NYSC Orientation Camp Day 9 : It’s A Man’s World

I’m upset and ashamed as I write this.

A man almost beat me up today.

I hustle to sit in a choice area under the tent. The tent is hot as a rite of passage but there is this spot where a standing fan is placed. Also, my colleagues are seated beside me so gisting is fun. This camp thing is boring enough that if you get a chance to seat with familiar minds just take it. I’m seated behind Aminat and that’s a double bonus because I can rest my head on her seat and get some sleep, which is something I take advantage of.

This loud guy decides to shout at me ordering me to move my chair so he can seat. I look at him and explain that he can bring his chair to come sit beside me as I’d like to take advantage of the fan and also my friends around. My response falls on deaf unreasonable ears because all his friends start to bug me about moving my seat and accommodating the guy. ? Gang-ups? really? So a bunch of boys think they can with shouting bully me? When you can simply get polite and reasonable. Hell  no!

Firstly, I’m not interested in moving, then I don’t appreciate their insults and lastly I’ve gone a stretch by offering a perfectly acceptable compromise for him. So he’d better take that and stop bugging my sleepy ass.

The next thing I know is this guy comes in front of me, drags my waist purse and flings it, throws my chair in the air and starts to hassle me.? This happens so fast and I’m surprised. Is someone about to go all violent on me?

He starts to shout and I push him away from me because he is all up in my face, with his chest nearly touching mine. Some camp official steps in before I can talk or do anything and we are marched into the camp commandants office.

It’s not a scene I want to recant because I feel so violated. How does a man stand up in his clear senses to harrass a lady.

And even if not in his right senses, why pick on me? Of all ladies he could pick on? ?‍♀️  And worse still how does a man display violence to a woman he has barely met or known? Like what happened to self comportment.

There’s ample other spaces vacant that he could have sat in, what’s so special about mine? It’s well within my rights to refuse to give up my seat.

When we get to the camp office, I’m too shocked to come to my own defense, I watch as the guy mounts all manner of accusations on me and I’m just thoroughly ashamed. I’m older than this guy by five comfortable years at least and I’m a Doctor. I’ve got both a BSc and an Mbbs. That means my path shouldn’t cross with such an crass individual. Even if it was ordained to cross, it should have been under better terms. This dude is someone who hitherto would not have had any form of access to me if not for this NYSC camp.

Once again I feel grossly violated.

The ladies in the office descend on me and call me names for fighting a man. ?‍♀️ It’s at this point I snap out of my confused speechless haze and start to speak. I reiterate that I never lifted a finger on the dude and that I was in my own sit when the guy came to meet me. I’m guessing their brains have been replaced by bananas because they respond by saying I should not have answered the guy.

For Christ’s sakes, a guy comes to my seat and descends on me, flinging my property and I still have to deal with this bull shit. Do not excuse my language because I’m not sorry for this.

An offense book is brought out and we are asked to read our offenses and the punishment out loud. Apparently, our penalty is to have our camp year extended by three months with half pay. ??

Mind you the glamorous pay they are halfing is nineteen thousand eight hundred naira and absolutely zero kobo. This is barely worth fifty US dollars.

Can it get any worse?

Are this people really thinking their money is a big deal? I mean, I quit my transplant job to do this necessary evil that is youth service, so what in the world are the up and on about?

The guy that assaulted me is humphing and braying away, trying to prove a point that doesn’t exist. He assaulted me!!!

That’s the only thing I know. I just keep shaking my head. My mind can’t be wrapped around this. All I can do is wish endlessly that I went to clinic and attended to patients instead.

I’m only here because I’ve been advised to try and bond with people outside of the medical world. To expand my social circle.

Because I’m well able to keep to myself for the duration of this camp, I’m well able of writing myself an impeccable medical report that would make them exempt me from camp. I wouldn’t do it, but I very well can!

If this is what’s obtainable outside the medical world, then maybe I’m no longer interested in mingling.

Just leave me on my own.

I honestly can’t wait to go home to sanity.

Some woman who had been observing the whole show quietly from a corner catches my eye and whispers that we should apologize.

?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️

Bile suddenly tastes so sweet.

???

I’m assaulted whiles in my own lane and well within my rights and I should apologize for it. I feel just as bad as Busola Dakolo must have felt hearing the verdict of the high court in her rape allegation case.

I go on my knees and I beg anyway, because what choice do I have?

The guy looks at me and has the sense to shut up and join me. I offer my best apology albeit insincere, seething profusely inside myself and promise not to let such happen again. ???

The boy hugs me sideways, to put on some show that we are friends and have settled our hassle.  ?

All my instinct is to recoil and probably slap him for daring to lay a filthy hand on me in a show of false embrace.

And not just a finger, a whole sweaty, heavy right hand.

I breath in and out, count to 20 and calm down.

Once again bile tastes sweet in my mouth and I decide that following my instincts will not help my case.

The commandant calms down and then tells us to write an undertaken instead.

An undertaken promising good conduct. ?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️

We get up and I head to the clinic I was ditching to get a paper on which to write mine. The guy tags along with me expecting that I’d get him a paper too. ??‍♀️

Such sense of entitlement. Like why !!! Why are there “some” guys on this earth with this infantile behavior.

I write my letter and hand it in. The women start to tease me on my anatomy and say it’s probably what attracted the guy to come make trouble with me. They expect me to find it funny but I don’t. I will never find that funny by the way. They keep teasing anyway. Saying I’d probably become best of friends with the guy and marry him. You can join me in rolling your eyes at this point. ??

They give another round of unnecessary lecture about controlling ones temper and mostly direct it at me.

Hehehe ?

Emi!

Emi omo baba Adebayo.

My father would turn so uncomfortably in his grave to hear I am being spoken to this way.

What in the world!!!

Am I the one who flung a chair in the air in a show of whatever this poorly brought up boy must have been trying to show?

Or am I the one that rough handled someone’s waist purse.

What am I missing here?

As their lecture ends, the guy starts to say something that I’m not quite listening to and before I know it, he wraps me in a full body hug. ???

A full body hug!

For emphasis sake, A FULL SWEATY UNWELCOME BODY HUG.

I am guessing he is trying to convince them that we are now cool.

Only we are not.

We just can’t be.

His offenses keep increasing.

I keep my face blank, detach myself from the hug and leave the place.

The guy tags along me again and comes to apologize.

He states that he has a temper problem and that he was really sorry for his approach.

Oh really….. you wanna play the temper card on me? After all the lies he told against me in the office.

I don’t answer and he askes for my number begging for a chance to call me later and make it up to me. I stay unmoved and just walk towards the clinic. He follows me and I eventually give the number to him. (My block button works all too well)

Instead of apologizing what he should have done is to tame that temper and leave me well alone.

I’ve memorized his state code and his full names. I will probably spend the next one hour plotting a sweet revenge on him until I calm down.

I can’t believe this happened to me.

I’m done writing my sad ordeal in my journal and I choose to raise up my head to take in my surrounding. On doing this, I see the face of one of the women in the office who spoke to me inappropriately seated with the nurse checking her blood pressure. She has a complaint and I’m likely to be the doctor she’d be assigned.

I’m not ready for this.

I’m not ready to pretend that I’m fine and put on a pleasant face while I listen to her complaints.

My God help me.

Please.

I just can’t.

I don’t have it in me right now.

?

By some stroke of luck, Opemipo’s patient gets up and leaves and she goes to fill the vacant space there. She notices me and with a shocked face she politely asks if I am a doctor.

I say yes and she keeps quiet. She doesn’t look into my eyes after that.

It’s sad that even women contribute to making the world more of a man’s domain.