NIGERIA, NYSC

Oke-Ilewo.
This Abeokuta town, in Ogun state, with all its hills, plenty of them. Can't it, they, pretend to be a little bit tushed?
Which one is Oke-Ilewo, Iyana-Mortuary, Panseke, Adigbe, Adatan, Kuto, Iwe-Iroyin.
All these, you won't believe, are names of bustops, I tell you, and there's more, lots more, where those came from.
The only Englished bustops I've heard so far are Secretariat, and wait for it... Mango, there, absolutely! I also thought they were just lovers of fruits, fiber-ous fruits..
Ehn, the Committee of Black African Culture Ambassadors who are carrying the whole upholding our native language thing as against the alien English White language, I know y'all would like to have my neck, but I dodge, yes I wave all of you. But seriously, which one is now Iyana-Mortuary (for non-yoruba speakers, it means something like along mortuary Road! ).
First days as a corper in Abeokuta, Ogun.
Mmeri had it coming for her, anyone could say that again. She relaxed, cruised, dragged her feet, when her mates were resuming duties at their various PPA(s) . She scoffed when others like her were attending their CDS, and they, by so doing, among other things, were knowing their way round town, Abeokuta town, or at least to their CDS venues.
So she definitely had it coming for her, when she set out on Wednesday, her first CDS outing, with no phone to reach, or contact anybody. Yes that part of Abeokuta, where she was lodged, was having light issues they boasted to Mmeri would be fixed in no time tho. she could only believe them, and prayed, more for her sake, than theirs, that they were telling the truth. She was practically on her own.
Mmeri headed straight to the local government secretariat. Somehow, she just felt her CDS should hold there.. Like why wouldn't a CDS hold at the local government secretariat. Well maybe she didn't really feel, maybe what she did was hope, hope that it, her CDS , anti corruption CDS , would hold at the secretariat, after all she spent not an insignificant amount of money to get there, from her lodge, considering she didn't have much significant amount in her purse, or at the bank. So it has to hold there. True, CDSs were holding, hers just wasn't, not there at least. Iwe iroyin it was, she was told by some lady that had carried out her documentation once, against the next allowee, monthly allowances for corpers, who later turned out to be her CDS instructor, or leader. A motorbike would take you there for fifty naira. Taxi, for only thirty naira. Only, did she just hear only thirty naira? Obviously this woman, Mmeri's CDS instructor did not know what was going on in Mmeri's mind, nor pocket. She did not blame her.
At the junction, close to "under-bridge", opposite Dominos Pizza, Mmeri tried, to no avail, to get an only thirty naira taxi to take her to Iwe-Iroyin. They all held it at fifty naira. She later caved into the fifty naira taxi since the motorbikes were charging same, and she could as well relax a little en route her destination.
Taxi driver, elderly tho, but rude. Sure, Iwe-Iroyin was a strange location to Mmeri, but she didn't think she had to do a mini-karaoke throughout the ride so she wouldn't be driven past her stop; at least one or two reminders should suffice, plus she wasn't feeling too well. Mr taxi driver didn't share her sentiments. He took her past her stop even tho she happened to coincidentally throw in a reminder at the exact bustop where she should have alighted. But Mr taxi driver felt she was not too eager to go down since she didn't bulge when he slowed down for her to. He definitely did not realise that she did not notice it to be a slowing down at all for it was really a subtle one. Mr taxi driver would surely take home the cup, one similar to the type Mikel promised Buhari, in a competition of subtle-slow-downs-at-bustops. Lady beside Mmeri was nice, making up for Mr taxi driver lapses. Didn't you say you were going to Iwe-Iroyin, we've passed there. Oh! Driver, let me come down abeg. E ma wo eleyi kee..people help see this lady oo.. You don't know where you're going to, and you didn't bother to remind me. Not a word did Mmeri utter to him, she just alighted, set for her back-trek, after thanking lady nice of course.
Like a bared doll, Mmeri progressed. Noticing the glances and stares thrown her way, some of which were from people who would lose their little finger first before they let themselves be caught staring, some were peeping from their taxis. As a regaliad corper, Mmeri understood, only smiling , when she could manage. If only they knew, ignorant folks.
Mmeri realised with a start that she'd almost rounded the block without making any obvious progress. She would have inquired from one or two as she proceeded but they all just looked... somehow, unapproachable. Mmeri even thought one actually appeared mad, he had his back facing the road. But he might just have been the owner of a furniture open-shop where he was standing, in his dirty work clothes.
Iwe-Iroyin, sounds like a newspaper firm or something, Mmeri thought. At a kiosk sat the kiosk tender, one motherly mummy. Mmeri approached her, good morning ma, please how can I get to Iwe-Iroyin. Just keep walking forward, no no don't cross, you'd see one small fence, the building behind it is Iwe-Iroyin. Thank you ma. (Even if am just coming from that direction and didn't see anything of such, well what would another walk down the same direction cost me anyway). Up, up, she trekked till she noticed deliberate, somewhat shy footsteps behind her. She turned, a long young boy, good afternoon, please can you direct me to Iwe-Iroyin? Just at the right there. Well, Mmeri did not know if she should count it as funny that that was the second time she was directly at Iwe-Iroyin and asking about Iwe-Iroyin. Forget it, if you're new to a place, you're a total dunce no matter how IQd you are, she concluded. Just about the same time, a motorbike with a passenger on board sped to a halt in front of her. OK, thank God, looks like we got a fellow CDSer. Are you here for CDS. Seriously, Mmeri couldn't believe her ears, you're really asking me, yes I am. Is this Oke-Ilewo, Oke-Ilewo again haba.. because I told the bike man to take me to Oke-Ilewo, state secretariat and he brought me here. What.. you mean CDS isn't holding here? Ahan no na, were you not around last week, they already moved the location. Ehn no, just don't worry. He, bike man doesn't know the way. Ha, so what are you going to do, we're going to have to take another bike. Well, Mmeri felt she could as well immediately take the bull by the horn and start making further plans of transmuting to state secretariat instead of sulking and lamenting at the unfortunate turn of events, and what life meted to her, maybe for cruising when others like her were going to CDS the previous weeks. Why, anyways, would anyone be moving CDS locations like that. Nevertheless, Mmeri was paying her dues, or so she felt, after all she relaxed when others like her were rushing to attend CDS, diligently, like they should.
Not knowing your way round a strange town is one thing. Having to deal with a bike man who doesn't know how to get to state secretariat, especially when he has no proper understanding of the English lingua franca is another. This was the plight of the other CDS girl, Mmeri felt sorry for her, and herself. She waved down one, two, three bikes till one did a reverse and approached her. State secretariat please, Oke-Ilewo, the other CDS girl quickly added. Mmeri was going about the whole thing very maturedly, taking responsibility for both herself and the other CDS girl, she was proud of herself and could only hesitate to pat herself at the back. Se Oke-Ilewo ko ni ibi bayi ni? ... Is this not Oke-Ilewo, the confused bike man asked the new bike man, ehn this is Oke-Ilewo now, but state secretariat is just that other way, ni ibi works yen.. At that "works" area.. New bike man explained to his colleague. Okay. Mount, Mount, the other CDS girl was atop the bike again, to be taken to state secretariat, finally, by the confused bike man, with the new bike man, who had Mmeri as his passenger, leading the way. Hurray, somebody just saved the day! Barely two minutes after a bend, Mmeri saw the familiar sign and bill boards of the state secretariat. Ahan, oga, se na wetin you wan collect hundred naira for my hand be this, because I no know road ni. Haha, he laughed, no worry oya bring fifty naira. Mmeri thanked him but did not tell him that she didn't think the service was worth fifty naira, heck she could have even trekked down. Such waste for the insignificant amount she had in her purse.
How much did you give him, she asked the other CDS girl after alighting. Ehn, I can't give him more than fifty naira oo, Mmeri smiled.
CDS wasn't even started. Didn't start for another one hour.
When it did begin, after taking of attendance, her first CDS task ever, and only task for the day, you wouldn't believe it, were to fix and arrange clearance forms of past corpers, about two sets before hers, into their files. Mmeri wouldn't want anyone to know that tho. She is a member of anti corruption CDS group. One day, she's sure, they'd live out their name.
Hungry, she ate out a leaf. The Yoruba seller dished rice into leaves and sold them for hundred naira. When Mmeri approached her, that was when she was convinced her legs would give way under her if she didn't do something, and quick, she was asked.. Ofada or white? Ofada was the brown local rice that most people use to be crazy over, she didn't understand why. White please, so she was served her rice, with red oily stew, and meat, beef, in a leaf, fixed inside a plate. Ahan, anti, so you have to eat up first before you work, that was her CDS instructor, going jokingly. Mmeri smiled and continued eating. Then she fixed files.
Sitting at some doorway to a block housing various offices at NYSC state secretariat, synonymous to sitting on the floor, or on the "ground" if you're mean enough to call a spade a spade, Mmeri sat.
She wouldn't want anyone to know that either.

.

ONYINYECHI

Nobody can love me better than me. Coming from someone who'd battled with 'complex' for the better part of her life- her twenty-somethingish life, that's bliss, that's everything. 
Looking at Onyinyechi with the eyes of an outsider, an observer, one might be quick to conclude that she's living the world. Maybe not as everybody else is doing, but exactly the way she wants it. 
Onyinyechi is fairly complexioned, at least her face is. She has a spectacular gait to her steps, like she is ever dancing, self-consciously swinging her hips, or rather the part of her feminine anatomy where the stereotypical, African hips is meant to be located, she's been told over and over since she was a child. It's a beautiful gait.
But what Onyinyechi's observers would never get to know is that before she owned that beautiful gait, once as a growing child sometime in the junior secondary school classes, she used to practice different walking steps both in front of the mirror, and on her way to buy cream crackers biscuit for her elder sister, or one kilo of fresh iced fish, kote, for her mother. There was this particular girl at her neighbourhood then, Dorcas, who had this boyish way of walking, no she wasn't a tomboy, but she had this bounce when she walked. Onyinyechi thought it was cool, and practiced the bounce walk in front of the mirror in the bedroom when no one was watching, or on her way to buy cream crackers or kote, or on her way to/back from school when everyone could watch if they liked. She spiced up the bounce step with the haircut her stylist used to give her at her request, the one that had the frontal hair edges shaped like a boy's after the main cut was done. The only thing Onyinyechi did not do then was wear the male trousers, she would have but she did not want to be sent packing from home.
Overtime, Onyinyechi stopped finding the bounce walk and hair cut cool. She discovered another girl, Titilayo, who used to walk with her feet barely touching the floor. Her hands were usually carried in a particular downward slope most of the time like they were not meant for manual usage. Onyinyechi picked up a new lesson, this time in being Cinderella. She also tried her hands at deciding which akimbo standing style was more stylish; was it the one with the thumb at the back of the waist with the other four fingers at the front, or the one that takes the thumb to the front of the waist ....
Gradually, the idea of steps and stances fazed off Onyinyechi's consciousness that even when she landed the walk she has now, the one she has been teased over, misjudged over, even envied over; it was totally oblivious to her.
Onyinyechi is pretty. In her own way, she houses various forms and arrangements that come together to become beautiful, Onyinyechi is a smart girl, the kind of smart that makes 'smart' as an adjective inappropriate. Onyinyechi is brilliant, not in the usual kind of way, but like every other thing, in her own kind of way. 
But Onyinyechi, in her own eyes, did not see any good, or plenty of it, in herself, like others did. She did not see much to be envied. Although she likes the soft pleasant feeling she use to have when she is told of how beautiful she is, or how intelligent, she never readily believed it. Despite the fact that she used to suspect herself, that somehow, she must be brainy, some kind of genius, she used to question it when she is told same by others.
Onyinyechi has had her fair share of life's aches, for someone in her twenty-somethingish years of life, or maybe a little more than her fair share. On the other hand, Onyinyechi has had series of triumphs, successes, laurels, and prizes, yet somehow she still used to find a way of reasoning out and proving that every other person was better off. She was hanging, desperately, to every negative possibly available, while at the same time wishing for every positive possibly available.
Onyinyechi would wish or do no man evil, but she wanted every man to not wish or do her evil, too; Onyinyechi was silly.
Onyinyechi has had people who'd loved her sincerely, but she clung to the way she was made to feel by those who didn't; Onyinyechi was gullible.
No matter how much anybody tried to come close, Onyinyechi  would not let it happen. She could have as well told everybody to stop saying or showing any love to her, even though that was all she desperately wanted, because after all she just didn't, couldn't love herself, what was there to love after all. 
Interlude. 
Now, finally, Onyinyechi sees things, plenty to love in herself. She understands that she is the best and only version of herself. She realises that circumstances do not make her, but she is what she makes of circumstances. She met a guy she is convinced, doubly convinced loves her, and she doesn't doubt it when he tells her she is beautiful. She is sure of this guy because she found out he'd been, and is very persistent. She'd run, toyed with, disregarded, tried to frustrate him for years, testing him, but he persisted; he loves her, wow.
She even calls him "my prince", while he calls her "my delight".
Onyinyechi brags of this guy these days to everybody, interested or not. If anyone dares doubt, she's quick to show off the hands of her beloved, nailed for her, out of love. 
Sometimes, if she is pushed, she'd even take such doubters to golgotha, and show them the cross where her love died, out of love, for her, and them too. 
Now, Onyinyechi stands, walks, with her beautiful gait of course, and says, confidently :
No one can love me better than me. 
She has found one who loves her beyond her senses. 
She understands that there are plenty who love her, she doesn't blame them, there are tons of things to love in her. 
Yet she maintains her stance, she surpasses them all
She loves herself. 

FAVOURITE SAGA

What do you do for fun? Sorry, I don't get. I mean, when you want to unwind, what do you do? Huh.. why does that sound threatening, making me want to run and hide, every single time I hear it. Why are all of you terrorists?

What are your hobbies? I don't have any. How can you not have any hobby?
You're supposed to love singing, and dancing, like you should be able to relate with musical healing and all. You're meant to cherish cooking, making delicious delicacies, you're a woman afterall.
Everyone is supposed to have a favourite right? - a favourite person, a favourite thing, a favourite colour, a favourite movie, a favourite artist, a favourite sport, a favourite car, a favourite phone model, a favourite pet, a favourite poet, a favourite author, a favourite brand of shoes, clothes, wristwatches, sunglasses, plus belt too, yes, so you'd be tushed.
Yes, everybody is supposed to have a favourite one of those to qualify as a normal body. But what happens when you don't. Should you lock up and cry yourself to a comfortless sleep, should you be banned from the social community since you don't seem to be worthy to be among normal humans, or should you be condemned to the "weird"

clique where nobody cool wants to be , scary right.
Need not be. Lemme tell you one little something something, might come in handy. Next time one of those terrorists come with their big bag of questions, and throws one at you- hobbies, favourites and the like...
Just look them straight in the face, or type them straight in the something ... when chatting of course... or go-all-mute straight in the air.. when on call of course, grab your phone, closer, much closer, and..... type, click, play, press away!
At least, there, you succeeded, you got a hobby, a favourite!
My phone, my bae. 

HISTORY MAKING

History could mean different things. A course of study, origin or story behind a particular place, people, concept...

It could also mean an aggregate of past events, especially spectacular ones, I'd choose to add.

You needn't get scared as this is not some class in some old, rickety lecture hall by some self-conceited lecturer (I hope they don't get to see this) on "History" whether or not you care about "History".

Rather, this is you and I making history together as we go about our first post on "TimesWithEbere" !

Let it be known, far and wide, that on this day, history was made! We got our names on the sands of time, we had, and would have our Times together. You don't want to be left out, you don't.

We're creating our own world, and living in it.

So much for our History class.. 

Anticipate.. 

Ebere, on...