The Call Up

I still remember my father’s sigh when I informed him that I was posted to Anambra state. From the other end of the telephone, I could feel the texture of his dismay, his impotent anger that his friend who worked with scheme had not secured a Lagos posting for me after all.

I remember the broken journey from Ife that early November morning in a rundown Peugeot Station Wagon down to Onitsha. We stopped at Benin and Agbor and other places on the long expressway on several occasions.

I remember the bike that snaked down the sandy plains leading to UMUNYAORIENTATION CAMP where our twenty-one day orientation took place. I remember receiving my posting letter which read Orumba North local government; that long seemingly endless journey that shared striking resemblance with the Middle Passage.

I remember setting my foot on Ajalli where I was to spend some ten good months of my life.
Nostalgia is the currency of memories. On the last day of Orientation Camp, I thought I had my posting sorted out to Awka, the state capital where some semblance of urbanity was assured and I had acted accordingly; I had booked a hotel to spend the night. But in the heat of the moment, the flurry of unprecedented activities overtook reasoning and I soon forgot that my plans had gone awry.

It was in the bus back to Awka that I knew the extent of the distance of urbanity from where I had been posted. I looked at the plains that sped past in the beatdown bus; the view of nature brought me to tears. I was as far from civilization as possible. Worse, the dominant language was foreign to me. So was the sensibilities of the people around me and I was supposed to suffer this condition for a whole year. I almost shed tears when I considered everything and an idea hatched in my mind: I was going to redeploy.