Yeah…back from the restaurant and on the lonely road, I reminisced on all the people I met within this space and lessons learnt.
There was Solo, the self-enthroned ‘Chief Priest’ of my room. Solo is humorous without meaning to be. I remember when they paid us our allowance and everyone trooped to the mammy market to splurge. Solo calmly bought a novel and lay on the mattress for six straight hours in an attempt to stay prudent.
‘Solo, you can’t turn into an academic overnight’ I teased, whenever I passed and saw him lying supine, the money enclosed in a waist bag.
‘Tafa, leave am like that. If I read this one finish, I go collect Vallazone for clinic so I fit wake up when camp don over’.
Then there was Chambers-the boy with the bushy hair who was always puffing. We later spoke and I found out what an intelligent mind lies beneath the dour exterior. Chambers smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and is on his second book.
Then we had Orondaam, who speaks French fluently and has so much social energy. He had befriended virtually the whole camp by the end of our first week.
Oh! The groups where you had to stay together and hear everyone air their views. Then they always appointed a lady to a post in the name of gender equality. All in all, virtues like patience, teamwork and mutual respect were entrenched in the midst of the quotidian routines.
On evenings like this, when the Power Company looks kindly upon my quarters and everywhere glows a dull orange, I sit down; take out a camp memory and mull it over in my mind, looking at its various edges in the light. Maybe I’ll even write a story on them.
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