JEWEL IN THE SAVANNAH (An NYSC Experience)

A beep on my phone momentarily distracted me from the movie I was watching with my aunt in the living room. I picked up the phone and read the message that Lilian had just sent.

Check where you have been posted, Delle. Call-up letter just came out.

I checked and felt my world come to a stop.

Gombe State!

A state I never knew existed – Well, okay, I did know it existed, and not just because I say it when reciting the states and capitals of Nigeria. I do have an uncle who lives there. But even that fact, this very negligible fact, wasn’t enough to get me feeling positive about my NYSC posting.

Two days after.

Amada town, Gombe state.

Imagine not liking watermelon and being given a spoilt one as appetizer. It seemed like a horrid joke, as I stepped down from the vehicle that dropped me just in front of the gate that was the entrance of the camp. It was all bare land, and then, just like the odd corn seed in a tray full of beans, the camp venue.

A place far away from civilization. The network was unpleasant, as were the house flies that wouldn’t stop invading my personal space. You couldn’t put a call through to anyone if there was an urgent need for you to flee this game reserve the government craftily called an orientation camp, except you were good at being a Tarzan – you know, swinging from tree branch to tree branch, while evading the attention of the enemy, in this case the uniformed men.

And then there was the other matter about how the camp seemed to be teeming with prospective corpers who were Hausa, a situation that brought me face to face with the possible issue of communication.

Or yet another matter of the harsh sun that seemed intent on proving that it can roast the human skin the way fire roasts corn or a barbecue.

There really was nothing to be enthusiastic about this place. But I had come to terms with this new reality. I was here and I was determined to not leave at the end of 21 days worse off than I was when I arrived here. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, they say. Well, this bitch just got a truck-load delivery of lemons and I was about to get busy.

I pushed myself into the fold of the camp events, into the heart of activities. I joined the OBS team, the radio house of the camp.

“Oh, you’re the one with the voice of a woman? E too fine.”

“Don’t tell me it was you who anchored last night’s program? I thought it was a girl!”

“I like your voice o.”

“Effizy too much for the thing wey you dey speak. Nawa o. Abeg continue.”

“Lobely bois! I wantyu speak like you. Yowa!”

All these love and accolades, you might get to thinking that I was some much-loved celebrity. But it wasn’t so. You see, in every gathering, there must always be the idiots – those stupid by birth, conditioning or induction.

Amongst these were Igwe and Kelechi. While Igwe was attractive physically, Kelechi looked like a “suffer-head” version of Rick Ross. And they were both bigots.

“Igwe and Kelechi said if you were in Lagos, they would have cornered you and beaten you until you start acting more manly,” Jessica, one of the girls I had come to be friends with and who also happened to be friends with these boys, said to me over lunch at Mami market a week after we got into camp.

I was more amused than threatened. I had come to notice those two boys before she passed on this piece of unnecessary information. The first time I set my eyes on Igwe, he had this intent look in his eyes. I recognised the curiosity and lust in that look. I know when a guy is interested. I’m a sexually active gay man. I know when a guy is interested!

Oh, but I paid him no attention, at the time most likely because the sun beating down on us would not accommodate any flirtation, and we were in the middle of yet another tiresome parade.

Igwe’s look followed me everywhere I ran into him, and yet, he was the one with the intention of cornering someplace me in Lagos and beating manliness into my homosexual body? Yeah right! Because that is really what he wants to do to me in a corner.

However, that day Jessica passed along that bit of gossip was the day I came out to all four of my female friends that were at the table. There were shocked gasps. But there was no antagonism, no prejudice, no vitriolic condemnation, no protestations. There was also a lot of curiosity that came in the form of questions I tried my best to answer.

And this was what I learned from that day at Mami market: People will be willing to accept you when they perceive from you that you have already accepted yourself.

And so it happened that my friends on camp, the ones that mattered, knew about me, and since I had nothing left to hide, I soared.

Up next? Team pepper-dem-gang!

Igwe and Kelechi, it seemed, were the only guys in the whole of Mallam Sidi camp that seemed to have a problem with my existence. Guys with more active testosterone wanted to identify with me. I was practically friends with almost everyone in camp – which, to me, isn’t much of a surprise. You see, rejection is not something I’m used to. Growing up, I was always able to put myself out there and attract the warmth of the people around me. I have always been good with people.

And I was putting myself out there in camp. I was very much actively involved in most camp activities. I was the director of my platoon’s Dance and Drama troupe. I was nominated to represent my platoon in the Dance Carnival, during which we came second. I won the karaoke/dance night in the second week; it felt good twerking and grinding on the floor to the oohs and aahs of over a thousand people. And I won. It had a nice ring to it in my head: that the Best Karaoke singer and Dancer, 2018 Batch A, Gombe State was a homosexual guy.

And as I conquered, my fan base increased. And so did the controversies.

Now there were girls brazenly asking me out! I have only ever been asked out by girls on the social media, those who don’t know I love dicks probably more than they do. However, here I was, steady getting startled by the romantic interests of all these ladies – because, well, whatever happened to stereotypes? I mean, woman, I don’t bounce when I walk.

And it wasn’t just the girls. Apparently, Hausa guys favour men who are slender and soft spoken, and because I fit that type, I attracted attention from some of them as well. It was weird how these guys saw me as feminine enough to want to get with me and the girls saw me as, well, masculine enough to want to get with me.

I was enjoying myself, and at no time was I bothered by the intense stares of the two boys whose sole agenda in life is to beat up Delle in a corner of a street in Lagos.

You see, I’m done trying to convince people to look past my physical disposition and learn to appreciate the person within. You want to hate? I will help you hate. I refuse to regret who I am, but I will help you along with you regretting who you are around me.

All in all, Camp was as stressful as the word. But it was as eventful for me as I determined it to be. I didn’t only make an effort to enjoy my stay; I tried to leave behind a legacy. Something new, something different. Something that may at first cause some discomfort, but when allowed to settle, might just draw forth some warmth.

With every passing day that drew to a close my stay here, I was proud of myself. I didn’t have sex with anyone nor did I feel the need to. I knew there were all these expectations among gay corpers of hooking up in camp. I wasn’t interested. I simply had fun, but most importantly, I touched lives with my rainbow-glittered hands.

On the last day, amidst tears (some people were crying. Sigh) and relief (on my part especially), Igwe approached me and asked for my number. I wasn’t even surprised by that. As I keyed my digits into his phone, I gave a slight shake of my head and smiled a little. I realized what had finally happened.

However he had chosen to be with his truth, he had ceased to see me as the person who threatened his existence and his handling of that truth. Perhaps he had come to appreciate the fact in unapologetically living my truth, I might be instrumental in helping me make peace with his.

Or maybe, this was the first step in his master plan of cornering me in a street in Lagos and beating the shit out of me.

Either way, I am not holding my breath over him.

I’m just here to tell you that Gombe wasn’t bad after all.

Nope. It wasn’t.

Written by Delle