Man, know thyself
“This girl don carry another biscuit put inside bag this early morning”. This came from my friend as she checked my waist bag to use my lipgloss at 4:40 something, as the final beagle for morning meditation was being blown. Another girl on the line one day during morning meditation said, “ah ahn sister, you're eating this early morning? It's not even 6 yet”.
Amongst my top lists for camp, I wrote ‘2 and half dozens of 50 naira biscuits (mix them)’ and that was the first thing I bought as I got to the market, then I bought my personals, e.t.c,.
I've been a serious fan of biscuits since forever. If you like me and want to please me with snacks, buy cartons of small biscuits, I've asked for biscuits before and gotten some weird tasting big biscuits instead of dozens of parle-G, pure bliss wafer, fab, festo and the likes. I have some expensive biscuits I like too but I'll pick parle-G anyday.
I packed my 20 something pieces of biscuits and left to camp with them amongst other provisions, including groceries and floating berries.
Camp food was definitely very expensive, but there are people who eat out daily so they may not share this same thought. For people like me who were used to cooking our own meals daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner before camp or eating cereals and junks in-between, spending money on cooked food that wouldn't even satisfy until you buy like #2,000 naira worth was really annoying. Before I left for camp, I asked my sister and my friends who'd gone before me a lot of questions. I asked for their lists and they were sweet enough to give me detailed gist so you can say I went prepared. I don't eat a lot of food so I carried plenty cornflakes and milk.
I was always with my snacks because hunger cannot finish me. Like I mentioned before, I don't eat a lot of proper food so I use junks to cover up. Camp was really frustrating for me to be honest because no matter how I remembered to bring a lot of money to camp, I couldn't steal a million dollars to come and be buying food. Food in my camp wasn't the best but everyone knows that cooking for more than 1,000 people is not easy so I'm not apportioning blames.
I had days that I had to run out with my cornflakes soaked in my cup apart from my biscuits in my bag.
On this particular day, I couldn't eat the lunch they made, and eating a biscuit or two was definitely not going to satisfy me. The break for lunch/siesta in camp was like an hour and 30 minutes but people used the time to wash, take their baths and do some other stuff asides joining the usually very long line for food. I don't remember what the kitchen served that day but I remember pondering again whether to go and join the line or not. I don't know how I spent more than an hour pondering but I know that by the time I was done taking my bath and preparing for the next activity, time was almost up. I knew I couldn't go out with the hunger I was already feeling and then be alive after more than an hour of the next activity so I decided to quickly mix cornflakes and eat. One day in that same week, someone had annoyed all the soldiers assigned to my hostel with one statement she made when they were blowing the whistle for us to come out. I think she said, “them go blow tire, when they finish them go stop”. They heard her and since then our hostel would always be on fire when it's time to go outside. I heard the first whistle when I was just tearing my leathers open and I knew it was either flight but no fight 😅 the Spiderman skills I employed that day should be studied because I carried my shoes, my phone, charger and power bank, my cap, my khaki jacket, my water bottle, my waist bag and my cup of cornflakes and ran out.
It was already too good that we didn't have to take turns to wash our toilets because they had people for that, I couldn't imagine joining the latecomers to serve that dirty punishment.
Comments