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I met some really amazing individuals, and I did meet an interesting woman - had a lovely conversation on mutually interesting topic(s). I was questioned as to why I am unmarried yet - yeah, I was & am still shocked. I felt culture shocked! I observed human behaviour differently! I began to understand how backgrounds - a play of experience a person spends their entire life's foundation building, shapes one completely; and I refer to every form of behaviour and thought pattern one could imagine, being shaped. Asides, I fell! fell HARD, sadly, not in love but on my mere mortal body - a testimony of the faithfulness of God that I am alive to type this regardless. I questioned so much. I felt so much. I was with myself for extended periods. I felt like I prayed a bit more than I typically would, interestingly not even for any needs. In the end, I tried to go all out but that was only in the end.

Pre

This is a tale of an activity that spanned 21 days. By requirements, one is expected to move out of their comfort zone - typically to step into the unknown, physically; participating in supposedly vigorous exercises, or so they like to label it – in some thought spectrum, I honestly felt it was glorified suffering, or useless and a worthless use of my time; but on another hand it did give me some extreme thoughts which I did ponder over for the future (as regards family and this path) but all that aside, amongst several other thoughts was also the thought that I "would" of a certainty visit the gym immediately after the 21 days. It has been about 3 weeks since the 21 days to this very moment (ref: this sentence made here) but I haven't visited the gym yet, though in my defense, I paused all manner of work for 3 weeks for this and to make up for that (as well as regarding the term "time is money") things have indeed moved differently and I have had to sort things out for a while now, hopefully when the current tides subside, I should definitely honor the final thought; I digress. But what is regarded, as what they say, is just in some way a schedule to build up some form of routine of discipline, though I did analyze the situation and came to conclusion, this in no means mirrors the outside world, none of it, seems like the higher-ups heard me say this a few times, and on the final days, I saw one of the things I pointed out, though I would say it was coincidence, I was way too quiet and calm and selective on and with, what and whom, I spoke about or did speak with, as much as I could, so I pretty much doubt my ideas did leak. This was supposed to be the PRE, but there is just so much I want to say! and I feel a bit out of structure but this should let you in on what the tale of my experience will cover. {I got caught up in so much and took a 13 days pause at this point writing, *sigh}. Building up to the main event... to register, my goodness! Hectic! Having some technical knowledge of how these systems are to function even pisses me more (ref: Errors 400, 405, 500 being unnecessarily returned believed to be caused by having a large number of users consuming resource, but in truth, one could scale depending on several factors to meet the high usage periods, of which I strongly believe no effort was or may ever be made as that is playing the "..."'s advocate and only allowing a few entry means meeting the demands, I guess at the cost of many others.) (on a side note, related but of opposing view, working in the fintech has allowed me give some grace to similar field systems), but this? Though I was used to this from college days, during hostel balloting periods, every student who passed through can testify of this, but this – this felt different, sometimes I felt, why can't they just make it work - let alone good enough, then add some randomizer, with knowledge of this, one can maybe conclude and recline into everything being one's fate at that moment. Let's not talk about other aspects - referring to the physical, psychological, emotional and financial strain. {*sigh, continued on the 12th of October.}.

Hmmm, Oof!

Somehow, due to a backlog, several batches were pushed forward, I included. Luckily, since I was early, I was only moved forward once. With, a **troubled mind (troubled, isn't the right word, but more about an ambivalent feeling), building up to the d-day, a Monday where I am served with a notice of the selected location of my journey - still uncertain on how the location is selected, some say it is computer-generated, based on your locations you've visited previously, others say humans select it manually, what do I say? idk, it definitely can't be done by man considering size and effort (a random simulation - how would you sort ~50k papers - an exaggeration but something close). Well, the location came in and my goodness! my heart began racing and "stopping", much like a car's jerking movement. The only assurance was much like Jesus The Christ – who assured us that be of good cheer, in this world you shall face trials and tribulations, but He hath overcomed the world { John 16:33 }; well, someone I personally knew, had walked this path, or atleast something in close relation and I did see the outcome, yes it was bad, but it wasn't impossible for them, and this was their first time much like me (thank you, Es.) this infact gave me a courage to go, though still filled with all kinds & forms of emotions. The interesting challenge with all these is, you know your fate on a Monday and you're expected to be on your way by roughly Tuesday/Wednesday, no questions, with a deadline of Friday and a penalty of being forced to wait another batch or worse, batches. There was definitely no second choice of mode of movement, everything was set into motion - planning & logistics, everything. On the day or departure, it still felt surreal, this was my first time, using an airplane and I was going alone, I still had so much to do. To add even more pressure, I had everything planned out, or so I thought, flight at 1, arrive at 3, take a ~5-6 hour journey and maybe, just maybe arrive at my destination fully at 8-9 pm. Guess what, the flight got moved, from 1 to 4 pm, omg! Even worse, after moving it, (still don't know if that is forward or backward, everyone gets this confused, **checks the "internet", well, there's no literal direction, forward in time, pushed back in space; haha) the said 4pm wasn't 4pm, still took another 1 hour before the actual departure, *(can't remember if this added to my pounding heart! it most probably did). During this time, I found someone, who knew someone and both of them (with some of their friends) were going in my direction - a place I have never been or even dreamt of being; a lot of people, I included, knew this place on paper, because as children, at elementary school, we were taught about these places and made to recite them (even as a song) and even learn a lot of history on them - tbh, I don't remember much of it haha. So the journey started, quite smooth, not so much turbulence, but idk about anyone's experience on their first flight, but mine, much like others I believe, felt like I lost balance cause my ear went voom! couldn't hear anything for a "while". Got there safe, to the glory of God.

Landed, Ahh!

Here, at landing, at around 6pm, I met a (beautiful, I must add or say *added this piece later on) lady, whom I later found out, we went to the same school, different faculties, man, really small world it is and both of us were going to the exact same destination. Remember the person (who knew other people) I met earlier, he offered to guide me. Sadly, the lady I met and I had to split off here, we both would later continue our journies the next day, but I honestly just felt the need to do a little more that day and continue the next day. Thanks to my helper, I did go a bit further in my journey. This was indeed, the hottest journey I have ever experienced, here's a simulation - imagine driving at a very high-speed on a highway, of course you would expect a cool breeze going in and out, and maybe at some point you may want to wind up the glasses if you do feel cold or if you feel the breeze "a little too extra", but here, imagine the only breeze passing through is filled with completely hot air (let's assume ~35 degree celcius), now think about going like this for about 3 hours, no AC in the car, if you let the windows down, you are greeted with far worse air, so you wind up to avoid that air, crazy & brazy. We got into "town" (the city's capital infact and I must say - the best part of the whole location), safely after over 3 hours of driving (from 6pm to 9 ish) through somewhat like a dessert - vast running open fields, barely any civilization or habitation for the most part, sunsetting leading to darkness at some point, still with the hot-air and a burst of emotions. After some settling physically - which came after several roundabouts due several minor decisions, my helper helped look for a lodge that night for me (to rest my head and begin the next day). Every lodge was blocked out. There was no space to lay my head – sounds a lot like Jesus' birth (haha), but it was due to an holiday celebration, turns out then, a lot of people did come back home (their home, a completely new location and experience for me - my first time here) and everywhere was booked out. My helper did find a friend whom I passed the night with and in the morning, he helped me to the park. It indeed was an interesting first night (I couldn't sleep for some minutes/hours, scrolled a bit, made some calls, sent some texts, prayed and everything but slept for a while). This was precisely 10:59 pm on the 11th of June, 2025. Setting out the next morning, got to the park and just as I got there, the last filled car left, haha, what a way to start the morning, had to wait for hours (approximately 4 hours) just to get another filled car. Longest and hottest four hours of my life - or so I thought at the time. The journey took another ~3 hours to get there. Registration had began the previous day, I wasn't "late, late", as so many other people arrived at the same time I did, although not as much as the previous day, I could tell. New space, new territory, my dwelling for the next 20 days and nights. { *at this point of writing I am truly considering breezing through my experience, I may, I may not }. Registration was hectic, just like the registration(s) before. As is their nature, all officials weren't on seat at some point, left only to the reasoning fact - which they expected of you to know, they went to carry out some activity "..." {redacted}. Let's just say, ok, its their nature (*wrong of me to say; not their nature, but their habit - much of what most of them had been taught growing up). Now, they came back, queue was building, tension everywhere, some people stepped aside due to some documents (missing documents, original documents needed in place of a copied one presented and all sorts)... Well, I didn't have any issues, but come on, in '25 we still dealing with paper work for everything, come on! Well, after initial stages, then came, "arrange your papers in a certain way", which I did, as well as many others, then came another queue. Way too many queues. In summmary, there was a up-down-up-down movement (more specifically forward-backward, there wasn't really any stairs there, all movements were ground levelled) but there was just way too much to attend to, after all is said and done. Remember the beautiful lady I met? Well, we couldn't be together atleast for the coming days, midway through registration, her location changed – changed??? Yes, changed! After all that journey? Yes! We had to exchange goodbyes as she hurried to her new location and I, sitting and dealing with the fact - a good person, at the time a soon-to-be good friend of mine (maybe even best friends, considering being locked up together at this new location - sharing the same experience of a first of everything at the moment, even if "apart", gender seperation, for the next coming days. Now we're good friends, we speak from time-to-time, really amazing woman!) was leaving me, so it was kind of back to zero (from plus one) on who I knew at this place. All I could think about was to eat the little (not-so-little) loaves I had from home and head to bed. Well, I had the little loaves but the bed part, haha, there were still more activities to tend to (compulsorily). This was ~8pm, and the day and the night, was one day (haha).

No way, What?

I had a little story on how all these would go, but nothing and I mean, absolutely nothing, on God's created earth, in any way, would prepare you for any of this. I woke up as early as I could, maybe 3/4 am, set out to have a bath and go back to bed for some minutes (also after having some personal time), everything was tiring. As the day break, nothing prepared me for the level of exposure to the Sun, I had; not even the hot-air of the previous day (evening), could have prepared me for that. The Sun was so intense, I don't think its purpose was to give Vitamin D, or even less worse, to make you break a sweat, it felt like its aim was to make you BURN! and I mean it, and you won't believe, natives said, we all arrived at the "most" wonderful time of the year (of course this wasn't Christmas, lol), referring to the fact that this was a rainy season, and the weather is much more "friendly" (sounds like an allegedly kinda statement to me), than it would be during the dry seasons. All these, coupled with a compulsory uniformed dressing, which was thick! with a head covering barely enough to shield you and in a very open area where there is barely any shade. Open area - speaking on this – I didn't pay attention much to nature before, if I'm being honest; cause it was then (here) I realized, my home had way more clouds high up in the skies, protecting one in some way from the Sun, but over "here", a cloud is a big blessing and priviledge, or so I did see it. It was almost like, if you even saw a cloud in the sky, you could almost say the rain was going to fall; Interestingly, all through my stay of 20 days, rain only fell twice, several (maybe 3 or 4) very chaotic wind movement and the rest of the days, was a mobile Human frying pan. Enough of the Sun, I know, but if I could, I would write a whole post about it. Just to show its intensity. I still relied on rations of my loaves for days (morning-and-evening, unhealthy I know, but I had jacked up my mind to "survival-mode", so at that point, doing anything to survive was my only goal); didn't want to be forced to go out of my way, yet, and I was strongly advised against getting the provided food, and trust me, I did avoid such, through out, the only exceptions been, I did engage with their loaves and eggs, and for one day - spent in the kitchen (semi-voluntarily), I had a bit of their meat (or turkey, or chicken, can't honestly remeber what it was).

A week in, already?

{*sigh, continued on the 22nd of December.}. Time didn't go fast. Time felt paused. Time was slow. I counted every second. I only wished for one thing, for all these to be over, quickly. It felt like the tale you hear in movies relating to space, galaxies and the other planets; an instance is a series/movie I watched years back but can't remember the name, where it was said, something along the lines of "40 years on earth is like 10 minutes here". Slowly, much slower than the time began to meet new people. My bunk-mate, the calmest guy in the whole location, looked out for me much like a brother; just like the memes about guys, we never exchanged names until pretty much the second or third week in - typical, but we got along even in silence. Each person was divided into "divisions" (*divisions isn't the word but for privacy I claim divisions, also it was a flat structure, not some league-promotion-relegation kind of space), I was placed in "division" 3 (later found out my bunk-mate was in 1). Attended several lectures, much of it was infact boring. Then an "interesting" "figure-head" showed up, the build up to their showing up was infact stupid and crazy (but still all allegedly cause it was so I heard, a rumour which I believe to be very true given so many obvious signs) - several attempts had been made at getting them to show up, all to no avail, then on luck + coincidence, they needed to do something at a certain location close to this location and luckily they needed to pass through this location, so a few of my colleagues were rallied to stand just by the way-side in an attempt to get their attention, and it did pay off somehow (I wasn't there but the gist got to me), so they, along with their entourage all buzzed in like flies (I would day for the most part, they were unruly and I can confidently say, they exhibited behaviours associated with thugs), noise everywhere for a "figure-head" I personally felt irritated by for several reasons but one would be, I digustingly saw a picture of them for the most part of my journey arriving here, looking much like a celebration of someone with empath, who cares about the natives but considering how far untouched the surroundings excluding the capital is, I was (and very well still am) very disappointed. The riff-raffs did their thing - their usual signature everywhere they went and left, a "lovely" break from my boredom transmission. Somewhere in all these, I found a lovely spot which went on to become where strangers would find me on most evenings and afternoons - a food spot. On my first exploration there, I took fried rice, placed alongside jollof rice, with salad and (a big fish "Eja Nla", jk) a full fried dried little fish; I still have a photo of it and still a little surprised at how much it was sold, knowing where I come from, it may easily be 2x the price, at the very least; all stepped down with a drink, I must say, this came days(sss) later - after I had exhausted my loaves of bread. The coming days introduced us to even more exercises, something I dreaded and felt was a total waste of time as it barely mirrors the real-world, or rather my view of it. Building up to a routine - wake at 4, have my bath and some personal time, try to get some sleep back (on many days, unfortunately, couldn't) get called for a general devotion, some assembling and announcement, some moral lessons talk and all that, morning drills followed, and of course, DO NOT FORGET an important guy, take a guess... The Sun, shining in all its glory as early as it could and scorching the hell out of any and everything. Then a personal time for breakfast & bath, but for me, I spent most of it on just breakfast and napping, breakfast included watermelon and Dates (the fruit) for the most part for me (...was warned against taking food offered there, and so I definitely couldn't dare use my stomach to rebel), then long-stretched lectures and then, some time for a lunch break, which varied for me but for the most part, like my other colleagues who were all really exhausted as I was on most occasions was spent sleeping. You see, this sleep here was very important, if you joked with it, I am sorry, the rest of your afternoon (under the Sun) and evening going into the night was pretty much screwed. On occasions I walked around to get a few things during these periods, or when I wake up earlier than most and you could hear a pin-drop, everywhere was silent (of course everyone was tired and exhausted), and to top it off, the weather was still not so friendly.

Two weeks in, oh no!

Just at the beginning of the second week (skewed to approximately Wednesday-Thursday for truthy values, jk), everything seemed to be going as earlier; and a little more detail would be, to achieve an early wake up time, of course, some things had to be dealt with the prior night - fetching a bucket of water down, to be used the next morning. On this very night, same routine as usual, but the lights went out - as almost expected cause there's a supposed power-out time, and my problem? It felt like it came in probably earlier – way earlier, I was on my way as usual to fill up a bucket - power out (to drive home some irritating fact(s), there was barely power in such areas, on most days there was probably just ~2 hours of power - which was only enjoyable for a couple of minutes, because, there were of course "compulsory" activities to attend to, and the rest of the time? complete darkness, yes you heard me right COMPLETE DARKNESS; a far worse fast would be, the power was basically useless for the most part, with the lights as an exception - you would have to pay some vendor to help recharge your devices, there were no fans in the sleeping area until much later - the third week, and on and on and...) - I in a pressure of time, thought, "let's just rugged this, and jog to the tap to get water", okay maybe I ran, with no lights, trusting my instincts, and the question, at what point do we leap? leap? you might ask, yes, leap - over the open gutters (water channels), yes, not a single gutter was covered, and in my instinct, predicted at what point I need to take the jump, calculating wrongly, I fell, if it had just been a fall, great, I would be on my way, some part of my bucket and body made contact the the edge of the open gutter (an expression of a ... (*redacted)), the bucket, shattered, the body - a deep cut, and at just a simple glance it was just a sharp cut and something I could just rinse off, in the coming minutes, got to the area of fetching water and thanks to so many people and especially, Au. (a really good guy, just had to take a mention here), I found out it was a whole lot different than I thought. From there to the clinic, to receiving a tetanus, to getting cleaned up and stitched up, many thanks to Dr. M, Nurse B. and the Pharm. team. Yes, I got the feeling of anaesthesia for the first (and by God's grace, the last) time in my life, the whole crew was shocked - I didn't scream during the whole process, claiming my sect of people would have made a ruckus, and I couldn't even deny it, but at that point in time, I was just finding solace and comfort in the fact that, I really could have died that night, (...redacted). I didn't bother anymore about my usual routine, as soon as I was discharged after the stitching that night, I just had a bit of personal time and slept. I woke up very late, being visited by the "people" in-charge, of course, a "frog-jump" instruction followed, but my bandage was all I needed to get away, and for the next coming days, I survived everything with just my bandage and a statement of a personal "check-up" with the clinic crew - although that was necessary. Then my following routing became, wake up just like everyone, go out for a devotion, retire into the clinical ward, sleep until time for a bath, have it, eat, retire once again, eat sleep and retire once again; and only now, eat and show up for a late night activity and fresh air. The whole experience became different, yet still filled with much piss at the fact that something as almost life-altering happened just for a 21-day stay. In the first week, my engagement felt medium, in the second, it was a mix between very low and medium, as people saw me, they felt pity, it got so bad I had to wear a covering just to prevent anymore pity. Well, for the most part, that worked.

Just One more week left, Yay!...

The ending narrative was a little different, the engagement was a whole lot better, got to meet a lot of new people - Dr. Hol., Dr. Has., Nurse Mar. and a lots of interesting folks. I had just healed up, and the bandage removed, soon it was a cultural day, I didn't have no clothing to fit, at the same time I had FOMO - long story short, I tried to improvise, it ended badly, (at first), luckily, my "division" needed a role, and some how my dressing fitted just right in, and I guess it ended on a better note, for my "division", I did try my best, I really did, unfortunately didn't win - yes, it was a competition, and yeah I don't need to beat up myself, I was only a man in the group of ~10-12 and the winners of so happened to be people who represented the culture of the "special guest of honor", oh what a coincidence *(with as much sarcasm and disgust). Anyways, moving to the cooking competition, I did turn up, for the most part, played a supporting role - fetching important materials and all of that, became so important at some point, food was reserved for me even when I took a bit of absence. In all of these, I met an interesting woman in my "division" - G., we talked about food, all kinds - some I hadn't heard in all of my years of living, I did take an interest in getting to know her at the time, and you know that saying of "never ask a woman her age", well our conversation did reach that, both of us resonated on some level, crazy that both of us lived similar lives cause our *mates, did at several occasions give funny remarks and interesting gestures at the fact of seeing each of us with an opposite gender alone in the open; weird, cause can't I have an interesting conversation? Well, we exchanged contact and still from time to time (maybe not so frequently), talk. The last days were very lenient, everyone was well spent, physically, the last Sunday started out sunny and in no time, a sandy storm filled the whole area (this was the third and final time I saw it, and the second time it rained). During such periods, the last place you want to be in, is outside, everyone, locked up inside, and of course, took a long nap. All competitions, took a gradual ending, as winners celebrated and you know... Since people came from all over, it was time to know the verdict of location, staying in this new location for the coming months or knowing your fate. Bags were packed, so much movement in a bid to return all materials and prepare for a long journey ahead. On the morning of departure, there were long queues of buses and people, everyone filled with different emotions, some saying good-bye to a friend of 21 days, (some even saying good byes to their 21-day lovers), some happy to just get out of the s-hole, pictures taken, reels done, tiktok edits made. The final ceremony began, it was brief, everyone got their "fate" handed to them and the rest they say is history.

To End

After an interesting journey - entered a cab whose driver, drove a ~6 hour journey in 4 frkng. hours, drove like a mad man with a Benz. even though it was maybe an old Nissan or Toyota. Arrived at a temporary place, stayed a night, took flight, stayed somewhere else for another night, and took another flight and arrived back home safely. To God be the glory.

Conclusion

A friend suggested I wrote this experience in a book, I took pictures every day (morning and night) so it may definitely be on my radar. All names, as much as possible, have been hidden on purpose and for all manner of similarity in this story, please note that this, was in fact a personal experience. Some gratitude if you read through, for all I thought, I tried to paint this abstractly. Once again "You can subscibe ...", (jk, there is none). I tried to make the reading time, 21 minutes long, but it seemed inaccurate (very actually). Anyways, it was an "interesting" experience.