.

sorry for ur experiences! you never welcomed the place in your heart from day one so everything should irritate you! I know southeast and SS are friendly esp. to Corpers, dear, ur not relaxed, We all have experiences as a youth Corper.people trying to outsmart should even increase your intelligence.i served in the north, I met the good and the bad but that didn't spoil my fun or made me re-brand northerners as religious extremist! Just relax and learn, show them ur wise but don't re-brand any region negatively. the major aim of NYSC is to mix up and learn about others in a positive way. cheers up bro.

astana1:
I was born in Lagos state and have spent most of my life in the southwest but I am actually Hausa. I Have never been to the south-east or south-south part of Nigeria despite having many friends from the region. I had been to practically every region apart from the SE AND SS.

As the saying goes, experience is the best teacher and nothing prepares you for the unknown as much as the NYSC does. I remember the day i got my Call up letter like it was yesterday. We had all gathered in front of the faculty officers office awaiting our turns to get called in for our Posting letters. Many people came out of the office rejoicing and this gave me a little bit of hope but boy was i wrong. I knew i wasn't going to get what i expected when i noticed the countenance of the officer as he handed the letter to me.As I stared down at my call up letter with the bold words written on it 'A State in the South east', I couldn't help but let the flow of mixed feelings come through. At first i was dazed, then slowly the reality of my situation began to creep in. I could feel my heart shredding into several pieces with every beat. This was probably due to the negative stories (kidnapping, fraud and etc) and pictures I had heard and seen in the media. While others were rejoicing about their states of deployment, I simply walked to a corner to let hot tears that had welled up in my eyes fall freely.

At that moment, Google became my best friend and the Nigerian Map became my Companion. Who knew the southern Province occupied about 1/3 times the size of Nigeria? Before then, i didn’t….lol!. Since desperate times requires desperate measures, lots of things went through my mind with the first being how to change my state of deployment but since i wasn't married, Heavily pregnant or sick & living with a serious health condition, my hopes of changing my state of deployment flew out the window, my fate had been sealed.

I Had my camp in Enugu and was posted to Calabar.[i][/i]
On getting to Enugu state, I found the place to be Dirty and rowdy. The camp was even worse than most of the NYSC camps I had visited in other states (mine included). My roommates were fun and lively. Fortunately for me, 3 of us were from the same department in school, so we kinda had an upper hand in bonding with the others.

After finally completing the registration process at my PPA, I was so uncomfortable and angry. The lodge I was provided was tiny and stuffy,
and at night the mosquitoes came en masse on their power bikes. My first night was dreadful, I couldn’t sleep. Throughout the night, I made a
mental note on getting a new apartment the
next day. The next day I asked around for where I could get an apartment around my PPA. I finally got one and I spent two days buying stuffs and tidying the place up.

In summary, It was a horrible expireInce, everyone there was abrasive and were not polite. They always tried to deceive people. I will never wish that experience on anyone.

Tell us also about the positives. No matter how bad a place is, there will still be some nice things about it. I am Yoruba but my girlfriend is Igbo and she schools and lives in the east. Though Aba is a city I detest for it's filth, but the positive I take any time I visit her there is the experience I always have when I follow her to the market. I like to compare the social and environmental experiences with ours in the SW here. The market women love it when I strike a conversation with them and ask them questions concerning their trade. They quickly decipher that am not from their part of town but they thought I am maybe an Igbo that grew up in a different part of the country. I love the look of shock in their eyes when I tell them that I am full blooded Yoruba boy. Even though they think I am joking, some will say I am Bini, some say I am usobo or itsekiri, until I speak Yoruba in my father's thick "Ibadan" accent. They say that I don't look and act like one. (though some don't know how a Yoruba act) Some will tell me to leave my tribe and naturalize as an Igbo guy. We will just joke over it. No discriminatory tendencies was shown towards me as a Yoruba because I put myself in a position to love and appreciate a people and culture different from mine to the extent some will tell my girlfriend "no leave this guy o! na better person" Some will even beg me to visit them again.
I may not like the city Aba, but I like the people. If I can survive Lasgidi, other places na piece of cake.

Spots on Barney11 and jaymicheal