PPA (Place of Primary Assignment) – PART 1

 The football field at my PPA; Photocredit: Chef's phone

After 3 weeks in CAMP, it was finally time to leave camp and report to our respective PPA’s. PPA simply means Place of Primary Assignment and it is where you serve the country for the remainder of the service year. It is usually government establishments such as government schools, government offices and government hospitals although in recent times private companies have requested and had corpers sent to them. So on this fateful last day of camp, here I am waiting for all the ceremonies to be over so I could get my letter of posting, I was eager and so full of hope that I would be posted to the state capital or at least somewhere great. We had to pack our luggage out of the hall very early that morning and Chef and I had met up earlier that morning to discuss our posting and we were very hopeful. Chef was part of the closing parade which was quite fun (well apart from the people that fainted standing under the hot sun) and immediately after that we met up to go and take our posting letter. The letter was distributed by state code number and we were divided into groups which was so sad as you see Chef and I had thought we would take ours at the same time since we were in the same platoon (also our state codes were almost the same with the exception of one number). Anyways, we were on separate lines but we agreed to get our letters and tell each other were we had been posted to at the same time. I got my letter and saw that I had been sent to this village and I was sad and ashamed to tell Chef anyways I walked up to him and he was reluctant to tell me where he had been posted to. He snatched my posting letter and gave me his and we saw it was the same local government and same school and we hugged each other as we had found joy in the midst of disappointment. Anyways, we said our goodbyes to our friends and made enquiries about our PPA. Transportation was provided for corpers to our respective local government and we found the bus to our local government and bid farewell to camp after 3 weeks and we were ready for the next phase. 

Our local government was about 40mins from the camp and the journey there had us feeling less optimistic as most of the places we had passed were mostly bushes or rural and remote areas. We also discovered that the local government did not have any bank so anytime we needed money or needed to conduct any bank transaction we would have to travel back to the town where the camp was located which is a 40mins journey. The local government has about 7 settlements and the local government headquarters was in the same settlement as my PPA which was our first stop as we had to meet the Local Government Inspector (L.G.I), get briefed and get to our various settlements. We met with the L.G.I and our executives and we were informed by the L.G.I that he would have to reshuffle us according to the needs of the schools in the various settlements. Sadly, I was moved to another settlement but on the bright side Chef had once again ended up with me; same settlement and same school.  The sad part was that we were farther away from civilization and the journey to the bank would now take about an hour. We were given a new letter of reposting and we proceeded to our various settlements; the vice-principal of the school I had been posted to was there to pick us up and take us to the settlement. It was another 30minutes drive from the headquarters and we (there were 3 of us) finally got the settlement. We arrived at the corpers’ lodge and it was an eyesore; the wall was unpainted and had scribbling on it, there was no toilet (well there was a pit you could use as a toilet), no water system (you had to fetch water from a monopump at the centre of the town), in fact the rooms were looking empty with the absence of a welcoming bed just one haggard looking mattress (which for the life of me I’d prefer to call a flat foam). The corpers’ lodge was already been occupied by 3 people; the CDS chairman who came to pick us up; Corper S., Luchi and a third person; Corper A. who wasn’t around. The first two were from Batch A and the last person was in the same batch with us but stream 1.

P.S: I’d be going home soon but I’d still keep blogging. As of now, we haven’t had power (light) for almost a week now, the fuel scarcity in the country has made it almost impossible to buy fuel (petrol) and we ran out of water as usual. Chef and I just bought a litre of petrol for ₦400; well it was black market (illegal sales). Last week was crazy it rained heavily and the roof was leaking and it was even dropping on the bed, the mosquitoes are another serious issue and I always feel like they bit me more. Well, I discovered that I was right about my feeling; I learnt that some of us are mosquito magnets and mosquitoes bite us more than other people.

I thought a few people might also enjoy my playlist, I listen to any kind of music but yeah I would admit that a lot of times I am about the vocals. Anyways, here is what I was listening to while typing this:

When you tell me that you love me – Westlife ft Diana Ross, Who you are – Jessie J, Yesterday – Toni Braxton, Your Side of The Bed – Trey Songz, Stuttering – Jasmine Sullivian, Superwoman – Karyn White, The Reason – Hoobastank, That’s where you find love – Westlife, Thank God I found you - 98⁰/Joe/Mariah Carey, Hallelujah – Alexandra Burke, Imagine Me – Kirk Franklin