makin:
Its depressing that nigerian youths can express their greed even on forum like this.
A year of community service even in an hamlet, is not only beneficial to the poor community which you are posted too, but an opportunity for you to see life from another view.
The only opportunity those people have for quality education and an introduction to the outside world is your person and your knowledge.
I was amazed to see how backward some places in the eastern nigeria is, and how errorneous most lagosians view the rest of nigeria.
You can only appreciate a culture better if you experience and get to understand the people.
The partiality involved in the primary postings happens in everyday nigerian life, not limited to youth service alone, so even if you are petochemical engr graduate teaching in primary school during your service year, it doesn't stop you from getting into shell after your service year, if indeed you are worth working in shell.

toba:
Otondo kofa. Corper wee o waa o. 3wks hell in fika yobe state&ran to Lagos after 21days was fun later though.In platoon 10.
If any1 wants to redeploy/wants a good state, hala me i can hook u up to d woman that help me in 2005. Enjoy

IZUKWU:
I am a corper relocated to ondo from bauchi state . told to report to nysc ondo on or before Thursday 3/7/16. I need address of nccf sectrait. akure.

aproco:
i met the love of my life and am we are still keeping it strong after service.

texazzpete:
NYSC wouldnt have been so bad if the Government could have seen fit to send us engineers to engineering related jobs instead of leaving us to teach in village secondary schools. The painful thing was, after one year of teaching maths and physics, you'd have the same Government calling you a half-baked engineer!

anyway, NYSC was a funny experience for me. on the one hand, i got to see lots of people and travel to the east for the first time. On the negative side, i used to run a web design biz and i was reasonably successful at it. one year in a no-water no-light no gsm village changed it all. I had to bring my pc over to the village and bought a gen, that made me the target of hatred from my landlord who felt i was too pompous for a 'small boy'. That, and the fact that i was the only person in the compound of 10 that used toilet roll (instead of their favored plantain leaves) made them feel i was living large.

one nasty thing that happened, when i bought the gen, my next door neighbour compained that the noise was bothering him, he threatened to shut me down unless i powered his outside light. i had no choice but to comply. The first day i turned on the pc to watch a movie, all the neighbouring kids came crowding round my window. to entertain them, i put on a home video. that was my big mistake. they knocked and knocked until i let them in (i'm a sucker for kids) and then they started running over my foam witht heir bare, dirty feet, one ripped open my discman and as i was scolding him another one was chewing up my pack of cards. I drove the louts out!

i banned them from ever entering my room again, apparently thatmade thier parents even more pissed. One day my gen blew my monitor. I heard the woman next door say it served me right in Igbo. Beef!

The school was much worse. i came in there like a whirlwind trying to change things. I was horrified to hear that in the last WAEC only on egirl managed to get 6 Cs, and she was the only one out of 60 girls that passed maths. I took it upon myself to change things!
First day i got there, i launched into an impassioned speech about decency and hardwork and future career prospects and the need to move the school forward. Then i finally told them that i want an interactive class and that i wouldn't flog anybody etc. BIG MISTAKE! Once they learnt my natural aversion to beating girls and they saw i wasn't gonna flog them, it was all over. at that moment my speech cost me all hopes of enforcing discipline. Dunno why, it works in the movies
did the girls wanna learn? nope! in a class of about 50 girls, when im teaching you'll see 12 breaking melon into their berets, 5 sleeping, 12 giggling and passing love notes from their latest village beaus, 1 girl sweeping the class, 5 gisting with other girls thru the window. any girl i send out will come leaping thru the window next time my back is turned. It was either teach or spend the whole time enforcing discipline.
at least i was inspired to teach until i marked first term exams and half the class got 0/80. This in spite of the fact that i even solved exam-like questions in class 2 days to the exam, and i told them the same thing'll come out. they just couldn't be arsed to read.
What didnt i try? to teach computer education to Jss3 i used my own computer and my own generator. they refused to listen, just because i wouldnt cane them. Jss3 maths i asked them to buy a mathematical set so they could use for trig drawing. they refused. SS2 girls didn't know how tp use a four-figure table. I asked them to buy tables, most didnt. i asked them to photocopy the tables at the back of New General mathematics. compliance rate was like 5%. I had to give up. How the heck do you pass maths when u can't read a four figure table?
How the hell did i end up teachin pythagoras' theorem for 3 weeks, something i learnt in 30 minutes, and then 90% of them failed it in exam? WTF is hard about a² = b² + c² ?

The final killer for me? My principal forced me to solve WAEC maths and physics for SS3, blackmailing me with the threat of telling my ZI about my trips to write job tests and interviews. this, after i'd been the most strident critic of exam malpractice. After that blow, i lost all enthusiasm for teaching.
The irony of it all, by me solving the maths for them, i finally made a difference in the WAEC maths result, just not in the way i hoped for


Notable NYSC Quotes:

"Corpers don't worry! Ohafia is not like Isiala Ngwa where your camp was, where they eat people. here in Ohafia, highest during estival they may cut off your head and dance with it, but they do not eat people here"

--Ohafia LGA chairman in his welcome speech to us.

"How can corpers come all the way from their states and carry all our money?"

-- Umuahia councillors, removing names of Corpers from the Polio immunisation supervisor rosters and substituting them with their own (semi-literate) people, despite the fact that corpers dominated in the qualification tests.

"You wan make i slap that ya face join wall?"

-- Tout threatening me in Ohafia park for daring to take front seat.

"I go take slap block one of ya ear"

-- Okada man threatening me with severe soft-tissue damage for daring to protest his high fares.

"Nna, Fanta and mirinda, all na the same N50. the two of them yellow"

-- Market woman happily chose to inform me that mirinda attracted the same price as fanta after i'd drank the stuff.


"Use this one to buy something for yaself"

--Vice-Principal of the school casting down N500 on the table after i'd been forced to solve the WAEC. I'd never felt so insulted in my life.

"I'm going to deal seriously with igbo girls!"

-- fellow corper confiding to me his plans to avenge his posting my sowing wild oats relentlessly.

"BooHoo! eeeeeeh!"

-- me weeping profusely after being teargassed by police on my birthday, february 2nd 2005 in Aba while trapped at the back of a vehicle.

ThreeBlackBird:


I must commend this beautifully written post. I love every bit of it. You must be a big man now and probably a grandpa.

alheri:
thats a nice picture, dargly.

Anyway, I served in 2001. I had the connections "as someone earlier put it" and so I worked my posting to Abuja since that was were I lived with my family. I was also able to work my posting to Fed. Min. Of Women affairs cause I was pregnant during service and wanted a place I would be comfortable. Anyway, I was posted to the child development depertmanet and further to their work place Nursery and creche' behind the police head qtrs in Abuja. I had a very nice time there and I also learnt alot in that day care. I learnt alot about kids and that has helped in shaping me to be the kind of mother I am now. I never really liked kids while growing up, I was kinda spoilt so kids were like competition to me. But going and working in that place opened my eyes to alot of things about children and child handling. I learnt so much about kids, there temperaments, eating habits, learning abilities, thier differences and so much more. I thot it would be a good place to laze and sloth during my service year cause I didnt want stress but am a better person from the experiences I got from that place. When my son came, I could take him to work with me and it was soo nice spending all that time with him.

I know alot of people who had a hard time during thier service year and I feel for them. I thank God mine was not so bad and the experiences from that time has helped till date. It was not a waste of a year for me, it was a very good year for me.

texazzpete:
NYSC wouldnt have been so bad if the Government could have seen fit to send us engineers to engineering related jobs instead of leaving us to teach in village secondary schools. The painful thing was, after one year of teaching maths and physics, you'd have the same Government calling you a half-baked engineer!

anyway, NYSC was a funny experience for me. on the one hand, i got to see lots of people and travel to the east for the first time. On the negative side, i used to run a web design biz and i was reasonably successful at it. one year in a no-water no-light no gsm village changed it all. I had to bring my pc over to the village and bought a gen, that made me the target of hatred from my landlord who felt i was too pompous for a 'small boy'. That, and the fact that i was the only person in the compound of 10 that used toilet roll (instead of their favored plantain leaves) made them feel i was living large.

one nasty thing that happened, when i bought the gen, my next door neighbour compained that the noise was bothering him, he threatened to shut me down unless i powered his outside light. i had no choice but to comply. The first day i turned on the pc to watch a movie, all the neighbouring kids came crowding round my window. to entertain them, i put on a home video. that was my big mistake. they knocked and knocked until i let them in (i'm a sucker for kids) and then they started running over my foam witht heir bare, dirty feet, one ripped open my discman and as i was scolding him another one was chewing up my pack of cards. I drove the louts out!

i banned them from ever entering my room again, apparently thatmade thier parents even more pissed. One day my gen blew my monitor. I heard the woman next door say it served me right in Igbo. Beef!

The school was much worse. i came in there like a whirlwind trying to change things. I was horrified to hear that in the last WAEC only on egirl managed to get 6 Cs, and she was the only one out of 60 girls that passed maths. I took it upon myself to change things!
First day i got there, i launched into an impassioned speech about decency and hardwork and future career prospects and the need to move the school forward. Then i finally told them that i want an interactive class and that i wouldn't flog anybody etc. BIG MISTAKE! Once they learnt my natural aversion to beating girls and they saw i wasn't gonna flog them, it was all over. at that moment my speech cost me all hopes of enforcing discipline. Dunno why, it works in the movies
did the girls wanna learn? nope! in a class of about 50 girls, when im teaching you'll see 12 breaking melon into their berets, 5 sleeping, 12 giggling and passing love notes from their latest village beaus, 1 girl sweeping the class, 5 gisting with other girls thru the window. any girl i send out will come leaping thru the window next time my back is turned. It was either teach or spend the whole time enforcing discipline.
at least i was inspired to teach until i marked first term exams and half the class got 0/80. This in spite of the fact that i even solved exam-like questions in class 2 days to the exam, and i told them the same thing'll come out. they just couldn't be arsed to read.
What didnt i try? to teach computer education to Jss3 i used my own computer and my own generator. they refused to listen, just because i wouldnt cane them. Jss3 maths i asked them to buy a mathematical set so they could use for trig drawing. they refused. SS2 girls didn't know how tp use a four-figure table. I asked them to buy tables, most didnt. i asked them to photocopy the tables at the back of New General mathematics. compliance rate was like 5%. I had to give up. How the heck do you pass maths when u can't read a four figure table?
How the hell did i end up teachin pythagoras' theorem for 3 weeks, something i learnt in 30 minutes, and then 90% of them failed it in exam? WTF is hard about a² = b² + c² ?

The final killer for me? My principal forced me to solve WAEC maths and physics for SS3, blackmailing me with the threat of telling my ZI about my trips to write job tests and interviews. this, after i'd been the most strident critic of exam malpractice. After that blow, i lost all enthusiasm for teaching.
The irony of it all, by me solving the maths for them, i finally made a difference in the WAEC maths result, just not in the way i hoped for


Notable NYSC Quotes:

"Corpers don't worry! Ohafia is not like Isiala Ngwa where your camp was, where they eat people. here in Ohafia, highest during estival they may cut off your head and dance with it, but they do not eat people here"

--Ohafia LGA chairman in his welcome speech to us.

"How can corpers come all the way from their states and carry all our money?"

-- Umuahia councillors, removing names of Corpers from the Polio immunisation supervisor rosters and substituting them with their own (semi-literate) people, despite the fact that corpers dominated in the qualification tests.

"You wan make i slap that ya face join wall?"

-- Tout threatening me in Ohafia park for daring to take front seat.

"I go take slap block one of ya ear"

-- Okada man threatening me with severe soft-tissue damage for daring to protest his high fares.

"Nna, Fanta and mirinda, all na the same N50. the two of them yellow"

-- Market woman happily chose to inform me that mirinda attracted the same price as fanta after i'd drank the stuff.


"Use this one to buy something for yaself"

--Vice-Principal of the school casting down N500 on the table after i'd been forced to solve the WAEC. I'd never felt so insulted in my life.

"I'm going to deal seriously with igbo girls!"

-- fellow corper confiding to me his plans to avenge his posting my sowing wild oats relentlessly.

"BooHoo! eeeeeeh!"

-- me weeping profusely after being teargassed by police on my birthday, february 2nd 2005 in Aba while trapped at the back of a vehicle.