someone so inconsequential matter so much that she can spoil my mood.  

The meeting ended with me put on a new committee, somebody cry for me; like I need someone to cry me a river and fountains.  God help me, I have not even had time to be lazy. 

Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicle 28: The Day After 



He was tackling me for not inviting him to the hangout; apparently he heard the gist that we overfed people. You may wonder how he found out. Well his girlfriend came for the hangout I even said hello and did the entire hullabaloo you are supposed to do when you see someone you kinda know.
 
When I told CLI Layo that she was Boye’s girlfriend seeing as they sat together, the look on her face transcended ( big grammar, ma binu) shock. 

Well Boye and I had a nice telephone conversation and then we moved to BBM. Nothing major just a couple people chatting in the middle of the night while rain fell.

The DM was from my childhood friend; Nonye, I was shocked that she contacted me but she seemed really cool. We didn’t even try to catch up because we had last spoken during the Ice age. When she moved to Illinois when we were little we just lost contact. But do you know that I can be a terrible person, it is too easy for me to lose touch with people. Like I am very comfortable with losing contact and it is too easy for me to stop talking to people. Thank God for Social Media.

Anywho, I slept pretty late and when I woke up my eye refused to open. All the sunlight of the previous day and the flash from the camera were taking their toll on my eye.  I couldn’t go to church and I missed the thanksgiving service. Sad stuff.

When they got back from church, I asked Peter (lodge friend) to take me to the mall for me to see a pharmacist. Before I left I took a look at my eye in the mirror and it was horrific, it looked like I lent it to a zombie for the night, it looked like something that would future in a movie about the apocalypse.

It was just terribly red. Off to the mall I trotted looking like Ray Charles in Cat eye shades (If I was going to be temporarily blind I might as well look chic) we went to Med Plus and I spoke to the guy there, he told me that something of the sort had happened to him before, gave me an eye drop and I went off to Shoprite.
When I got back took some shots of the drop and I have to say a few hours later I could see, in fact I was able to wear my glasses again. I still had a red eye but it just looked like something a drunk would have.
I napped a little and when I awoke I helped Layo to make some hand bands. She makes that kind that you have to kinda weave (I can’t explain it (in Wizkid’s voice)), pretty neat stuff. Now the strange thing about this is that I am a very hyper active person, if I find anything to do that keeps me in one place and not moving at all it just irritates me.  I have tried to learn how to knit didn’t work the diagnosis was too hyper active, tried bead work it still didn’t work same diagnosis as before.  The one handiwork thingamajig I have been able to stay put for is cooking and baking because it involves a ton of movement and lots of eating (one thing I can manage; movement and one I thing I love; eating.

Let’s just say Layo was lucky, I learnt it and I am proud to say that I was very helpful to a certain extent. When she left I proceeded to finish the Jackie Robinson movie and then I heard a shout from outside.
Upon rushing outside so I would not miss the gist because amebo is my concern and eke is my hobby (better don’t say anything there) I found out that they had put out a new cooking roaster. Let’s just say things were very funny.

The Batch B girls at the lodge are five but only four of us cook, so we were given two meals each to cook (each girl usually cooks one meal per week)  and one male partner, while some boys were paired with fellow boys. I had been paired on the two different meals with the two biggest people in the lodge, Hot stuff and his friend; Segun.  When I saw it I could only laugh and as luck would have it they were both outside so I told them the news.  Well I think we settled that, but the days of the meals are tricky; Sunday night and Monday morning.  God help me.

I created a cleaning roaster that was met with a little resistance but that was sorted. Had a talk with Papa (the president) and then headed to bed. Completely excited about the next day; if only I knew what it held for me.   

Then I woke up late. 

Nkem Oyaghire




The Service Chronicles 27: One Anniversary and a Send Forth


Saturday was another day of too much work, I woke up late let’s just say I was too tired. So I dragged myself around as usual and ended up in the kitchen. I just knew something was wrong as I sat down. Found my food and ate a little, offered to help with chopping some things for the salad. It was when I offered to help with the carrots that some light was shed on the odd feeling I felt earlier. My help was refused and I was urged to go get ready for the anniversary program. 

I had my bath, looked for something to wear and hurried to Challenge to get a book for an award I was offering as the Librarian of the fellowship. When I got back I wrapped up the book and went back to church. The service was great. The Bishop spoke to us again (he spoke to us the previous night) and I have to say he is the kind of man I can grow to respect. 

As the service was ending I mentioned something to someone and I got a reply that was surprisingly shocking and was illuminating on the strange vibe in the kitchen. Remember the Alumni I mentioned before? Apparently people had taken it upon themselves to assume that I liked him because I was being too “nice”, as I write this I am really hurt and sad that I happen to live with a bunch of dim witted folks (I mean that). Nimi x=came and called us to the kitchen; Jennifer and I. 

I was warned that I should not let myself be given a name in this lodge, which I think is already late; all I need is to sew a scarlet letter P for prostitute on all my dresses. The Scarlet letter is a very old novel about stuff I really don’t know, if you really want to understand this analogy look for the movie Easy A.  So here I am absolutely hurt and sad I don’t know why exactly, maybe because a bunch of people tabled my matter in the kitchen. I really don’t know. In the words of somebody everything that I have done was discussed and I did something wrong, I just didn’t know I was doing something wrong, I ,may have messed up by not helping with the Kitchen stuff but I really didn’t know I was supposed to. You would think I was thief or that the moment someone new came here I took him to a room and gave him sexual favours. I really don’t know what I have done wrong. In the midst of hurt lies confusion. (I am sorry for all this stupid talk; I just really need a place to rant these days) 

I get to the kitchen and after spending five minutes there it is funny to say that it turned out that I was not needed. Off to the programs and compiling of pictures for the send forth. That took me more than two hours. After running around like a crazed fowl I rushed to church to set up the projector. The guest we had invited we already coming in, at that point I had on a blue round neck top and a pair of hot pink three quarter shorts. So I dashed off back to get dressed. 

Now I had an array of clothes to pick from; it was either a floral print dress, a purple shine shine party dress, a short grey office gown or a short blue office gown. After trying three of the options I settled for the floral print dress; Churchill said I looked British (I guess that’s a good thing) that was after I had dragged the purple shine shine dress all over my body for glitter. 

I got back to the hall and decided to take charge of my slide show and it was beautiful, the food was nice and the music was good. I presented a few awards and like every good and like every successful party there were mini squabbles usually over food and our party had one of such; nothing of great importance.
Then came the best part; dance, dance, dance. I danced my ass of; literarily. So I like to twerk, I don’t have the ass for it but that didn’t stop Miley Cyrus from doing it and it sure as hell has never and will never stop me. I live at a Christian lodge and that didn’t go down the first few times I tried it until I tagged it twerking for Jesus. So I danced and twerked for Jesus all through the night till they turned off the generator.

Throughout the day a lot of pictures had been taken and the flash from the camera had taken a toll on my eye that the mango hit, before I went to bed I put on dark shades. Watched some snaps and called an old flame that finished my credit, no p there. 

As I was about to crash I got a DM from Twitter as I was about to open it a call came in. it was from Boye. 

Nkem Oyaghire







The Service Chronicles 26: One Hangout and An Anniversary


There is no word to describe Thursday. It was a roller coaster of activities. The day didn’t even start like any normal day. I didn’t go for devotion because my eye was still hurting and I couldn’t open it, so I spent more time in bed. Only to be awaken by the voice of Nnamdi yelling my name. He said he wanted my crested vest so I stood up to give it to him. Thursday was the day the Batch A corp members of 2015/2016 set passed out. So everywhere was abuzz with activity. They all stomped out in their Khakis rather late as usual to converge at the NYSC secretariat in GRA llorin. 

So we waited for them to return and the lodge was awfully quiet. There is this tradition we have at the lodge where we pour water on those passing out that is after we take their certificates, while we waited we filled up buckets with water and used it to block the entrance to the lodge. Slowly they came back and we judiciously bathed them with water. Each and every person that came through the gates and was a batch A corp member we gave a water baptism. 

That part was fun. Godswill tried to run away from his but we managed to corner him.
As the day went by the time for the hangout drew closer and tensions were rising. Nimi had gone to the market for the things we needed while fellowship was going on. On Thursdays we have our weekly fellowship and this last one was more of a thanksgiving service for the Batch A fellas.
Godswill the chairman of the hangout committee had gone to get the drinks, fruits and cake for the hangout while I tried to tighten the program with Koch, we managed to set some questions for a section and play about for a while. Then disaster struck. From nowhere rain started to fall and I have to say it was not a drizzle or light shower, it was a full blown rain fall. We had to push the time the program started. At a point after running around to arrange chairs in the hall and rouse Churchill to turn on the generator I noticed that Godswill was missing. I found him hiding although he still insists he wasn’t hiding I believe he was. With much ado the program started around 10 pm and I have to say it was a lot of fun, we ended at about 2 am. The menu was dope!!! Firstly we had small chops, then Pepper Soup and then white rice with curry sauce followed by Ice cream and cake. Then it was topped up by some fruit.  I just have to say regardless of the hiccups we faced the program went smoothly and the best part of it was that people turned up. 

On Friday I woke up and trudged my way to my room and saw that all the guest we had the previous night had returned to their houses. It was time for some general cleaning because we were expecting some of the Alumnus of the house for the reunion weekend. I was to clean my room and I also had a meeting with some members of another committee I was also on. The committee was for the send forth. Then something came up and this was something that would hound me for as long as I don’t know. The previous day one of the Alumnus had gotten into Ilorin and this particular person had called me few weeks before the program to inquire as to what arrangements had been put in place for those coming. I had done my best to inform him on something I wasn’t very sure of. 

So when he came I felt it was my utmost duty to make sure he was very comfortable, but because I live with people who for the life of me I really don’t understand and will never understand, they saw all of this as unnecessary.
I had offered to help him get credit on Friday morning, if only I had known that people can be really dense a lot of times (I know this but I like to forget and be hopeful that people would grow some sense) I would just have ignored the person I felt responsible for like every other person and gone to do something that could be handled by other people. Well I didn’t I am not like everybody (huge tragic flaw). 

When I returned I cleaned thoroughly to the best of my tiny ability, made some inputs in my committee blah blah blah and went to sleep only to wake up like four hours later. 

Did some laundry and went to get some food. While I ate I put a movie on; 42 it’s about the first black baseball played in an all-white team; Jackie Robinson. I decided to just read up on him before I continued the movie and as coincidence would have it, Friday was also the same day as Jackie Robinson day.  
We had another program that evening to mark the beginning of the anniversary, so I had to pause my movie to attend the program. Then we dispersed for the night. Jennifer had gone to the market earlier so she was feeling the toils of the market. Somebody also celebrated her birthday that night; Maggie and we had more cake and drinks.
Went to bed and that was the end of the day for me. Or so I thought…

Nkem Oyaghire






The Service Chronicles 25: Mango Missile. 



Yesterday; Wednesday was full of activity for me. It started with the normal preparation of breakfast of rice and stew for about forty one people. I even finished on time but laziness did not permit me to leave for CDS. Like he sat me down, that is Laziness and whispered reasons why I should not go, they were not valid but I love him so much like I just had to agree with him, especially as I have been ignoring him for too long.

 Gisted with that wicked Jennifer girl, we had a long talk and played a round in the Ludo tournament. Then Seun (lodge fellow) came with his big head and tried to challenge us, we sent him back to his village.
Played around as usual and then started a very nice movie Effie Gray before I finally cajoled Joseph Cathedral to follow me to Challenge to fix my phone he said he wasn’t ready so I just dallied with my movie. 

Then Papa that is the president of the fellowship asked me to go and pay money into someone’s account.  By 12:55 I rose from my slumber and trudged to a bike and went to Diamond bank under five minutes I was back. Tried to read to no avail, and then continued my movie. Around two Mr. Cathedral called me to meet him at UBA at Challenge, but there are two UBAs at Challenge, even after I asked for a great description which he kinda gave, I still went to the wrong one. After five minutes of waiting I had to find my way back to the correct UBA upon getting there we entered Computer village in Ilorin, not so bad for a mini CV.

The guy that even fixed my phone is a corper too. But I think he cheated me, because Koch also had to fix his charging port but he got there earlier than we did and the guy he gave his phone to fix charged him cheaper than he did us. Well well as long as my phone is fine I really don’t care.

After that I headed home I was about to board a bike when I saw a guy from my school; Redeemer’s 
University. I can’t remember his name but I know he was their departmental president. Said my hellos and headed home. I branched at Shoprite saw Hotstuff with two other guys from the lodge said my hellos again and moved on. The plan was to just withdraw and get out but then I saw Uju and Peter and they wanted to get Ice cream for themselves to celebrate Uju’s birthday, well I couldn’t pass this opportunity up, so I begged for ice cream and got one. Left to withdraw and that nonsense Jennifer girl ( I love her though) requested for Chicken and Chips (allawee is working) so I went back in and bought that. Then we all sat somewhere that is Peter, Uju and I and had our snacks. Then Ada joined us. That is when I heard something scary. Apparently the LI was describing me, he had noticed I didn’t come for Zonal meeting and then he mentioned that I wear a certain jewelry that he should not have been able to notice. This is just proof that 
people are always watching.

Hot stuff and the two guys he was with joined us and we all left for the lodge. I left with Hot stuff’s hat and I am protecting it like it is my baby.

The outgoing Batch A boys and girls had a football match, after watching it for a while which was ridiculously humorous (sorry if the grammar is too much I get carried away sometimes). I went to have my bath. So I stepped out decked in black on black even up to the hat on my head.

Now I this is where I had an almighty accident.

While I walked back to the game, I saw Michael we call him Lehi or Mazi Mango (his mango plucking skills is the best I have ever seen) so while I walked past him, he threw a mango at four mangos up in tree and they all fell down. I have never seen that in my entire life, so I started yelling his praise name which is Mazi Mango, so he threw one at me for me to catch and eat but because I am terrible at anything that may be close to a sport the mango hit me straight in the eye. I have to say that the first thing I felt was fear not pain. I was wondering if this damages my already damaged eye, what will I na use; binoculars? I sank to my knees and started rocking back and forth I just wanted someone to hug me. Then Uju came and I just hugged her and it was almost better. Then I stood up and my eye was blurry.

I managed to do Papa’s slide then went to Shoprite. Then I saw this fineeeeeee boy. Chai!!! Bobo toh fine! Ewoo!!! I just can’t explain.  Well well. Went to ask Pharmacy boyfriend to examine the eye; I was assured that I would be fine.

Got back to the lodge, anchored the Valedictory speeches for that night. It was the last one for this set. I am really grateful for that. 

Then I had a meeting with the ACF hangout crew and like usual it was full of laughs. The lodge is the best thing that happened to me so far during this service year. 

Nkem Oyaghire




The Service Chronicles 24: Allawee  

Tuesday was a breeze. It started the way all my days here start which is with Devotion and then playing around but as God would have it there was light so I just went back to bed and watched a movie; Interstellar. Five minutes into the movie I had to find someone who would explain the dynamics of space to me, so I kidnapped Churchill and he tried a little but Namnam was so much more helpful. After I had walked around with Churchill for my lesson I sank back again to bed for more lessons. 

That morning something bad happened at the lodge. We didn’t have food due to the non-complying nature of our darling government, so we had to source for food. I went to the Mishai (I don’t know the real spelling, sha those Mallam guys that make noodles) in the next street and had a sumptuous breakfast. NEPA had done their favorite hobby, so I went to a hall in the compound where there was light and as I sat down rather lay down; there was a mat there, they turned off the generator. I still persevered and in less than twenty minutes I heard the roar of a generator. 


I finished Interstellar and to my beautiful confusion, I was disappointed. Okay maybe not disappointed I just didn’t understand how the writers of the movie thought it was okay to fill the imagination of the world by telling us that a black hole is made up of a three dimensional world that is full of bookshelves that can be used to send messages using gravity by sending binary codes of the coordinates to a secret NASA hide out or push out books from the other side of the black hole from the past to people in the future. See, if I have managed to confuse you and not convince you not to watch this movie please forgive me, it wasn’t purely intentional. The worst thing they did in that movie was say that a person can get out of a black hole, all my life in my little knowledge of astronomy a black hole never gives back what it takes, never ever.  So how could Matthew McConaughey have gotten out of the black hole? 

I don’t know sha, overall it wasn’t so bad. 

After the movie I wrote a lot and then had a chat with EJoe, very cool nigga. Had my bath rather late and then as I chilled and tried to enjoy the evening someone came with the news that the Allawee fever had stared spreading and it started with Diamond Bank and as Jehovah would have it my Allawee account is with Diamond Bank. So I turned on my phone that was still acting up and lo and behold I saw the message that I had been waiting for. A debit alert! Let’s just saw I burst into the dance sequence from Alingo although I can’t do it but that didn’t stop me. I went to grab a snack of cereal and I had a game with Ezekiel the current CLO of Ilorin South. It was crazy fun let’s just say that we wasted a lot of cereal. 

Jennifer had gone for the send forth party of her CDS group; the wicked girl did not even deem it fit invite me; I will have to do my own back (and I mean this). While I created the slide for Godswill’s VS which was completely fun on its own, Layo CLI came around and then she recounted a sad tale to me. Apparently she had been mugged. Some guy had directed her to where she can get a taxi and then unknowingly he entered the same cab as her. In Ilorin the means of transport are cabs and bikes, few kekes and fewer buses. So she entered a cab with the guy that directed her, only for the driver to stop her somewhere else, he apologized and she agreed but the problem arose when she tried to open the door. The door wasn’t opening so while she struggled with the door they grabbed her phone from her bag and to compound matters it’s a phone she just bought. Well sad stuff; she meet Lagos in Ilorin. The funny thing about it is that she is not the first person to tell me about this, it happened to a girl in serving in my school too. Well if you’re in Ilorin and you’re reading this please just be careful, we thank God it was just their phones they took and not something more precious like body parts. 

Well I had a stroll to the bank with Godswill, tried to get food but to no avail. I ended up having garri for dinner. Godswill’s Valedictory  speech was fun too. 

Before I went to bed had a long talk with Namnam I absolutely love that boy; in the most platonic way o, before you mischievous people start putting five and a million together to get to stupid conclusions. We talked about Churchill and me then we had an intelligent conversation about astronomy in relation to the relativity of time.
When his girlfriend Joy got back from Choir rehearsals, we ended our convo and I retreated to my darling games and eventually to sleep.

Boye has confirmed the existence of a girlfriend and I have to say to I feel…

Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicles 23: The Dawn of the Snakes

Monday was a day of promise. I had gotten a reply from Fat Cat and I had an appointment with his Madam at Ray Power, any time from 11 pm (do I hear a whoop whoop).
I trudged to church, I had had an almost long night, slept around after 12 and I still wanted to sleep but the call to prayer was by 5:45AM and I had no choice to go to church. After a very educative session at devotion I went back to bed only to be awoken by Nam nam; asking for a cutlass. And because amebo is my biggest hobby I asked him what it was for; it’s a pity I can’t put that in my CV. My amebo skills are one in a million I could be a mighty spy, like the CIA needs to employ me. Anyhow sha, after I asked what the cutlass was for, he mentioned to kill a snake. At first I thought this man was joking only for me to let my amebo lead me by hand outside and see Nnamdi or as Koch calls him Unamdi balancing a snake on the cutlass.

Fear fear fear!!!!! I was terrified. The thing ehn is that I don’t like snakes, okay let me repharse that I am absolutely terrified, petrified, horrified of snakes, I can’t even see the picture of a snake without losing it. If you know any other big words to describe extreme fear please fill in the blanks. With this fear I stood outside and refused to look at the reptile. I actually just looked down to be sure none is lurking around ready to pounce. The funny thing about amebo is that your thirst for knowledge is unquenchable, so I stood there and used Jooey (another Joseph) to shield myself from having to see the snake and listened to Koch regale us with snake stories, apparently he is a hunter who went to school; secondary and tertiary where he had to major in snake hunting. His stories still have me very frightened. The even scarier thing is that they had killed one the night before, few minutes after I had gone back to bed.

After that I read a little while I ate, basked in the sun more like punished myself by lying on a couch in the sun, read some more and then chatted with Godswill.  By 10:54 I proceeded to get ready for my interview of some sorts, when I got there I had to wait for a while. After my chat with the very nice lady in charge I got the gig and I am happy to announce that the wish I had when I was eight is coming to pass.
I called my dad who advised me on a topic to discuss, oh yes it is health radio, this in some way should affect my health lifestyle. So I have to prepare three or four topics. The day before my program is aired I promise to tell you guys. Aya it’s only the folks in Ilorin that will get to listen.

I got back to the lodge and we all know who I had lunch with, no other person than my new Oga’s wife. She is really nice. I woke up around four groggy and sleepy eyed. Had a bath at the suggestion of a friend and I felt a little bit better.
Ah! If you know me well you will know that I missed a Monday ritual, Monday madness at the cinema, the situation is very bad now that I can’t go and see a movie o! You people should help me pray that this people pay us na. I don’t know how to be broke, I think this is one of the things that cause High blood pressure and as Papa Nkem would say this is my time and I cannot come and let poverty spoil my time.   

That’s by the side; after my bath I went to get something to eat and then I had another long talk with Churchill. You guys this is bad o, it’s like I don’t hear word or even learn lessons. I have really been enjoying breaking hearts and being a fine girl just like the type that Sean Kingston sang about in Beautiful Girls, this boy has just come and made me feel something and the funny thing is that if he ever makes a move on me I may just become that girl that enjoys breaking hearts, oh well. Maybe because he is too much like my type of Nigga; tall, dark, handsome, facial hair and smart, very smart (I know tautology) did I mention smart and it is mandatory for me that he is unavailable. I am too damn self-destructive, I will just find myself going after Niggas that are unavailable in some way. Sum total of this is that I need prayers. And in his case he has too many girls that like him and he is a regular dude. I don’t even want to get into it. Yeah, my friend Ronke came around yesterday, funny girl.

After our heart to heart that still has me wanting him as usual and never solves anything. I went to have a moment with music and books and I felt so good after.
I escorted Uju (lodge friend too) to Shoprite and saw my loves, they are my friends from camp who happen to be twins; one was in my platoon while the other was in the next platoon. It was crazy fun and they succeeded in embarrassing me in front of my Pharmacist boyfriend (some Pharmacist guy who I think is cute and he is really cute and I am over sure likes me)

Night devotion was a row, I had to anchor the Valedictory speeches for that night and two people were having their Valedictory speeches. The first one went smoothly, the second one not so, because I honestly cannot stand the dude I had to talk to, no need to waste any breath on him.

It was a goodnight that ended with me talking to the boy I used to love the most; Bambam. 

Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicles 22: G-Wagons.


Sunday I woke up bright and early. Read a little bit and it wasn’t my bible; it was the novel I have been reading. After much speculation I choose to wear a skirt and a cotton top to church. I still had to pick which skirt between two skirts. (the problem with having too many clothes)

I played around and just did the stuff that is regular with me (it is usually nothing absolutely spectacular). In the lodge we have this rule where we go to the church in the lodge compound on the third Sundays of the month and a Cathedral on the Second Sunday of the month, well this week we switched. So we had to go to the church in the lodge compound; Chapel of Ascension. Okay, the thing is that while I was getting ready I just wanted to use powder and go out. But no I just couldn’t stop myself after I wore my contacts and I went full out I did all the works except contouring and highlighting, honestly for the life of me I couldn’t be bothered to learn all those makeup procedures. So while Cynthia one of my roommates and I were taking pictures, we had coincidentally worn the same style of clothes, which was a black blouse thingamajig and a maxi skirt, mine was an uneven one. Anywho, we sha looked alike. When we were done with our pictures and about to storm the Chapel of Ascension, we saw Hot Stuff with some other guys; E-joe whose real name is Joseph but we have an overpopulation of Josephs in the lodge, Segun who is really huge and some other guys. So we ran after them and followed them to their church.
And I have to say it was gooood. I absolutely enjoyed the service. Unlike the churches I have been attending, it had the Pentecostal flavor I grew up on and am used to. I don’t know, I was just really happy to be at that church. After the service we were given drinks as first time comers and this made me extra happy. The thing is that I have an addiction for sugar (don’t come here with that diabetes nonsense I have heard it all and just go away with all your negativity.) I had my fix after a long long dry spell. As we left the church, Cynthia and I felt the need to take more pictures, so we rallied these young men around us and tried to take some pictures. Well they were really nice; in one of them we looked like the Avengers. Something awkward happened while we were taking one of the pictures, there was a moment between Hot stuff and I. At this point I will stop because I don’t want to go into details before I will make you people think something else (from reports I have been getting from headquarters it would seem you guys have a more vivid imagination than I do)
After the photograph session we headed back to lodge and on our trek back we saw an absolute beauty parked right in front of Shoprite. It was a black G-Wagon. It was beautiful and the fact that it was black just made me love that particular G-Wagon; it looked like it didn’t belong on the streets of Ilorin. I don’t like the structure of that car, I won’t go to a car shop and buy it even if I had the money to buy it, but that does not take away the fact that it is ridiculously expensive and whoever bought that car has too much money. ‘Plenty’ is not the adjective I will use the phrase ‘too much’ fits this situation perfectly. I was almost tempted to walk across the street and beg the man in the car to take my number, desperate times call for almost desperate measures and since the government has decided to let Corpers across the federation starve, a girl has almost no choice but to almost take extreme measures. It doesn’t even matter if the model of the car was the oldest model (and I wouldn’t know if it was. My knowledge of cars is not that detailed).

I got back to the lodge without going to offer myself to the owner of that fine motor. Had lunch and a date with my oga’s wife; sleep we are getting tighter by the day. When I arose I participated in the Ludo Games, I can’t particularly remember the scores but I didn’t do too badly.

Regarding the decision that has been dancing in my head, I have decided to cut ties with someone that is my friend but I want to be more than friends with him and I can’t have him. It is no other person than Churchill and the drama surrounding him is way too much for adulthood it is straight out of Secondary school and I do not exaggerate.

Sunday was almost bad for me because I heard the shit that someone said about me (sorry for the profanity and more profanity may come up) but this bitch thinks I give two hoots about her; I don’t even give half a hoot. Well that’s her business and for her safety I won’t mention her name.

I went to bed content only to wake up to a surprise.   

Nkem Oyaghire


The Service Chronicles 21: Ray Power  
I have to say that the weekend had a beautiful start. After devotion I just hung around reading and terrorizing the people plucking mangoes. There are like ten mango trees in the compound so we have a steady steady supply of mangos. After mango hunting and eating. I went to the shade of a tank and had a mini argument on the state of the country and I have to say this is the first verbal argument I have had on the deteriorating state of the nation this year. And like all the other arguments that have been going on everywhere in the country and in the country’s diaspora it has not reduced the price of fuel or the queues at the filling stations.
Well a few minutes after that I had a talk with Godswill and Koch. We are planning a sort of hangout at the lodge on the 14th which is on Thursday. It is a sort of send forth party for the outgoing batch A corp members of the fellowship, nothing spiritual just mad chills. I for one know it will be crazy fun, like the story of how I fell of a chair at one morning devotion in January will be told and so many others. Well if you are a Corper in Ilorin you should turn up with us.     

Koch, Godswill and I are on the planning committee and we were arranging the programme with so many laughs while a football match went on between the batch A and B boys. It was a draw and I really couldn’t care less because football is football and we all know how I feel about the game.
After the game I mistakenly went towards the field with a bottle of Nutri C, let’s just say I didn’t leave there with plenty smiles on my face. After chatting with them boys I realized I was late for my appointment with a friend at Ray Power Ilorin.

Okay, this is the ish. I have wanted to be on radio since I was eight. Since I heard Dan Foster on Cool Fm on a humid Friday afternoon, it has been a lifelong dream to reach people from the corner of a studio through a mic and  headphones just enlightening and gisting with people from everywhere within my station’s signal. So I here I am trying to take a step in fulfilling my lifelong dream and I have to say I am scared as hell. I won’t sit in front of this screen and fiddle with these keys (oya see me becoming poetic.) and act like I was born to serenade the world with my voice; not as a musician that one is a long thing sef, but as an orator preferably as an OAP. So I chatted with Fat Cat a corper serving at Raypower. I will never know the story behind that funny name, his real name is Sunny (and it is pronounced in the funky way o, not the way you guys have pronounced it in your heads).
He is someone I met in camp and we just hit it off. Yemi my lover (from camp too) and I used to call him Fat Cow, we still do sometimes when we want to annoy him.  After my talk with him that is Fat Cat, he pitched an idea to his boss.

I headed home to meet my new oga which is Boredom and had a terribly long meeting with him from there I had lunch with his wife; Sleep. I have to say I enjoyed my lunch (that was a miserably long metaphor. No vex.)
After my nap I played some rounds on the Ludo board. The thing ehn is that I am sort of a Ludo champion now o. Okay, champion is too high up. I am not yet that high; let’s say like two levels above amateur but I am making good progress. This is all as a result of boredom and my phone acting up is not even helping matters. So I have resorted to the next best thing which is Ludo and I have to say I am enjoying it and best of all it is teaching me not to take things like games too seriously. Don’t mind me I am the kind of person that takes too many things too serious.

It rained crazy, before it rained I was talking to Hot Stuff, his real name is Dami. He is really hot and fine and cool. I even had a picture of him before I met him, he was on one of these Instagram pages with plenty cool pictures, where the people don’t look like they exist (you guys know this na). Who would have known I would have met him a year later. 

Well night devotion was a breeze. Yes! Before I forget there is a new Batch B girl in the lodge her name is Bumni, she seems like a very resourceful person.

Before I fell asleep I had a chat with Churchill. I absolutely enjoy talking to him, even more than I am supposed to enjoy talking to a man that can’t reciprocate my feelings. This realisation has sparked something in me and I think it will only be healthy for me implement a decision that has been dancing in my head. 

Nkem Oyaghire 




The Service Chronicles 20: Tolerance




Friday I woke up with nerves, I was taking the message for the day and I honestly have to say I was nervous as hell. I rang the bell for devotion and roused everybody from their slumber. Waited for everybody to leave for devotion, this is another one of my plenty duties. As I got to church it was already six am, so I just had to wait till 6:05 before I went up, as I walked up to the pulpit I almost wanted to run back. I was really frightened, how can smallie me be teaching all these people. If you even hear the topic I was going to speak on you will just laugh at me. I was to speak on Tolerance. If you know me you would laugh really hard before you continue reading, when I told Mama Nkem she laughed at me and said “me that needs tolerance the most”.

 I am the least tolerant person I know. I can fly off the handle at anything and anybody, react to any situation in any way, either with tears or a terrible laugh and I have the worst kind of laughter you may hear. Okay, maybe not the worst, the worst kind of laughter is the kind that has like a snort attached to it, people that laugh like that need to attend classes on how to laugh. 

I sometimes laugh like all these evil witches in the movies, like I have that down I think it is the Edo girl thing and then I can laugh like a cartoon character. Nnamdi has said it sounds like a minion laughing. My reactions to situations have not an ounce of tolerance to it. I am too emotional to be tolerant but I think after admonishing people on the importance of not being a hot head or as Koch likes to say “a loose cannon” I have no choice but to turn from my wicked ways. 

So I stood at that altar that was taller than me and after the first two minutes of praying with a shaky voice. I looked up to pour out what I had learnt about tolerance in the bible and I saw the smiling face of Jennifer (friend at the lodge) and even though it was not supposed to encourage me, I just knew that I could do it and I spoke. Even dropped some punch lines that I didn’t expect (I just chuckled at the memory). I said that when people are able to tolerate one another there is a “certain kind of peace you get from being at peace with everyone around you”. The point is that I think I did good and I am really grateful to God that it didn’t blow up in my face. 

The rest of the day was full of people testing my tolerance and calling me tolerance. Like one guy almost got me, I was just standing outside waiting for Churchill to give me my slippers that the good Lord sent to me. Okay, on Monday when I got back I sad to note that one leg of my bathroom slippers had been kidnapped so in desperation and utter desolation (I have to advertise my course of study sometimes na) I wandered about barefooted for a while (it makes me feel even more closer to the ground than I already am) Lo and behold during my barefooted wandering I saw this ridiculously large pair of slippers that is not really rubber and I dusted them and put them on. Since then nobody has come to meet me for the slippers and they are uber comfortable and large just as I like my slippers. So while I waited for Churchill to return them (he borrowed them the day before) Michael Falaye (another lodge fellow) just came and shoved my shoulder, I swear my eyes actually flashed I was ready to lash out at him. I could see the process of my next actions forming. You know how it is in the movies when the wheels just start turning and there is fire everywhere then everything in the person’s head just turns red and the next thing we see someone chasing another person with the intent to kill. That was what was happening in my head the next intolerant word was already on my lips and just like a switch the process just stopped and everything in my head returned to their normal colour (which I suspect is red too) and I just laughed at him. 

Friday was just there as usual. When I couldn’t take the crushing boredom anymore I called some dude from camp who was on my case and I think is still is; Jackson. Went to his house to see him came back to the lodge later at night and made some calls.  

Yes the news about Boye, well reports reaching me says that he was seen with his girlfriend on Tuesday and they looked super cozy and happy and that just raises the question “what am I doing?” I am not a seize the bae girl and I just might be taking his friendliness for something else. I really need to calm down in my head (I can see you haters nodding in agreement, if I catch you... Don’t just let me catch you)
My final word for you today is be tolerant. *big smile*

Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicles 19: One and a Half Days



Wednesday was CDS and it was nothing spectacular. I arose early and cooked, to my dismay Nimi, the welfare militant (she is really a militant I lie not) had not changed the cooking timetable. Finished on time and left early for CDS with Koch. By the time we got there; which was not ridiculously late considering the distance from the lodge to the Local Government office where we have our CDS meetings and the fuel scarcity that is ravaging the country, the LGI (Local Government Inspector) had marked cards and the punishment was to wait till four in the evening from Wednesday to Friday before we late comers got to sign our cards and do our clearance. Oh well.  

CDS was a little bit drab without Boye. Listen to me, you will think I met him since the first day I entered that CDS, I have only spoken to him once during CDS and here I am forming like we have weaved a strong bond of hanging out together during CDS for three months. Shame on me. No! no shame on me, I repeat CDS was drab without Boye.

At a point they were signing for only pregnant women and I had the perfect lie ready. I was going to say I am nine weeks pregnant and I can actually push out my stomach very well to look like a pregnancy. That’s how big my belly is (don’t call me fat o, I just don’t have the body of a victoria secret model) we waited sha but not for as long as was promised and I left that LGA office before 12 noon. I was made the head of some department in my CDS. Got back to the lodge and had my normal routine of boringness. I can’t believe I am saying this but I look forward to going back to work. 

Thursday made it final, my phone is bad and I am very depressed about it, I am honestly at a loss of what t to do. It’s the charging port apparently and the lack of money has made it impossible for me to try and fix it. This mumu people should pay us our allawee sef.  I am now a certified pauper. My money is not up to five zeros and this is panic mode. I find myself constantly anxious these days. Just not knowing what to do about the state of my financial health is making me physically sick. 

So I ran around and looked for a way to charge my phone and I have settled for that desktop thingy.  This is my new life.
Thursday was also a whirlwind of emotions. This holiday has made me useless to myself. Now all I do is sleep and try and read and that is not even working. Once I read a line where money is mentioned or insinuated I start to panic. Thankfully, the panic of lack of money has not followed me into my dreams. I still dream of all the things that may be impossible for me, height, a flat stomach, knowing how to drive a car, being a video vixen, marrying J.Cole, Drake and Chris Brown. But since I used the word may all these things can still happen especially the marriages to the aforementioned men.  I have a grand plan and I promise not to share it with you. 

Saw a good movie Third Person  I have to say I like the arrangement of the plot, don’t worry I won’t get technical on you and form like I know all the proper terms to use when critiquing a movie.  Wrote my message for the following day with the help of Reverend Koch (he isn’t a Reverend I just like to call him that sometimes.). At the lodge during morning devotions we usually have messages delivered to us by fellow members of the fellowship.  I was to take the one for Friday. I will tell you how it was in the next entry don’t rush me or yourself. 

By four we had our weekly fellowship which turned into something totally unexpected. We had a pastor from House on The Rock Ilorin come to teach us and I just have to say the Holy Spirit moved. Oh and my sight is better, just a teeny weeny bit. I still need my glasses though.
After the extended version of the service, I had a talk with the one and only Churchill, he is a guy who girls like to flow with so I call all his friends that are girls his wives and I am his concubine. He tried to flirt but I quickly doused any flame that might cause in me. 

The night was well spent, I am honestly trying my best to be fine without my phone and I am doing a mess of it.  Before I slept something marvelous happened, Mildred; the bible study coordinator asked how my message was going and I gave her a preview and she said it was okay. Then she asked me if I could speak in tongues and I said no. Well we prayed and I have to say the more we prayed I stopped speaking in English and that is the only language I speak fluently. I was praying in something I do not understand. I just might have been baptized in the Holy Ghost. Yesterday was full of tears. I am not sure how am supposed to act now, I guess I need the guidance of God. 

Tomorrow I will tell you what I found out about Boye and I have to say we will not like it.  
Nkem Oyaghire 

 



The Service Chronicles 18: Movies!!!

Tuesday was a Tuesday indeed (this has no deep meaning at all. Don’t try to decipher it.) There was light for the better part of the day and I was in front of my laptop for a pretty long time. Watched Hit man Agent 47 very very cool movie, I had had it for a very very long time and because I am skeptical about movies that are not obviously comedy or romance (yes , yes I prefer chick flicks, how is it your concern) I would take forever before watching them. 


So here I was watching the movie with two different guys who joined me at different points in the movie and I have to say that the Agent guy is very fine, it is his kind of bald I can manage and when I found out that the girl was also an agent and the best of her kind in fact I was tots (totally in American slang) excited. I really like good movies like that not like when I watched that mumu Lucy;  that movie was a waste of my precious time, battery and space. I didn’t hesitate to delete it. For a movie to not impress me then it is completely SHIT. I am easily impressed and I na love movies. I watched that movie with the believe that I was watching dope stuff only for me to anticipate something absolutely great with all the publicity and hype and I ended with that nonsense. 
At the end of the movie they na had the audacity to do that stupid “I am everywhere” mysterious crap. I may seem very very very very angry but I hate when you take all that plenty money and then make shit. But that is that with Lucy , Hit Man was dope, watch it if you haven’t. I forgot to mention how hot Four was in Allegiant, chai!!! That man should not mistakenly allow me to jam him. He will regret meeting me.

After that movie was over I started another one I had seen before This is Where I Leave You now that is a comedy with all its works of sadness that make all the happy moments full of happiness and the laughable moments full of laughs. I couldn’t finish it because I just couldn’t finish it; there is no need to have a concrete reason for everything I do.
My phone has been acting funny. I don’t know why the phone thinks it is okay to play games on me. You know how when a boy likes a girl genuinely; which is something that happens rarely and the girl he has managed to drag his wandering gaze and rest it on is now acting up like na only she fine.  You know how frustration is the only thing he can feel, well my phone was acting like one mumu girl yesterday and playing games with me. I had to borrow Churchill’s battery and run some tests but I think I have showed it who the boss is. I hope it responds I don’t have money or the power to beg for a new phone and I just got it o.
Last night it rained here, beautiful shower of rain. It started after I had gone to get some things from our darling mallam shop; Shoprite. As I ran inside I realised that the wind was almost carrying me and because I am a village girl deep deep inside where nobody can really see (if I hear judgment there, all of you fakelolos that will be forming tush I am here with the good news we are all local so put down your nose) I did small dances. You don’t want to see the dance I did the first day I saw the rain this year. I turned up for the rain.  The rain was indeedly (not a real word, I am allowed. Is it your Chronicles?) a blessing as we didn’t have night devotion nor executive meeting. Hallelujah!!! The rain caused no light and Churchill couldn’t turn on the gen the rain. He cannot come and die. Somebody confronted me last night funny girl I have to say.
So in my boredom I called Boye but he was busy and then I called Ennie (the strongest old flame) and we had a beautiful conversation. I think I should clear something…. Naa no need, you can still hold on to the notion you all have about something I have mentioned earlier. And while I spoke to the strongest old flame, about different stuff, they brought the light. The electricity here is not so bad the perks of living in GRA. They brought the light around ten-thirty pm and by then it was way too late to have devotion or a meeting. Do I hear a loud hallelujah?
Played more games and still tried to work on my wicked phone. I am at a loss of what to do, I swear.  While I was praying that my phone would charge it rang it was none other than my darling future husband, or is he really?  

Nkem Oyaghire




The Service Chronicles 17: Ilorin 



Well I got back to the beautiful town of Ilorin yesterday. The land with all my boyfriends, my baby boos and the pests that riddle my life. Ilorin my new home, Ilorin my life for a year. I would stop at this point before I start to show myself as a poet. I left Lagos state few minutes to seven and got into Ilorin few minutes to eleven. The journey was not particularly exciting I mostly slept throughout the journey like usual. The guy that sat beside me took my number, if he’s too old he is 19, no biggie there he can be my new son. The old lady that sat behind me was very talkative. Well it didn’t really bother me because my ears were mostly plugged even while I slept. 

I arranged my stuff, took a bike to Iya Ghana (I don’t know why we call her that, maybe its cos she’s Ghanaian) and bought some food. Came back to the lodge and settled with my food in front of my laptop. Then I heard the great news, the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese in Ilorin lives in the same compound as us and he had decided to dig a new bore hole and this time he connected the water to the taps in the lodge as the God Lord will have it, we have running water in the bathrooms now. It may seem like I’m very excited about something as little as running water, but I would say to you that if you had to time how often you pee because of lack of water or you lived in a compound where the well was just a hole in the ground or you had to strategically plan when and how to wash or you were entitled to just a bucket of water a day even in a weather as hot as this, then you will do a thousand backflips (something I can’t do, because I am a lazy person and I can’t come and break my neck on top of celebration) and a hundred splits (I can’t do that too not because I am lazy it’s just not within my power to do such). 

We no longer store water like a bunch of water peddlers and the cry of “who stole my water?” doesn’t ring out anymore. This is a good improvement and I have to say I am immensely glad. 

So yes Ilorin with all my honeys. Boye called just checking on me and to know if I was back and how my journey was. Nothing particularly serious. I was the just chilling in the palour that also serves as a common room when CLI Layo the one that is being forced to be a polyandrist came in we said our hellos and she gisted me about her cousin’s wedding she went for. As fate would have it, the cousin that was got married has a sister that was my roommate when I was in 400 level; no other person than the one and only Seun Amosu. That girl as my roommate was an adventure for real. As I went through the wedding pictures I saw one of a boy I seen before, Seun’s absolutely cute brother Tobi, bobo o hans gan which in English translates to very very very very fine boy. Well in anger I called the nonsense girl that did not have the sense to introduce me to her very fine brother and stroked her. It was nice to hear her voice again though. 

So Layo and I made a date with the movies to see Allegiant; the third installment in the Divergent series or like some of us would put it Divergent part 3 ( I absolutely hate when people say that). Well Layo couldn’t make it and I saw it alone nothing weird about that I do it a lot. Okay the thing is that I go to see the movies every Monday (maybe not every Monday) here because it is 500 Naira and with free popcorn and I get to buy drinks outside because my bag never gets searched and the mall where the cinema is at is right opposite the lodge. Allegiant was fun I don’t know why they didn’t just complete the damn book, it got terrible ratings and it was a box office bomb. It wasn’t so bad joor. Next week will be Batman Vs Superman. 

Then there was executive meeting that was fun to. I would say that I am glad that I have not had the cause to talk to a lot of people here. Churchill and I had a long talk and the more time I spend with him the more I know he is completely unattainable. Of all the boys I have mentioned here he is the only one that means a lot to me. I am doomed when it comes to things of the heart, he has a girlfriend and yesterday I found out he has feelings for another girl. His love story is actually what is made for movies screen because it is almost a love triangle. He is in a catch 22 with two other girls and none of them is me. Oh well. 

Yes, the person my newest friend and I have in common is no other person than Philip; my madam’s son who I did grown up stuff with. This is definitely going to be interesting. 
Nkem Oyaghire




The Service Chronicles 16: My Junkies.  


The country has gone back in time to a period before electricity hence there was no water Papa Nkem turned on the generator to pump water and since we live on the second floor we had to wait for the water to get to the top before we could fetch and store water. 


Since I had to give my grandmother food and her medication I waited behind and went late to church. Oh by the way my grandmother is much better, she does this thing where she takes out her clothes and rearranges them she hasn’t done that since she my dad brought her from the village. Yesterday she did sure sign that she is much better.

I cooked the only food Nigerians love best; rice and made a salad, proceeded to get dressed for church. After struggling to get into my dress, the zip spoilt. I was immensely mad; I raced back upstairs and changed into another dress. 

When I finally got to church the children choir was performing and then thirty minutes after my pastor started his message. Why he decided to preach on the power of the Holy Ghost on the one day before I return to Ilorin is a mystery. As he rounded up the message he mentioned that if you couldn’t speak in tongues come forward at this point I did.  Yeah yeah, I have not received the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues and I really want to speak in tongues but I think my problem is that I have issues with faith.  Anywho after the laying of hands and all the works that come with trying to receive the Holy Ghost, surprise surprise I still can’t speak in tongues. Oh well. But something really scary happened. So this young girl was in front of the church still trying to accept the Holy Ghost, lo and behold you know this song; fall like a Mango Tree, my dears that is how she just fell and hit her head on the floor, like it was unbelievable. David said that she cried profusely after the service that her head hurt. Poor girl.

Well I got home and found out that I had flooded my room, I had opened the tap to the shower and thought I had locked it and while I was at church NEPA felt it was okay to bring the light hence I flooded my room. I mopped to exhaustion, had lunch and crawled into bed only to be woken up thirty minutes later. My uncle had come with his wife and they needed food. I didn’t sleep again.

Now, the message I couldn’t believe was from an old flame, why they keep popping up like rodents is beyond my understanding. He was all soppy and sweet let’s just say I ended up admitting to something I didn’t want to say. 

So while I waited for my uncle to finish eating, I called Boye and we had another long talk like usual. Well I got to find out something really sad and nice at the same time. It turns out that my future husband is a stoner. Let me tell you something very bizarre; junkies have a thing for me. It not something I should proudly or boldly say. But it is true, one time one of them told me it’s because there’s something addictive about me. Heck what do I know and I have to say that I usually have the most fun with them. 

While he promised to teach me how to blow trees I told him I already tried it before and I it made me cough profusely which is true, then he said I won’t have to take a drag from one he would do it for me and put it in my mouth which is just the promise of a kiss. Now I have to remember that this ridiculously fine guy who just happens to be a very bad good guy (i.e. he is bad at being good) and might have money has a girlfriend and this brings to mind some junkie I was once involved with, his name is Toby and we had tons of fun. He would come to my school and we would just drive round and he would smoke and then we would make out in his backseat while his friend Cody drove sometimes they did donuts and I would scream my head off at the backseat, I have to admit that during that semester I had too much fun, he is also the brother of a celebrity, but it all came to an end when I found out he had a very serious girlfriend. I really wonder how serious it was if he could do random stuff with another girl. During this period, it was a little bit strange for me because I usually think of myself as that girl that doesn’t roll with such fellas. I didn’t think I was cool enough for such a crew but Toby was cool and even though I cut ties with him I still miss that period of my life.  Well I would welcome this new junkie and the freedom NYSC has offered me and see how this plays out (my curiosity won’t be the death of me) 

Earlier in the day someone else sent me a what’s app message and it was a stranger who just happened to not remember how he got my number and lives in the same area as me for a brief moment I thought he was in secondary school but he isn’t. We chatted late into the night very cool nigga. Guess what he also a junkie!!! (They are creeping back into my life slowly) he also attends UniIlorin.

You won’t believe who he and I share in common.  
 Nkem Oyaghire 




The Service Chronicles 15: Big Hair and Ten Matches.  



I made my hair. Braids. I pray they last. You see my hair is stubborn and since I have decided to not disvirgin it (apply relaxer to it) I will suffer the consequences that come with having natural hair. It is usually fine on its own. 

I took sometime before going to the hairdressers. You see in the middle of the night something biological happened and I was in a lot of pain, so much pain that I actually cried. They were purely abdominal pains. The next morning while I was in the kitchen slicing some fruit (we have those every morning) my father came and prayed for me. Some pretty deep prayers. He had most likely heard me crying at night while he had his night prayers and I am sure he was worried that I had been battling some night terrors. I can’t blame him seeing as I am a perfect child and also a little bit of a daddy’s girl. Don’t be jealous. 

So I nursed my pain and trudged to the salon to begin a frightening journey. I am terrified of making my hair.  Firstly, it is painful and discomforting for the first three or so days and then the pain slowly begins to abate and I honestly hate all forms of discomfort. Secondly, I just don’t like making my hair because it always takes damn too long. My hair is too full. There was time I used to misplace stuff in it and I do not lie on this, when I was little before I ever cut my hair I would have some of my friends call me a mad woman whenever I let my hair loose and I loved it. Long and short in a few years I am that girl that can say boldly say I love you with all my hair because it is going to be bigger than my heart at the rate it is going. The point is that it usually takes up to seven hours to braid my hair (I once did my hair for two days). Well Friday was bliss because I was the only customer in the shop and all four of them put all their hands on my big hair and head and finished it in less than seven hours. 

Got home and fixed myself some food and took pills for the ache. My parents came home and the TV was kidnapped from me. Sad stuff, watched something mundane and went to bed.
No Boye still.
 **********************************************************

Saturday was relatively okay. My family had gone for a vigil the night before and had left me to stay with my grandmother (if you ask me pretty sweet deal)  and they were sleeping in.
So I arose early, and waited for instructions from the mother ship which is Mama Nkem for what to cook for breakfast. An hour later the message landed it was beans and plantain porridge. Sweet stuff. Had mine with pap, then we cooked Banga and she went shopping for some household thingys with David while my father punished me by holding on to the remote and switching it to a Chelsea game or Arsenal I can’t really remember which one. 

My mother came back and she crashed, so I served lunch and while papa Nkem and Nne (my grandmother) ate. I came to see three missed calls. Well Boye was back from where he was. And we had a beautiful conversation. The things we talked about will only remain in my head and I will not share here. I struggled with not watching T.V because my father had made it football Saturday. Its official I hate EPL. Those men will just be kicking a football around a large pitch and they will be earning millions upon millions weekly!!!! Why? It is really ridiculous that all I have to say.  Okay, I take back the hate; I just don’t want to understand it. 

My brother came back with his goons from rehearsal and made me make Semo for them and it was more football.  And more football and more football.  For a day that started great I ended up watching tons and tons of a game I don’t like or understand.  At the end of the day I cooked stew and tried to watch Saturday Night Live but Mama Nkem didn’t get the first few jokes and decided to punish me more.
She tuned the T.V to Africa Magic. I thought she was joking. Two hours later she was still on that movie that had an obvious ending just like 95% of all Nigerian movies. In anger I stormed off to bed. The truth is I would have rather watched Investigation Discovery, even all the gory stuff that may give me nightmares but no she just had to do something that would make me cry or worse reduce my IQ.  

As I tucked myself it, I got a what’s app message and I honestly didn’t expect the contents.  
Nkem Oyaghire




The Service Chronicles 14: Two Days 

I am honestly tired of staying at home and I am also loving the holiday. For almost three days I have not seen the staircase to my house. This just affirms my lack of motivation to get off my butt. I have to say although I haven’t left my house I have lost some weight, like I have said or somehow implied I am currently serving some slave time. My very very very funny mother, I think I need to add one more very. Told me to stay a few more days at home, I thought it was for something really sweet and nice, when I asked her she said so that I can help her some more. 


Chai! This is my life my people. But as we all know, we perfect children do not thrive well with disobedience and honestly I don’t think I’m ready to rush into the cramped lifestyle I live at the lodge.  
Wednesday was nonsense. I did nothing amazingly great. Was involved in some slavery and more slavery, had a few hours of break which involved more reading and sleeping. Recently I have decided to play some of the computer games I used to play with Oyinkan in 100 level and when I was depressed, bored, hungry or just being myself. In a nutshell I used to play those games a long time ago. You know the kind na, Burger Shop, Diner Dash and co. Well I’m playing them again. David and I have taken to turning on the generator earlier than usual using the pretense that our grandmother is hot. So within the hour of three we switch it on. But NEPA is a bastard sha. 

I saw a movie where Kevin Hart was a small boy; Along Came Polly (interesting stuff) and something struck me. If Kevin had said he could not take the small roles again or decided to give up early he won’t be big now. Moral lesson don’t give up on God. All of our stars are still loading and when they shine the sun would need shades. 

An Uncle I don’t like came over, well he’s my dad’s cousin but in Africa they are all the same right? He spent the night no biggie and I called Boye on the pretense to check up on him, I just wanted to hear his voice (that’s all on that).
Yesterday would have been a better day if not for my guest that didn’t show up. All my lovers out there don’t worry it was a girl. Well shit does happen, usually all the time.
I finally left my front door and it wasn’t so bad. I had to wear trousers, a Polo T-shirt and a pair of slippers and it was not fair to my body. The weather is a beast I swear. So I got out, bought my contacts and some things from a supermarket, made an appointment with the hairdressers and came home to wear weather friendly clothes. 

Oh!!! I forgot to tell you something really amazing. So I love it when I chat with people early in the morning, like around six thirty. There’s something nice about it, just lying in bed as the sun rises and you are chatting not having a telephone conversation o (my voice sounds manly in the morning). So Boye and I had this realy nice convo nothing remotely deep. Found out his age and some other things I will not say here. By the way he has not mentioned a girlfriend. I really should focus all this attention on something lucrative. No, I was joking why would I want to waste most of my mental energy on something that will give me money and make me successful in life when I came focus it on the opposite sex or something completely trivial. The other day Koch accused me of liking boys, ema gba mi am I supposed to like girls? Honestly girls are too sensitive and that is just not healthy, I know this because I am one. Also as I have mentioned before some boys like girls and I just happen to be a girl and if you look up my name in the Urban Dictionary it is said we bearers of aforementioned name are irresistible to the opposite sex. The opposite of my sex is male. So I don’t know why Koch was accusing me of liking boys like it is abnormal for me a girl in all ramifications to like a boy.  
While I was at home doing nothing in particular, that is a lie I finished Me Before You and I cried (just silent tears so that my family won’t get worried) Zonal meeting was going on somewhere in Ilorin West in a hall called Legal Studies. Ola the love of my life that I can’t marry due to certain reasons I refuse to discuss here signed my card. I owe him BIG time. 

As night time came I realized that my family had once again found a way to fag me out. Poor me. It then dawned on me that Boye had not replied or even read my last message. So I did some stalking and found out that on what’s app he had last been online around the last time we spoke (if I catch anybody judging me or raising their hairy noses at me I will call your name over the clay pot under my bed).
Have a goodnight my lovelies and I promise not to haunt your dreams. Or good morning depends on when you see this. *big smile and ten fat kisses*

Nkem Oyaghire 
 



The Service Chronicles 12: Mama Nkem 




You know how the daily routine of my life at home goes. I honestly thank God for Youth Service. My days at home just drag on. I do the same bloody routine everyday. I got to Lagos and none of my beloved friends that I left here felt it was okay to come and check on me or invite me to any of their turn ups. (I can whine all I want!). In the words of maybe the most popular and weirdest first lady we have had and may ever have in this country “there is God o!”

Let me tell you what this yeye NEPA (PHCN will never sound or look right to me) people did to me yesterday. Just as I settled down in a couch which is the second greatest furniture in the entire world after a bed I browsed through stations for a movie I could watch and I stumbled on one I have wanted to watch for a while. The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants as a matter of fact they were showing part one and two, the day was beginning to look beautiful. About thirty minutes into the first one those oloriburuku people took the light.

Argh!!!!!!! I wanted the break something that while affect NEPA, sadly they don’t have any property in my house. I will destroy something on purpose the day I will mistakenly go their office. After I had given up hope of seeing the movie those palm wine tappers brought back the light and after fifteen minutes of learning absolutely nothing in the movie, they took it again! These people really lack respect.  

I spent the rest of the day in heat and frustration if not for the amazing novel I am currently reading I may have been forced to do something I would regret, idle hands and the devil’s workshop thingamajig (real word)

My brother had friends over and they did that stupid thing people do when you ask them who is it when they ring the doorbell or knock. I hate when I ask who is it and the person has the nerve to reply “it is me”. Which of the stupid mes in the world is it? I sent them back to go and ring the bell and answer me properly.
Funny story my Pastor also came around yesterday but to pray for the grandmother and you won’t believe it. When I asked “who is it?” he replied “it is me”. I thank God for the spirit of Jesus in me, my darling beloved heavenly father and friend just told me not to yell because I honestly did not know who it was at the door and I am not a sound recognition computer. The shock I felt when I opened the door and saw my Pastor standing there. I was so grateful I didn’t yell “is me your name?” (I also do that sometimes)

In the midst of heat and turmoil my grandmother requested for hot water to have her bath; I will never understand how that will help to reduce the heat she was feeling. So David, my youngest brother decided to call my dad and ask if we could put on the gen. He was just being selfish because he wanted to play FIFA with his friends that are named me (mumu children) as he picked up the phone to call our darling farmers at NEPA brought the light. Hooray I ran to an AC and flicked it one. After about thirty minutes Mama Nkem called for David to bring her bags up from the car. 

I think it is time you met Mama Nkem, she is the person that birthed me and like most people and their mothers she has a great influence in my life and all that. Some people have said that if you have seen me then you have seen her, I don’t know how true this is because she’s older than me with like a gazillion years and this is not Jupiter Ascending (weird movie if you ask me).
Anywho that’s who my mother is, I am not giving any more information about her, there are psychos everywhere and the Internet is where they harvest their victims. With that said I am done about Mama Nkem.

So she came in brandishing a Ziploc bag of money, it was full of change I even thought it was offering from somewhere (she’s a Pastor). Lo and behold my mother told us of how a Keke Driver had damaged something on her car and he spoke rudely to her. So she disembarked from her vehicle and told the man that the cost of the repairs was about 5 grand and the man said he would use super glue to glue it. I trust Mama Nkem, she just said he should not worry that she knows where he keeps his money and she went there and scooped it all up. Hence all the change; I laughed so hard when she told me. Well she’s a typical Edo babe.

I almost did not watch Ant Man with my family because of my slavery duties while they all lounged and watched a movie I set reminder for o, I was running around like the mad hatter dishing food here and there. God help me.  After Ant Man, Mama Nkem took it to her beloved Investigation Discovery (it used to be Food Network) thankfully they were showing something we watched on Sunday but that didn’t deter her, she went to Crime Investigation, luckily for me they were showing something hilarious; My Crazy EX.

As I laughed my heart away my phone rang. 

Nkem Oyaghire



The Service Chronicles 12: Seize the Bae?



Yesterday was a day like any other, mildly depressing and quietly annoying. That happens to me a lot especially when I am at home. So let’s see, as we have all noticed I am a perfect child who wakes up rather grudgingly between 6:45 AM and 7:00 AM, does some meager chores and is left to the hand of slavery. The cleaning lady came around yesterday and she did what she needed to do. Now; Mama Nkem has adopted this system of coming to where I sleep every morning, to squeeze my legs and tell me she’s going jogging or running; whatever the activity is called. What I really don’t understand is why she feels the need to squeeze my legs, maybe some strange character told her that is how you rouse lazy people from their slumber. I’m proud to say that it hasn’t worked. It may seem strange that I am celebrating not following my mother to jog. 


My mother can be a very assertive woman so any victory I can get from not agreeing to something she wants I relish. 

I fried some eggs for my parents, grandmother and Mountain of Fire pastor Uncle and proceeded to sloth in my brothers’ room, reading my book. By the time I finally dragged myself to a bathroom it was only because I felt I smelled and it was only in my imagination. Had a breakfast of egg and cheese sandwich with a large mug of coffee. At this point I warn those people that are in the habit of calculating calories and belong to the high court of weight watchers not to calculate my food for me, my food is not a math equation and honestly I hate those people. There was this stupid boy I used to know in fact crush on (I am the Queen of Crushes if you’ve not noticed) that will be calculating my food and calling me fat. You people should not let me submit your names to my Edo Sisters.

I went back to bed. I laugh at myself because by the time I get back to Ilorin my clothes won’t fit anymore. While I was soundly sleeping and really enjoying myself; I heard the voice of no other person than MAMA NKEM!!!! Somebody please ask me why she called me. When you I tell you don’t get angry o. She wanted me to join her to watch X Factor!!!

*Sigh* my people na so I see am. Sha sha I watched it o like I have a choice?

Few hours after the show, I proceeded to bake and I baked two wonderfully delicious cakes. If you haven’t noticed then let me gist you, I am sort of a foodie and a sweet tooth. I know that is a terrible combination but this is why I love God so much. He gave me a really small stomach and I don’t mean a flat belly. A flat belly is a place very far from where I currently am (don’t judge me). Due to my sweet tooth and foodie tendencies I like to bake and cook and I really like to try my hands on different types of food. This is another hobby.  And it is also very stressful I don’t know how people like Anjiola do it every day (I know this from his snaps on snapchat). Funny story, I know a guy that described social media as a monitoring demon and if you think of it in that light he wasn’t wrong. 

Back to my pineapple and strawberry flavoured cakes it’s a pity all of you won’t get to taste it. While my cakes were in the oven I was summoned to cook Ofada rice; ladies and gentlemen I am proud to announce that I have officially cooked my first Ofada rice. Do I hear applause? 

I know I know I am too late how can I just be cooking Ofada rice at my Agbaya age? I will tell you to mind your business and not come and spoil my joy. I am learning how to cook Yoruba delicacies for my future husband. You people already know his name I don’t need to be repeating it so that he will not be sneezing in his house in Ilorin. 

Yes! Talking about that, let me tell you a story that started out sad but because Jesus loves me (I love you too Honey!!!) it has ended in joy. So Boye is a batch A Corps member and I’m in batch B and that is sad because he is passing out this April and I thought he will be returning to Niger state. I don’t know anything about Niger state but I am sure that when I move there after the wedding in France and the honeymoon in Madagascar I will love it. Anywho yesterday when we were chatting (ladies get out your dancing shoes) he mentioned he has a business thingy in Ilorin and he is not leaving immediately after Passing out Parade (POP). I am currently twerking (for Jesus o). 

I know I should not be this excited especially as he has a girlfriend and I am honestly not for that stupid seize the bae movement. I am not a home wreaker but what should I do?

Nkem Oyaghire




The Service Chronicles 11: Easter Sunday


Funny story, I noticed that my time on my phone has been exactly an hour fast. When I realized this I was really mad. I had woken up by 5: 55 AM which was actually 4:55 AM to slice some onions and wash the rice for the Easter fried rice we were supposed to cook. Only for me to look at the clock and see something that did not seem right. I rushed to my phone and set things straight and went back to sleep.

Only for Mama Nkem to interrupt me while picking a wedding dress in my dream. Anywho I awakened and did the perfect child duties without a grumble. My parents left for church and I didn’t. I had to stay home with my grandmother in case she needed anything. 

Which thankfully she didn’t; she mostly slept. So while she dozed I regaled myself with back to back episodes of Big Bang Theory. It’s on my “to download list” but the lack of sufficient money and free WIFI has shortened my download urges. Poverty is indeed a bastard. 

After a while I nodded off only to be awakened by the bell, Papa Nkem was on the other side of the door. After he had settled down I offered him his food and tried to continue sleeping to no avail. Mama Nkem also stormed in and demanded food. Poor me. 

I still tried to grab some sleep but no the devil just had to disrupt my lazy Sunday; an Uncle came over so I served more food. This Uncle has said the funniest prayer point I have ever heard in my life. One day his family comes to my house, he is Aunty Philo’s husband and then when they are leaving he leads us in some deeeeeeep prayer points one of which is. I take a break to warn you that you should not try this alone at home do it in your church in the presence of your pastor. So he asked us to say too those enemies “you do me I no know, you do me I know, fall down and die” at this point my younger brother; Uche and I exchange a look and stifle our laughter and begin to pray. He is a Mountain of Fire pastor so it is only expected that he knows these kinds of prayers.

As I retreated to my hideaway from my slavery duties; I started to chat with an old flame turned friend and the mixed signals I was getting from him were a little bit weird, but with the lord on my side I didn’t slide into the temptation of concocting scenarios in my head. You know the kind of images we girls like to have especially of that Ex we just couldn’t and still can’t get enough of. Where we hope he realizes that we are the reason for his existence and without us he will just be an empty husk of himself and until he has begged and scraped his metaphorical knees on the metaphorical threshold of our heart that has in the words of my senior sister Aunty Adele melted to stone. These images are the kind I advise we avoid. Once they start to create themselves quickly swerve your train of thought because it is heading to Heartbreak Hotel where you already have a Presidential Suite. So I quickly avoided these images. 

Now there is a problem. You know how sometimes you are great with people on Social media and then in real life you guys can’t even hold eye contact talk less of a real conversation. Well the reverse is the case with Boye, like we really flow in real life and during telephone conversations but our social media life needs Vitamin E,A,B,C, D and all the good vitamins that helps with growth. Like how can we suck at this? This I will take as a sign that we will spend a lot of time together with our phones discarded (now I really kid.)  
So I have this thing where I read novels, it’s called a hobby for those of you who don’t know. Yes, I am a nerd. Hooray for me and all that mess. This book I am currently reading is the one I mentioned like three episodes ago; Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and it is amazingly interesting. If you don’t believe in romance don’t read it!!! I know some of you cynical people will be acting like boss ass bitches and bad boys; with your noses in the air at the mention of all the things that come with a proper love story. I am here to preach to you that you are missing out on the beauties of romance.

I would also say that you should not mind me; I am currently exploring the singularity of life (not voluntarily.)
Guys I have a dilemma. My mummy is obsessed with Investigation Discovery and they have all these evil and sinister shows and she will na gather us in the palour and tell us to watch. Tell me how am I not supposed to have nightmares? And my daddy will be concurring with phrases like “mankind’s evil know no bounds”. It is really frightening. When she switches to other stations it is quite shocking, I thought we paid for only Investigation Discovery. 

I have to go now Boye just asked me what is my idea of wonderful jewelry and I am about to explain in beautiful detail the engagement ring I want so that he won’t make a mistake when he surprises me with it when we travel to Venice for our fourth anniversary.  

Nkem Oyaghire



The Service Chronicles 10: Ordinary Saturday 
Yes he did call after a week and all that. I was a little bit happy. Okay I just lied, I did a full spilt and like ten somersaults. More lies. I was just happy. 

My darling mother woke me up by six am on a weekend! To make matters worse. She asked me to pick and cook beans. Since I am the epitome of the perfect child, I really am; I obeyed her.  
The perfect child doesn’t get in too much trouble just enough trouble that can be easily forgiven. The perfect child can sometimes be a kiss ass (don’t do it all the time), the prefect child is the joy of their parents. All of you black sheep should better change your ways. Since I am perfect child I fall into this very small bracket. So I woke up early and obliged my mother; I started picking the beans as she went for a run. 

If I were the opposite of a bad child I will just go back to bed and start picking the beans when my mother rings the bell and I know some of you would do that. No judgments from we perfect children, our message to you is change your ways. 

I picked the beans and cooked it with the huge interference of Mama Nkem. After that I served my grandmother who needed to take her meds and aunty who was on her way back to her house. The day was uncharacteristically boring. It was a Saturday and my life is full of boredom, I really don’t know what else I was expecting. 

While I was surfing the internet for nothing in particular I saw something interesting. It was the ad for a writing competition; I have never really being in one so I decided to write. Now the problem was picking what topic to write on, in my head it was either marital rape or the trails of widows. But as the Good Lord would have it I had an idea while I was arranging Onions in the store and my mother was reprimanding me (as usual) for something that is really not an issue but because I like to feel like a feminist sometimes it is an issue to me.  

My Uncle’s wife arrived at my house with her fifth child (all her children are below twelve) early in the morning, she had come to take care of my grandmother and honestly she did a good job of that. For crying out loud she made this dope as pepper soup. This baby is the only child that does not look like an Oyaghire and he is really cute (Oyaghires are really cute, have you seen me?). So while three of us were in the kitchen (Mama Nkem, Aunty Philo and I) I referred to my uncle’s wife as Aunty Philo and my mother gave me a two sentence lecture. 

“You should call her Mama Genesis (the name of her first child) and don’t say her name.”  First things first when you name your first child Genesis you are tempting God. He might just give you too many children.
Okay, back to the story. I know I know. We are in Africa and I should have respect for my elders by not calling them by their birth names. I get this, but why would Aunty Philo or Mama Nkem dump their original names because they birthed a bunch of children. Women who are childless nko? What will na happen to them. (You see this feminist nonsense has come up). So I wrote on that and my story got accepted.  I even wrote about this in my project. To view the story click here, like and comment so that I can win. I honestly promise to share the proceedings with you guys. 

I know we are all waiting to hear what happened with Boye. So when I was ready for bed; after I had had a shower, done all my slave work (my chores feels like slavery because I am admirably and incredibly lazy) for the day and was ready to dream of my upcoming wedding with the dark handsome ( I really like dark boys) stranger in my future. I decide to call Boye. Oh my! Did we talk… all those people saying i won’t marry him, don’t let me use Edo witchcraft on you. Yes! Before I forget there is something extra that is sexy about him. He speaks Hausa!!!!!! Bad belles may say big deal and I will say to you haters go and die. And I mean it. In the words of a great woman by name of Oyinkan Daramola “haters gonna hate and potatoes gonna potate”
(I really don’t understand that last part).

As we wrapped up our conversations he asked for a way to communicate with me via social media, for us to discuss our wedding plans and what we will name our children. *big smile*
Just as I as I was picking my wedding dress I heard the voice of no other person than my mother

“Young Lady wake up!!!”
Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicles 9: Good Friday


Yesterday was Good Friday. It was not so bad. I went to hospital to stay with my grandmother who has been discharged by the way. When I left my house I wouldn’t have thought that I would be scouring the streets in earnest search for Akara. I had to buy some for my grandmother to eat with her Pap. Like really! It is Akara and I walked up and down the whole of Godmon Street; my street in search for something I always take as immensely trivial. 


Called Mama Nkem that I didn’t see any Akara o, she advised me to just go to the hospital and buy Moimoi at a restaurant near the hospital only for me to take a bike to Isolo and see Akara on my way but the bike was going too fast. At Isolo I still said I should look for Akara at least there’s a market in the vicinity I must see Akara. To my beautiful surprise still no Akara! 
The way I entered the Keke and yelled Aye bus stop, I must have frightened the other passengers. When I got to the restaurant I just knew they were chasing me from somewhere. They just had to be chasing me, how else will you explain that of all the things not ready in the restaurant Moimoi just happened to be it? I called Mama Nkem again because my cognitive sense of reasoning had been fried. It has been fried since I got to Lagos. Honestly the weather here is worse than in Ilorin and I do not lie or exaggerate on this. Then she advised I buy beans! Surprise surprise they had beans, I rushed to the hospital because old people can be cranky and its worse when they are ill. 
Upon entering the building I stumbled upon a ghost of my past. It’s not like she was of great importance or something of that sort, she’s just really fair, she is fairer than anybody I know; heck her nickname is Jennifer White and then she had blue contacts on. Really ghostly combination. I said a curt hello and moved on.
Served Nne; my grandmother her breakfast and went to buy coffee and milk for myself. I began another long walk; firstly I entered some GiGi supermarket, got St Louis sugar (I thought it had been banned) and a cupcake, while in the supermarket I heard the coolest retelling of the story of Esther in the bible on Naija Fm. Then began the longest search for a mallam, I eventually found one after I lost hundred pounds. I hurried back to the hospital and ate. Whipped out my laptop and to my chagrin found out I didn’t come with my charger.  Hmm, they were chasing me and this confirmed it. Decided to nap but the other patient in the room had a noisy senior brother who will not stop crying, I don’t understand what the deal is with children and constantly crying. Somebody should do a tutorial before they come down to earth and tell them it stops being cute the moment you can talk and crying never solves anything. 
A few hours into my lethargic nap my grandmother knocks on my head and tells me to go and buy her food, to this I call my mother and inquire for the whereabouts of her son; my father and Mama Nkem replies that she’s on her way with lunch. 
When she gets here; Nne eats well (a very good sign) and my mother sends me on my way to buy something scary. Mama Nkem sent me to buy live chickens. Hahahahahaha; what a nightmare. So I dragged David; my youngest brother along and we went Chicken hunting at Cele market. He picks two good ones, I dared not touch them. Fear won’t let me.

Our chickens were cleaned and we headed home. As I got home I marinated them and did some other stuff. As I lay down to rest my beautiful (I’m allowed to be vain) but weary self my phone rang. My mother needed me to start cooking and I just started to feel bad for all the housewives out there. Those women are really trying. What am I saying? All women try joor (okay, so that they will not say I’m only for the women) you men try too.
So I rose from my comfy position on the couch. By the way I love couches, when I get married somebody should please buy me an all-white couch I don’t care for what is inside because it is for only aesthetic purposes and those that really love me should buy me a couch I can desecrate with all manner of lazy acts preferably brown.

Okay, back to the matter at hand. I went to cook a pot of Jollof rice. Blah blah blah, more like abracadabra the food was ready and we ate. My aunt just got back and my grandmother got discharged at night. The house was full. As usual like the undead I staggered to bed.

Hold on my phone just rang and caller ID says Boye (zonal meeting guy) and I sigh deeply with finally on my lips and decide to act coy. I miss the call.  

Nkem Oyaghire




The Service Chronicles 8: RIP Rose 


Wednesday was spent in the hospital by my grandmother’s side. She is ill. Old people sickness; nothing and something serious. She should be discharged by tomorrow. I spent most of my time watching trailers and downloading more episodes of New Girl. I have successfully almost finished 3GB in less than a week. Well it has all been for a good cause. I saw the trailer of this movie; Me before You. Now I have managed to make myself anxious for a movie that won’t be released until June. I will read the book in the in the long period of my wait. Game of Throners; Daenerys Targaryen is in it. After my perusal of the internet I napped a little. I got home by six whipped up something in the kitchen and after Chronicles of Nrania; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I went to bed. The day in general was a little bit mundane.

The next day; Thursday was supposed to be blissful. I spent most of the day indoors. Went to get David’s result; he passed. As usual.  As I was about to take a nap, I saw something that blew the ground from beneath my feet. It was the picture of a former course mate and the PM read RIP.
I quickly called one of her friends and she confirmed it.

Rosemary Nkanta is dead.  She had died as a result of an accident on her way back from a musical concert at our Alma Mater. 

The first time I had noticed her was in 100 level. Dr. Ekpe (he was just Mr. then) walked into the class and as if he recognized her as a star he just pointed at her and said you will be my course rep and just like that she became the class president. Over four years she shone bright like a star. Leading the class academically and in all ways possible and like every leader she had problems with people but that didn’t diminish her star power. She ignored all our complaints of her “meanness” and still did what was necessary even if it didn’t sit right with the rest of the class. She was a true leader who never let the stones of our words get to her.
In church she was flying high. If you heard her sing, you just might catch a glimpse of God. She opened her mouth and melodies poured out.  I lived opposite her one time and I looked forward to times when she would serenade all the blocks within her vocal range.  She was a wise girl. Sorry woman and for the first time in a long time I cried. For how will a girl who had such a bright future, a future so bright that the sun had nothing on its brightness just go like that?

She was somebody I sometimes aspired to be. She was a beacon of aspiration for a lot of people who may have never admitted it but know it deep down themselves they know this.

Her death has put my life in a little perspective. If she who seemed to be so close to God, what about we who are far from perfect in His sight and still alive? We should wake up grateful for each and every day that we wake up and pray that we will be ready when we are called home.  I still see her with her long hair packed at the nape of her neck as she hashes out issues in class and tries to reason some things with us. I see her walk on that stage and collect her handshake for graduating at the top of the class with her first class that she worked immensely hard for.We were not the closest of friends or anything close to that, nonetheless I would still miss her.

Rosemary Nkanta in all ramifications of this phrase as a good person, she deserved to see God and if we want to view death as an escape from this miserable earth to a blissful heaven. Then I would say it’s all good. For as we Christians like to say God is in control. For his word says in Romans chapter 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”. Rosemary is gone and as it is said we should give thanks in all things.

She was a beautiful girl who was very intelligent and had the voice of a angel and the charisma of a leader. I will definitely miss you. Go and join the chorus in heaven they have been waiting for you. 

The rest of the day was spent like every other normal day that lacks major activity. I watched some T.V the get distracted, had a long telephone conversation (okay it was whatsapp call but still telephone ish) with Oyinkan; she is Bae. Cooked dinner and went to bed. I know that I mentioned being frightened of letting an old flame back into my life, all of this I will discuss in the next post. 

Nkem Oyaghire 



The Service Chronicles 7: Journey Travailing

I awoke with joy because I was going home but then I remembered I had to fetch water, grudgingly I dragged myself out of bed looked for a bucket for five minutes. I really need to buy one. 

Got to the well and met Michael; a fellow at the lodge sewing the pail used for fetching by the time he was done we were two people waiting for him and all three of us went to the well only to be greeted by sand, there was no water in the well. I never thought I would see such a wonder, an empty well. All my life I thought empty wells were things that only happened in the bible times; Ilorin has once again managed to prove me wrong.

I ran to a tank and quickly got water from no other person than my water hero; Nnamdi. Had a hurried bath, finished my packing and joined devotion. After devotion said my goodbyes, still performed an ACF duty and ran to the park where Layo and Priye were almost impatiently waiting for me. Layo is a wonderful woman whom men have forced to be a polyandrist (not a real word?) and she really doesn’t want to be, I call her CLI (this is the nickname given to whomever is dating any CLO of any LGA) seeing as we like to tease her and call her the wife; wife o not girlfriend of the almost new CLO (Corper’s Liaison Officer) of Ilorin South. Priye is a friend of Layo’s, very pretty girl and she’s cool, I just met her yesterday.  While we waited for our bus to get full, Priye and I had this ultimate craving for puff puff. So a mini hunt began and right there on Unity road in front of Young Legacy (the bus park) we eagerly and patiently waited for a hawker of puff puff to pass by. Upon sighting one we again waited patiently for him to make his way over to us. Only for him to go another way, the way we yelled for him to come to us was a little bit frightening. In our defense we needed our fix and we had to get it immediately.  Few minutes after that we were on our jolly way to Lagos, immediately we got out of Ilorin I fell into a deep sleep only to be awaken to the screech of tires. 

The driver of the bus was apparently weaving his way between tankers. This man was a Yoruba James Bond. I was thoroughly frightened, every tanker we saw this man managed to overtake them. The pleas of the passengers didn’t stop him. He was on a mission and there was no way the fearful pleas of the people whose lives he could end by mistakenly crashing the bus would stop him; like I said Yoruba James Bond.  As we proceeded on our plane ride (the driver was going too fast for a bus) Layo, Priye and I played a little game where we imagined what we would have done if we had been posted to any of the village schools we passed. It was fun, it may not sound like much fun but what were we supposed to use to entertain ourselves? We couldn’t exactly play a game where we would guess the tanker our driver would hit, that would have been too mundane. Then we saw someone on his Khaki and imagined he had gone to get his final clearance. Fun stuff. 

About thirty minutes from Ibadan there’s this park were all buses stop for passengers to disembark and stretch their legs. Till now I don’t know the name of that place all I know is that it was the first place I ever saw orange bananas. When we got down we hurriedly paid for a twenty-naira-per-person toilet and got in. The guy in the Khaki apparently didn’t go and get his clearance he was journeying like us.
In another one and a half hours we were in Lagos, Yoruba James Bond/pilot had performed his magic. Only for us to enter Lagos and see all the traffic we skipped from Kwara, it took me two hours to get to my house from Berger. Imagine! Well I still love Lagos regardless of all her operating demons like bad roads, traffic and LASMA among many others. For crying out loud the only time I see serious traffic in Ilorin is when the train is passing. 

I got home in time and dragged my weary body to the bathroom. No DSTV subscription the bloody thing expired as I began the journey. Which is not fair; for three months or so I have being deprived of the luxury of proper cable TV. Only for my expectations to be cut short.

I watched some episodes of New Girl and Once Upon a Time; tried to download more but to no avail I was not successful. Jessica Day is my role model; she is almost everything I want to be.  But that cannot be seeing as she is completely fictional.
As my eyes drifted off to sleep, a message I saw jolted me awake. It seems to be that something is about to begin with an old flame and I’m a tad bit frightened.   

Nkem Oyaghire




The Service Chronicles 6: Fatigue

And just like the last time the text that came was from the only man that truly loves me. My bae, my one in a million, he gives me credit and is everywhere I go. His yellow countenance and complexion is his most definitive feature. It was none other than my yellow bobo; MTN.

Dejectedly I dropped my phone who also happens to be my bestie. Off to bed to prepare for what I didn’t know would be a torrible (terrible+horrible) Monday. 


I rose bright (not so bright it was 5:50 AM) and early to the sound of Ada yelling in consonance to the clanging of the bell “it’s time for Morning devotion” and in my head I sighed more than a million times. Heck I got up, trudged to church and just went through the motions. After devotion I tried to get water for a bath but no, Ilorin just has to be dry socially and weatherly (I’m not sure that is a real word). I have never seen such extreme water scarcity conditions not even when I schooled in Sagamu. 
As our buckets lined in front of a tank that trickled water God sent down the rain. I am sad to say I did what you suspect. I had my bath with rain water, I had pledged not to do it again after the hundredth time of bathing with rain water but what could a girl have done, I really had no choice. It was either rain water or no bath and I’d rather bathe with sandy-rain-water-that-requires-extreme-sieving than not bathe at all. Nobody should judge me o. I’m sure we are all guilty of playing naked in the rain and doing worse things with rain water.

Having done all that was necessary, I stepped out to do my recording of those stupid figures. This stupid recording experience has only succeeded in making me hate maths more. To school I marched and faced those booklets. Sixty five of them recorded in less than three hours; such a great accomplishment. This I did on an empty stomach. I proceeded to the Local Government office to write my name for something I have no understanding of. I spent one hundred naira to go and write eighteen letters including my signature. Rushed to the house of a friend; Ola to drop my CDS card and fled back to them dreaded booklets. By Four thirty I was done, thoroughly exhausted and defeated and still all I had eaten was three packets of Beloxxi and one Big Lemon. I was famished. For a person that loves food I had gone too long without a proper meal and my stomach was beginning to fan my temper and my impatience was ready to start dancing on my head. I was really frustrated.

Went to Shoprite to get some pretty mugs and this people gave me ten Naira change in coins. Omashe o! Headed back home and did the slides of Churchill’s VS (lodge program). This particular program happens almost every night, a member of the outgoing batch gets interrogated by the house and I create the slides that display their bio and pictures. Now this was a tricky night because it was Churchill’s turn to be interrogated. Churchill is the kinda guy that girls usually like, and me that cannot help it when somebody is tall, dark, and handsome (yes I follow that stereotype) and smart too could not resist being drawn to him. So we became close and this was the night he would be asked very sensitive questions especially as he has a girlfriend and is tight buddies with me and other girls too. This is why the fuss that was being caused about us was completely unreasonable.

Luckily for me the person who normally asks the questions that can make a person squirm had gone to make noodles for me, so she couldn’t ask him about his relationship with me, which I have to say is a serious one. It is seriously platonic.  The night went fairly nice and then the executive board had a meeting which I happen to be on. I have to say something at this point. It is like I have been cursed to be responsible in this life. Everywhere I go I manage to find responsibility thrust on me, the other day at CDS I narrowly escaped being an executive. Not that I don’t like it but can’t a girl aspire to be reckless at a certain stage in her almost boring life.

Anywho the meeting went by fast, maybe this is because I spent a great part of it eating my noodles that were completely soggy and white. Nothing worse than soggy noodles I tell you. But in the state I was in if you had given me sand and said it  a kind of salad that is indigenous to people that live in the Sahara (do people live in the Sahara?) I would have considered guzzling it.
After the meeting I dragged my weary container of a body to a bed and collapsed on it.  In my sleepy hazy state I heard the words “don’t mind her, she’s always with that nonsense boy” and somewhere in my mind I seriously tried to stay awake to do amebo but sleep wanted to possess me so I let it do just that.

But seriously you guys should drop comments
Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicles 5: Concert Night


The text said “Leave him alone”; it was a big shock because from all indications I was not with anybody’s him. Let me tell you something that you may not know; I like trouble a little bit too much, so much that I like the Lenka song Trouble; download it if you like trouble it makes a great soundtrack for marching boldly into any situation that smells like trouble. 

So as I dialed this person that had the audacity to send me such a cryptic message, Trouble played in the background in my mind. When the person picked I spoke in the iciest way I could possibly speak to anybody and that was a challenge because I can be all sunny and cheerful all the time (tragic flaw of mine). 


“Hello who is this?” I inquired from the strange person on the line and a girl that sounded like a rabbit replied it’s "Mosun”

I said “you sent me a text message”

This opened a flood gates of insults from this rabbit voiced girl to which I replied with torrents of insults too; after a few minutes of interrogating each other (with my credit o) it was discovered that the message had been sent to a wrong number; me in this case. My new enemy and I parted ways and I finally headed to bed.
***************************************************************************
Service on Palm Sunday was a blast and after the one hour service (don’t you just love orthodox services) I ran to the lodge to begin my frenzied typing. I had to create more slides for the concert I had invited Boye to. After looking and acting like a mad scientist, I rushed to get ready for the concert keeping in mind that Boye might be coming and I would see a boy I had been successfully ignoring for weeks.  The boy has been named Pixie Tobi by all of us in my head.

Like really, why this guy with Pixie-like ears would not cease from asking me if I like clubbing is making me wonder about myself. At least respect the fact that you met me in a church. But no! He wants to get to know me while I grind him; like my butt would tell him all he needs to know about me or he expects me to yell all my hobbies while E fe Jo Ku is blared from speakers taller than me. Oh no! Biko; I am not that type of girl.
The first time this guy met me was at his church I where I went to represent the fellowship; Anglican Corpers’ Fellowship (ACF) on mothers’ day and this guy stared so much. I could honestly feel myself being stripped in his mind and we were in church! After the service he had the balls to send an usher my way I sent the poor usher back to him and told him to tell the ballsy imp to come tell me by himself if he wanted to see me. Only for me to give him my number to get him off my back and this Pixie of a boy starts to invite me to all the clubs in Ilorin. Me that I don’t know anything and anywhere here.
So with all these in mind I dressed the way a good girl trying to look hot and maybe slutty would.  Okay not so slutty but you get the image. I just tried to look good joor.
To church I headed with my hair in a stylish mess, a chiffon top and a faux leather skirt with white soled flats ready to storm St James Anglican church with my slides. As I stepped into the compound I saw Tobi Pixie (he has pixie ears for real). Well he gave some sort of wave and I threw some sort of wave back to him.
As the concert started I noticed I needed an app to make my work better, thus began my running around. Right there I began my tutorial and practical on Easy Worship and the name is a lie, there is nothing easy about it. Trust me, this is firsthand information. 

As I was still trying to deal with this incident my phone started to buzz, lo and behold; Boye!!!

Without hesitation I dropped my duties (okay not that quickly) picked my call and in five minutes Boye appeared. He couldn’t stay for the entire service for some silly reasons. Now the beautiful part of this is that when Boye came he drove into the church compound (yes he has car) and I was in the front seat and guess who saw me properly? Yup, you guessed right none other than Pixie Tobi. Yes let him know that… okay I don’t know what I want him to know but he should just know whatever it is he wants to know.
The concert was a blast, I felt slightly bad that I didn’t do enough publicity  especially as I happen to be the Assistant PRO, nonetheless the concert slayed and at the end of it to all I went to bed happy for the person whose shoulders it mainly rested on; Churchill. For the grin I saw on his face made all those sleepless night he had made it worth it for him, all those days we couldn’t hang because he needed to “practice” had paid off.
I’m still waiting for a reply to the thank you text I sent.
And my phone buzzed. 

Nkem Oyaghire.




The Service Chronicles 4: Telephone Conversation
Yes he has a girlfriend and I know her. Very sweet girl had a chat with her once. She had been stranded one night and had to crash at the lodge. We had a talk about natural hair and stuff that is good for it (yes, it’s true I joined the natural hair movement and it is not easy.) In general she is a good girl.

When Godswill told me about her I was a little bit disappointed. I am also wondering as you’re; why I would be disappointed after all he is just a guy that took my number and calls me every other day, but we also know that when we meet an incredibly cute guy (and he is really cute) we begin to pray deep down that he is unattached and that he has never ever been involved with any girl in the past who can rear up her head and destroy your new found joy.  But this never ever happens and this case is no different.

By nine-thirty I had to fulfill my librarian duties at the lodge. Funny story; my library is in the male section of the lodge. When I found out I did a secret dance, secret because people cannot know I’m a pervert. Don’t tell anybody. So on this particular occasion of fulfilling librarian duties, something exciting happened in my drab office. I walked in on two guys who were kinda naked. One was shirtless and damn! He is hot. I will not stop calling him hot stuff. (I just broke into a sweat remembering him shirtless.) O! Lord I’m a sinner, do forgive me. The other guy I think only had on a pair of boxer shorts and he was so shy. I think he is really cute; he’s like a big fuzzy bear and this I do not lie about this. He is my police baby, this is because he studied Criminology. 

To get over my disappointment of the girlfriend and to get the image of Hot stuff out of my mind I did the most grown up thing I could think of and buried myself in work. So after lazing about for a few hours; after all it was a Saturday and I deserve to be extra lazy on a weekend. I headed to school to rectify some mistakes in my recording. That was to be expected, I really hate figures and not to make a mistake when handling so many of them would be as shocking as a second virgin birth. 

After correcting my recording errors I proceeded to record the marks in their report sheet only to be slapped in the face by bad news. At the school where I teach; when exams are over there is a rush for the report booklets. Teachers immediately want their scores to be recorded so that they can dust their hands off them early. On Friday in a bid to be done with all of this recording mess I had rushed to the VP Academic’s office feeling really fly. In my mind I had beat all the other teachers to the chase. 

Saw some of the desired booklets, while searching for the others I was shooed away by some old lady in a language I couldn’t understand. I still felt good; I had gotten some of the required booklets. This is why yesterday I was so angry, after correcting my errors I noticed that the booklets I had lugged halfway across the school while refusing the assistance of students were not the correct ones. They were for a higher class, but the bloody booklets had been tagged SS1A while they for girls in SS2A. This was a moment where I would have broken all the walls in my office just with the heat that my anger will cause and run without touching the ground to the house of the class teacher and rip out each of his fingers for improperly labeling the booklets. But my only super ability is maybe good guesswork and I think every other human has that. Sad stuff.

To my lodge I trudged back, completely dejected and depressed. To my power point I returned to prepare the next slide. I create the slides for a program at the lodge.
After the night devotion I decided to sit outside and enjoy the night breeze when I found myself dialing a certain number. Before my brain yelled no the voice from the other side said “hello”. 


My hand had dialed Boye!

Oh my. We talked. That was the best twenty three minutes of the week. Apparently he likes cake with weed. That is what I will bake for our wedding. The conversation was crazy fun and interesting. It’s a pity we can only be friends.  As we said our goodnights with me being extremely grateful to GLO for the free credit that made it all possible, I invited him for a concert we are holding at the lodge. He said he would do his best.

As I dropped the call, a text came in that will change it all.

Your Comments will be highly appreciated.
Nkem Oyaghire





The Service Chronicle 3: The Girlfriend 


I ran to my phone. It was almost impossible because of the distance of my phone to me. Like I had to do a high jump over the pool of bodies seeing a movie, answer a question from a huge obstacle of a person and beg for everybody to be quiet; that was the one that was very hard but in the end I travailed. Why fate had decided I would not answer the call I would not know until I picked up the phone.

It was QES (Queen Elizabeth School) pest. You know those people that have made it their life goal to call you every two hours and really have nothing to say, those people that just want to hear you breathe. Those annoying guys that make you wish telephones were never created. Well this was one and I did the best thing these EVIL pests deserve. I won’t even bother to tell you how I met him. I ignored it and slowly limped back (I had gotten a sprain from the high jump. I’m too short to be trying myself like that) to where I was daydreaming.

When I felt the need to get up and go to work it was ten thirty, Sound of Music is bae. 

The adjective to describe the level of fatigue I feel has not been created. I am tres tired. For the past two days I have been working like a banker. Almost six hours with little or no food, writing numbers and calculating scores. I don’t have a brain for numbers so it is a mystery how I have not started to see things. I really hate digits only if they are in my alerts or bank account or purse. You get this. Only difference between me and a banker right now is I don’t earn quarter of how much they do. If anybody had told me grading and recording scripts would have been this herculean in nature I would have thrown a car at them; before I proceed to beat them for uttering such a fallacy.  But here I am nursing a sore arm, sore eyes, sore butt, sore brains and a very sore and angry stomach. If I had gotten hit by a car I would understand all this soreness but it’s just scripts I’m marking. This has managed to increase the level of respect I have for teachers. They really do try. After trying to decipher the rubbish one may have written they will still have to fight with their conscience and give marks higher than you deserve.

So here I am neck, shoulder and head deep in the river of one hundred and twenty five scripts; honestly wondering why I ever agreed to serve as a teacher, when my phone rings. Expecting it to be another unwanted call I didn’t aim for it with as much enthusiasm as I have been doing recently.  Lo and behold it was Boye (Zonal meeting guy), I didn’t have time to bust a move, that will be saved for after the call, so I answered in the most non-committal way. We can’t have him thinking that I have been waiting.
I promise you that it was the first best part of yesterday. I was so excited I think I mistakenly added some marks to some students. Abeg it is their luck. Still riding on euphoria I came home and got a shocker.
Earlier in the day before Sound of Music, right after I ignored the call from QES pest I had a rift with someone. Now I know how this might sound, I had a rift with another person just on Wednesday but you really can’t blame me if people keep annoying me and I honestly felt bad for the things I said on both occasions.

Now this recent quarrel was not a big deal just people with completely different attitudes clashing. For crying out loud I live in a Corpers’ Lodge with about forty four other people, such things are bound to happen. So I had completely forgotten about it, only for me to come back from my shift at my teaching job that seems like that of a banker’s. I greeted the person in question and met a wall of steel. I can be very irrational at times and it is not a good thing, but I need an Achilles’ heel and this is one. So I flew off the handle and refused to say sorry, after all it was a really silly issue and she annoyed me too. Long story short I apologized. I am also a good person (this is very true).

Later at night I got a bombshell. Remember that Boye knows someone at this lodge. Well I was asking about him from this fellow in particular and he let it slip that (ladies at this point grab your tissues) Zonal meeting guy; Boye has a girlfriend, to make matters worse. I know her.  

Your comments will be highly appreciated.  
Nkem Oyaghire.



 




The Service Chronicles 2: Queen Elizabeth boys
As I stared at the message on my phone my heart kicked into gear five. OMG! Could this be real? Patience is a virtue that I lack and I refuse to practice that delayed gratification nonsense. So I quickly opened the message expecting to see the promise of love and smell the budding roses of romance that this was becoming. Who would have thought that zonal meeting guy would be so forthcoming? You know how fine boys can be, because their mirrors has told them an amazing secret they will not let the hearts of hopeful romantics like us rest. Which is why a message so soon after a call made me hear wedding bells in the distance, maybe five or ten years distance but a distance of some kind. (This time I kid not).

 I clicked open only for me to see MTN offering me some stupid bonus offer. Ah!!!!!!!!!!!

No amount of exclamation marks can express my anger at this people. Why would they do this to me? I tried to use my phone to break the wall but I remembered how long I would have to beg my father for a new one and my allawee CANNOT be violated by this. Even if I decided to save from it, by the time I’m done with service I will still come up short. So I just smiled and said to myself; maybe next time.

Four hours later I found myself in school furiously marking scripts and wondering where I had gone wrong. How am I supposed to feel when after grading about fifty scripts only five people get the pass mark of thirty five? I take things personally and personally I have to say that I hate it when the people I teach fail.
For crying out loud, for three months I continuously asked “do you understand me?” I would do the war dance of the native Indians, do the walk of the people of my village and almost speak the speech of Ilorin people to get the message of my lesson across to the minds of the thirteen to nineteen year olds that I teach, but still all this did not clear the path for my lessons.

I am tired of serving my country. The pittance of a salary and the failings of our educational system have me befuddled and a teeny weeny bit frostrated (a student spelt frustrated that way).
To avoid getting stupid by transfer from reading all those ridiculous answers. Like really? How hard is it to give the meaning of “Purification”.

I decided to go my madam’s house to chill and I met a nightmare. 
You see boys have a thing for me and vice versa (I really do need help). My bad! Boys have a thing for girls. My bad again! Some boys have a thing for girls. 

Let me tell you this quick story that will introduce you another one of the men in my life. you would think I had some great pheromone. So one time, like on this extremely hot day in January; as I was leaving the school compound, I saw two of my madam’s sons. She has three. Very long story cut short I ended up following the eldest one to his house and emm... grown up things happened. I have to confess that I felt really bad after that and I prayed really hard. If I were Catholic I would have done a hundred Hail Marys but I have to stick to faith and strongly believe that God heard me.

After the grown up stuff, this guy chooses not to call me, which was aii (I’m allowed to use text lingo). I broke one of the almighty rules (which is sometimes a stupid rule ) and called him first; I have to live on the edge occasionally and I really could not take the stupid suspense anymore (patience is not my greatest gift). After a couple of telephone conversations he said something immensely nasty. I really can’t say it here, just know that it was a very bad phrase. Honestly it is not his fault; I woke up that demon by calling first.
So I was angry and hoped never to see him again. Only for me to step on the threshold of the house and the first thing I hear from the mouth of Philip (his name by the way) is
“No way!”

Quickly said hello to the rest of the people there, asked for their mum as she was not in school and proceeded to run away. Only for Philip to chase me and give me a really long speech on how he was sorry.
The only thing I got from that was the promise of a date, which honestly I expect to be broken.

Headed back to the dreaded scripts, heck I love my students but why break my heart thus? By five thirty I noticed that my eyes were seeing five lines in place of one. Packed up shop and headed back to the lodge, where it was just another cool evening (only because it rained. Ilorin is very hot) with me spending my time judiciously by doing absolutely nothing while Jazz played in the background; I love me some Jazz music. I don’t understand hardworking people. Why won’t you just sloth around. I promise it’s a lot of fun.
Now this is me reporting live from the venue of my latest disappointment; Zonal meeting guy has not called. Am I being too expectant?
My phone just rang.  *smiles*

Nkem Oyaghire 







The Service Chronicles 1:The Zonal Meeting Guy

Yesterday was Community Development  Service (CDS) and I got there pretty late. Just as the Anthem was being recited, which is the last thing we do at every meeting. Very late; my kitchen duties won’t have let me leave earlier and although I could have rushed immediately I had finished cooking and just gone to CDS early, it just wasn’t worth my time or me forfeiting my make-up session. I also had to listen to Churchill play. He is so talented; why he thinks Julliard is unattainable is highly unreasonable, because when he strums those keys, angels actually descend. Okay, maybe that's a little bit too much, but you get my point.

Anywho immediately I got to CDS with my friends it was over. Hooray for me.  Was about to go and sulk somewhere, then I saw him. It was the Zonal meeting guy. I finally understood why I had to take so long in applying my face with things that are supposed to make me look prettier. You know make-up thingys. He is Zonal meeting guy because the first time I saw him it was at that hellish thing called a zonal meeting and on that day he made waiting for three miserable hours (it is usually longer than that but i got there late) worth it. 

Since then I have seen him on all occasions I have had to wear my Khaki.  Well right beside him stood a friend from the lodge; Koch. After crossing all the obstacles that are women and their baby bumps or their babies on their backs (this is the kind my CDS is riddled with), I finally got to where Koch stood, said hello to Koch and decided to speak to Zonal meeting guy. Didn't even ask Koch if he had submitted my card. All I wanted to do was to talk to him.
This is why I can't remember when I said “Hi”
And he quickly replied “hello”
Taking it as a good sign I decided to stand on the other side of the really really cute Zonal meeting guy.
Not having anything to say I started singing a line from FAlz’ Soldier.  
“See me see wahala, I don enter Yawa ooo”
I had just seen the video and it won't stop playing through my head.You should see it if you haven't.
 
And this beautiful boy opened his beautiful mouth “Don’t enter Yawa o”
With that he officially began our friendship and maybe marriage. Just kidding, I promise!
In my head the angels took to the mic and sang the Hip-hop version of Gloria Excelesis.  It took me a while to realize what had just happened and then I quickly entered action mode.  Asked him his name to which he replied Boye and then we kicked off.  Apparently he knew someone at the lodge. None other than Godswill; we call him Uncle here, Lodge executive issues. Nothing amazingly great.

I would bore you with details of how we struggled; rather I struggled to get my CDS card signed. Ilorin West can be a tad bit stressful.  How we kept stealing glances at each other.  Okay, I lied again. How I kept stealing glances at him and prayed he would look back. God was listening because he did stare back, sometimes. Booya! 

At the end of it all,  I stood waiting somewhere for nothing to happen as usual, he walked towards me. Fine boy; just kept rolling in my head. Honestly I have a problem.
When he got to where I stood he asked the question every girl wants to hear from a guy she thinks is cute and might never stand a chance with. 
“Can I have your number?”  and once again I knew that when I woke to cook a meal for forty-five people over a coal pot, extremely tired for I had decided to spend half my night having a heart to heart with Churchill. That God had said it is time this girl deserved some butterflies again.

I would tell you more of how my day went, nothing close to great except I had a rift with someone but still too many unnecessary details.  I might tell you of how I waited all day for him to call and how everybody felt it would be great to call me throughout yesterday. My mother;God bless her, my cousin! Like who calls their cousin? But I still got a ton of calls I didn't want. 
Until. After I had resigned to fate and felt this was another fluke of a nigga.
My phone rang and I said my standard receptionist speech.
"Good evening, please who is this?"
And the voice on the other side said "this is Boye."
I almost cromped right there in front of all my roommates but I remembered my promise not to have a lot of outbursts.
Immediately I calmed down and in a subtle and coded manner I spoke to the Zonal meeting guy, aid my goodnight. Blew a kiss at my phone, hoping he; my future husband gets it (I am kidding!!!).
And when I woke this morning; a text. 

Nkem Oyaghire. 


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