A very cold one!!!
I had to even wake up to rub on my body a mosquito repellant cream my mum had given me at home....(ya get the gist of how eventful the night was).....plus it was a linoleum covered floor!
The adventure had began!
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| Look whose neighbourhood i was in! EkSU!!! |
I had to leave early even though I desired to see the principal to thank him for providing a place for me to pass the night.
It was obvious Elizabeth didn't want me to when I told her and a part of me didn't like the response...she said it was the routine to put a new corper in a place for the night and that I was treated no different from other corpers....i strongly believe this isn't the case.
That elderly man and i had connected almost instantly and besides she didn't know the depth of what we talked about yesterday when I arrived...
I felt bad for not having collected the man's number but anyway I will be back by God's unfailing grace.....
I felt it was just ok to thank the man whether it was a general routine or not!
Anyways.....
i had to get to the bank to open an account as specified by the government and also the local government designated for my Community Development Service(CDS) but not before I say thank you and goodbye to Godwin and Tijani for their warm welcome and help in scouting the environment for accommodation yesterday evening.
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| Ekiti people and their pounded yam machine! I just had to capture this |
Those two made my arrival quite comfortable as they just began talking with me Immidiately they saw me...they were really cool....
As they saw me off to the road, iwas given an entirely new description to get to Fajuyi...well not exactly new when I later checked my journal.
One of the attendant at the NYSC secretariat had written this same description down for me in my journal when I asked how to get to my PPA yesterday but i had asked some old men who sat at the gate of the secretariat and they had given me the description of the route I eventually took.......(and the entire trip had cost me extra N100 and they took me through a long village route that made me think I had been posted into a village far from ADO town.
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| Would you like to come in? Your ancestors all lived here. @ Efon-alaye, ekiti |
So I made an exciting new discovery that morning.
The entire journey to Fajuyi,Ado ekiti was just within 15 minutes. And ARE/AFAO community was a 50naira bike away from Ekiti state university (EKSU) and 100naira cab to Ado town(Fajuyi)...
And it was a quite a beautiful route i saw....
*WHERE DID I PASS YESTERDAY??*
Trust me...i was pondering this question with a cool-smiling face....
You needed to have seen how I pouted my lips when all i saw wasa longdeserted and bushy route with only villages in sight when we to the place....Although the elderly lady sitted beside me had said it is a fine town you are going...i guess she must have been looking at the expression on my face as i was absorbing the the entire view i saw!....
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| For those who don't know... That's a cocoa fruit. It's a tree crop not root crop..lol |
i had fought the urge to be sad and wear a long face with
*this is the will of God!...its not so bad!!!..its not forever!....its just for 10months*
Well, not that I wouldn't serve if it was a dead end,no civilisation place....O' course I would...
But this new discovery of its closeness to town and also a higher institutionwas just too much of a resounding relief....and a boiling awakening of excitement of the adventurous side of me.
OK ok ok...Everything isn't exactly a perfect state of utopia though.Besides i was told they haven't had light in ARE,AFAO and some other communities since March when their transformer developed a fault....
HOW'S THAT FOR A DENT IN PERFECTION!
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| I had to touch it |
So there is something to endure...and lots more to enjoy.....
I was designated to open an account at Union bank....
I have heard folks say it and I believe it true!
Union bank is really an Old people's bank.
The only young faces at the union bank at Igede was me,the bankers and the security men, the rest of the customers i met there and even those who also arrived after me were all old men and women in their 60s upward...(pensioners, i believe).....
OK at this junction, i must apologise to the entire Ekiti family...home and diaspora...lol
.....*è mó bílú sími o*....
I had a correct feel of pounded yam this morning after I left my CDS local government location at igede..
Just right at the busstop where I was waiting for a bus to lagos, myattention was drawn by the two pestle that was resting on the wooden wall of a canteen called KÓWÓPÉ!!!
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| That's where I became an ekiti corper! |
My Curiosity button had been pressed...and my legs were responding in eagerness of adventure....
...*what is available ma?*...
One of two ladies sitting in front quickly responded with a list of *swallows*....
I think I only wanted to hear pounded yam.
And YES.....iyán!!!
Pounded yam was available ....LETS GO!
I know I grinned brightly...i must have! I couldn't have not grinned!
Even the lady saw the excitement on my face and she smiled in return....
It costjust 50naira for a wrap...
No meat! so I opted for what they had....
*Round about and èdò*.....
Chai....it was cool breakfast....
Somebody was smiling.....it must be me!!!
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| Don't ask where this went? |
Please i know I have abused ekiti people...EVEN XERXES...(i thought xerxes was from SUSA)....well apparently xerxes has a lot to do with ekiti....
Our first pounded yam experience when I first reported to ekiti was not so good!!!.
It was small and expensive....
And we ate in so much haste like the israelites did the first passover meal before leaving Egypt.....but this time, it was the bus driver who was threatening to leave us behind. Lol.
So pounded yam for breakfast was a beautiful first time experience for me and I was travelling back to lagos...
I had finally been officially welcomed to the people whose best food is pounded yam....
I can now serve!!!!....loooool...just kidding!
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| Let the farm tour begin! |
As I write this part i have made a resolution not to enter bus when I travel outside the park!!!
So I took this bus who claimed to be going to lagos but the driver already told me the truth that he would only be getting to Ibadan and he would put those who paid for lagos in another bus. So I entered the bus...it was the only bus i had seen where I stood and the driver was jovial,sincere and he had spoken really well...
That how I took a journey that would arrive in lagos past 5 in the evening after I had left ekiti since past 11am......
The driver was cool but he kept stopping everywhere to pick up passengers...
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| Taking a tour of cocoa plantation |
Obviously if you are a Nigerian you know that is a *soole*......(the kind of bus that waits to pick up passenger at every busstop)
And this made the journey very long....but the few passengers in the bus were quite friendly and chatting with one another....
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| A village around Efon-alaye in ekiti! |
At Efon-alaye in ekiti state, the driver stopped in front of a village to pick up two passengers who have a large luggage of fruits...we have to come down for the driver to load the entire luggage...
As the driver took almost an hour to load in so many bags of oranges, walnut and bunch of bananas and plaintain i just took the time to go round the vicinity...
There was nothing I could do....
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| As they loaded in the fruits. |
So I took a fun tour into the cocoa plantation. the farmers had seen my curiosity so they just allowed me in. Or maybe they were also glad to see an Omo ìjöba in their farm..i even went into the mud houses......
The driver urged the passenger who owns the fruits that were being loaded into the vehicle to offer us bananas as we waited patiently..and they did!!!!
After what seem like forever, we were back on the road..
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| Chilling by the road as we waited For the fruits to be loaded! |
At ibadan, the driver put us in another bus and drove away with the fruits passengers!
Another journey began...this one wasn't soole but the driver was slow...
Almost all the vehicle was overtaking us...
It was like a snail running with dogs....lol
Anyway I bless God for journey mercies.
And Yes!!....when a queen returns home....she is met with royalty....thats what happened when I got to berger,lagos,courtesy of xerxes....
It's a wrap!!!!!
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