“Like we told you yesterday,” his voice was clear, firm and loud, resonating over the grounds, “we go on a twenty-four kilometre endurance trek today. The walk is in two parts: the first is a six-kilometre hike through the jungle, a mountainous region, while the second is the return journey, which will be mostly a trek on regular road.

 

You will need a bottle of water, nothing more, and lunch will be served at the end of the first half. Now before we file out, let me re-emphasis my warning of yesterday. No perfumes or body sprays. If in spite of my warnings you are wearing any form of perfume you will be endangering the lives of everyone.”

  

The platoons filed out, moving out of the premises of the College of Education heading towards town. The whole town had turned out to watch, having seen this annual excursion before. They marched in single file with platoon one leading while platoon 12 brought up the rear.

 

It was a slow easy walk, spiced with football stories and war songs; some of the songs made up spontaneously. Soon they left town, turned unto a pebble-strewn road leading up a small hill. The hill offered a breathtaking view of the Katsina Ala Bridge in the distance. They crossed a small bridge made of tree trunks into the forest.

 

Tega and Tunde were walking very close, staying close so they could continue with the talk they had begun earlier in the morning. Platoon 11, Amanda’s platoon, was just ahead of them. Tega kept his eyes on her as her head bobbed in and out of the moving stream of heads. The walk became strenuous as the terrain changed from the paved roads of town to the rarely used bush paths of the jungle.

 

His mind sharpened by the adrenaline pumping in his veins, Tega hardly noticed the strain nor the passing scenery. His mind was elsewhere, juggling the events of the past, aligning them with the unfolding events of the present, and the future just within the periphery of his vision. Overnight he had become a father with a son, by a mother he had met for just one night in his past.

 

That he might have loved her then, if she had hung around, was quite possible. But the past is one thing, the present yet another, and the future was the future; A complicated situation in all ramifications. How could he deal with fatherhood? How will Amanda fit into the picture? Marriage? Deep, very deep, like Tunde had said.

 

The terrain had changed yet again. The forest had given way to Savannah grassland and there were small streams criss-crossing the path. They crossed the streams, using small bridges of single tree-trunks.

 

The tight formation of the platoons had broken down, with stragglers from leading platoons merging with the platoons in the rear. Platoons 11 and 12 had merged somewhere along the path and Tega had lost Tunde and found Amanda. He found her hand and held it. They came to a small ditch and jumped over, laughing.

 

“How’s the going?” He asked, squeezing her hand.

 

“Tough,” she replied. “But I’ll survive ... And talking about survival, here,” she handed him a bottle of natural spring water, “have this. A guy from our platoon is right now lying in the sick bay. They say it’s typhoid; I believe it is the water.”

 

“If I take this, I will be depleting your supply...”

 

“Don’t worry I have enough to last the remaining days of orientation,” she replied, off hand.

 

“It’s like you come prepared for everything.“ He was looking at her closely.

 

“No. I didn’t prepare for you.”

 

Her meaning was only too clear, but he knew she said it without malice; it was just her way of putting things across.

 

A mountain appeared in the horizon. From the distance, it seemed like a low mountain, sweeping up for miles rising sluggishly into the sky. A line of corpers, like a regiment of soldier ants, traced their way up the slopping face of the mountain. The more Tega and Amanda got closer to the mountain, the more the line of corpers appeared like a formation of ants carrying food to their hideout before the rains.

 

There were small children in camp who helped the corpers with their daily chores, fetching water, washing clothes, and often times, arranging local girls for the male corpers. The children, mostly boys, had invited themselves for the trek, some for business, carrying water, which they sold, while others came for the adventure. There were also photographers at the foot of the mountain, negotiating the difficult rocky surface with expertise borne out of experience.

 

Tega and Amanda followed a group of children on the slow tedious climb up the mountain. The going was bumpy, rough, and tiring. They moved with some difficulty, the knee length grass and shrubs making it worse. The mountain kept undulating and stretching higher as they climbed. 

 

Click! A sudden flash preceded the sound. They looked up to find a photographer smiling at them. He had taken their photograph as Tega was helping Amanda over an outcropping of rock on their path. He gave the photographer a baleful look that would have offended had he not been a good businessman.

< Prev		Next >