Intense To Mild

  The tippers were dumping red earth and the tiny stones on two sets of heaps that John and Charles couldn't stop observing. They have practically forgotten where they were going and lost themselves in the amazement before them. Smirking and outright giggling were their lots for the better part of an hour or so. Dried weather was on their mild outing that Friday morning.

"Do they say it's the commissioner building a new house or his brother?" John asked, still giggling that even Charles found it hard to hear him well.

"As you heard the story, that is how I heard it" he replied still giggling. "Maybe the guy doesn't understand our question. We better ask another boy" he said, still laughing knowing well what the boy told them right. More tippers were making their way into the place with more of the same materials and the workers some of them have changed into their working attires of torn shorts and dirty worn out shirts and half comatosed straw hats on their heads.

As they were about to engage another of their pupils who they saw last in school three days ago the same question, one outgoing corper Grace they call her, a member of the first batch of corpers that handed over to them(the batch B sets) that will be leaving within two days were seen coming towards them. They decided it's better to hear from those before them. And since Grace can speak little Hausa, she will know far better than most of these kids that seem to be too eager to jump into the fray. She is a mingler from what they have seen for three days now with the outgoing group. She seems to John to be taking in the last glance of the landscape, the people that had served as her home for twelve months. Some of the corpers that served in the north never came back to the region for life after service.

They approached her and greeted. "Are you people heading to the Vadamar?" She enquired of them. Vadamar is the fake lake government constructed in almost all the states in the northern part of the nation to enable farmers, their farms lined up the two sides of the road with a gutter-like ridges that takes water from the lake to the farms to farm all year long. "Nah, we heard that the  place is an isolated place and it takes about an hour trekking to get there. Is it advisable for two foreigners as we can practically call ourselves to go there alone?" Charles asked her with that smirk still on his face. Grace was eyeing him with interest wondering what was funny from the statement. "Emm, it takes about 40 minutes if you concentrate to trek there. There are a lot of interesting distractions on the way. I think it will be intelligent to go as a group. That was how we handled it when we were new" she said, still eyeing them and the funny expressions on their faces. " Is it true Grace that it's that commissioner for agriculture we saw the other time heaping those stones and clay soils for  a new house?" John asked, almost giggling out the question. 

 Grace immediately understood what was the cause of their expression and giggling of her own appeared uninvited and she spent a minute at it before answering them. "sure. You think he has no money for a cement house or something? Do you even believe that all these mud houses all over here were as a result of poverty?" She asked them, still giggling. Nay. "It's the result of the adverse weather. This state we are in is closer to the Sahara desert. You have been here three weeks and you can attest already that the weather is their number one enemy. Extreme everything. The extreme sun during the dry season proper is a typical example of hell on earth. The houses are cooler if not deep freezers made in Africa inside. Have you had any opportunity to enter any of the mud houses?" She asked them, still smirking."It's too cool. You will refuse to leave once in there during blazing sunny days that can last two weeks nonstop. And at times, it is as high as 60 degree centigrade" she said while observing them for the expected unexpressed disagreement to appear on their faces. It did. She laughed out loud."it's an inevitable thing you will experience" she told them, eyeing the workers that have started mixing the materials with water and marching. 

They went each others way. John, thinking that the harmattan he is expressing already is different from what he knew in his twenty-two years of existence in the south, but mud houses were archaic in history from the southern part of the country most of them came from. He had done his research of Sokoto state he was posted before coming but what you see in the net about anything in Nigeria is meant to speak well of the place either for politics, religion or  tourism reasons. So, he never takes anything from the net seriously. To him, seeing is believing and since he is in Sokoto already, why not see rather than be told. The land seems to be full of stones. The road is pure red in color. Untarred and dusty. The withered trees were standing like a rejected lover so confused and solemn. 

Kasuwa. That is a typical language he has learnt in the two plus weeks he has been in Sokoto state. Ones like Namma, Inigia or something that sounds like that he knew before coming. One must eat food before any other thing and Kasuwa meaning market seems to be what anyone must learn whether you like it or not. They were heading to the market to buy tomatoes another lodge mate told them were too cheap. 

Why they like to post students to other legions from theirs makes sense if the nation and inhabitant of it made sense too. But the humans inside the state are more volatile than the adverse weather Grace described. Maybe, it's a complimentary thing at work. If you count the number of christian corpers massacred in the northern part of the country already since the inception of the scheme in 1973, their population is enough to make up a state. You will start understanding why the exchange or whatever term they used for it doesn't make sense at all to many. 

You Marry, give birth, started to feed the toddler and then start to educate the toddler from nursery to college level and when it will be their time to buy even common bread for their parents as thank you for raring me, government post them to northern region only for some advanced adverse crazy mad humans to come after their lives in the name of religion and riots. The call for people to serve in their region falls on deaf ears. "What can one do?" Charles quipped. John whirl toward him wondering if he had been speaking out when he believed he had been talking to himself. "What?" He asked, eyeing him. "we don't have much choice. We are not our own masters. Wherever they post us, we go" that was when John knew he had crossed warning lines with his self-talk about the north and its adverse weather. They trod to the market in silence brooding to themselves.   

Sokoto is supposed to be a Fulani state. 86% of its inhabitants are Fulani but it's Hausa language all the way for every tribe. Not a single Fulani they have heard from even Fulani guys and gals in the camp with them. John was surprised to hear two old women in the market there selling potatoes speaking Fulani. He became interested in the sound. Maybe it's because of the sound they preferred Hausa to it. Fulani is sounding to him like refined Igbo language with stress on the final letters and sound base somehow. 

Two months later,Grace utterances came to pass. The sun seems to break out from whatever had been holding it like crazy bull charging like mad as early as 8 in the morning. "What of those education from the south on hospitals and newborn babies and vitamin D?" John asked Charles that morning. " I mean, they said it comes out with the sun in the morning around this time and lasts till 11am before malaria takes over. It's 8 here and it's already Malaria sun out" he said, eyeing the upwards, squinting and shielding his eyes from the blazing sun. " how do they sun their newborn babies for vitamin D or is that part of hospital education nonexistent here?" Still focusing on the sun and testing its intensity with himself. "There is nowhere babies can be sampled outside in this sun without 90% joining their ancestors prematurely" Charles said, rubbing his arms, wondering if it's allergies or something on the first day of sun outing. Walking inside to continue his observation from a safer place. " Maybe, its positioning swap at work here in the north. In the south, it's from mild to intense, maybe it might be from intense to mild in the north. This our first experience, let's evaluate things in the evening. Meanwhile, keep a diary each day. The experience might be of great importance in the south after a year here" Charles said while scribbling in the diary in front of him.

He suddenly started loving the north. He is not only there to serve his fathers land, never one even to ask what his nation will do for him. It has done much by posting him here. Now, the rest is what he will do for himself and he was elated to find what to lookout for each day for twelve months. Meanwhile, he has noticed that the zinc over him is heating up slowly. He eyed John to know if he had noticed another adverse they had to confront.