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Good evening fellow steemians!
I'm really honored to share this story of my recruitment into the Nigerian Red Cross Society, University of Benin Detachment, Benin city.
The 17th Of February, 2018. Is a day I will never forget because it's really a remarkable one and the worst day of my life
For one to be a member of the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS), there are some due process that's to be followed.
"On this great day, we were alerted to wake up by the resounding whistle of our Parade leader by 4:20 am"
"In case I forget we didn't sleep early either, there's a tradition that the night before recruitment there'll be a sort of gathering where there is beating of drums and singing of highlife and juju music which is referred to as “JIRATION".
We were given a maximum of 30 minutes to prepare and be ready for an early morning exercise, which was to begin by 5 am and any late comer would be severely drilled, but I was lucky to get there early since I'm no slow dresser... 😂
It's 5am already the exercise had kick start with everyone(both male and female) in thier sparkling ✨ white polo on black trousers with amazingly looking shoes 👟. This went on for about a period of 2 hours and 30 minutes.
After the exercise, which is meant for everyone, we the new intake(recruits) were separated from the old members and were given numbers and paired in three groups of which senior officers were assigned to coordinate and take care of.
At about 9 am, we were set for the great journey ahead of us(mind you we weren't made to eat or drink anything before and after the program). The journey was from the boys hostel (Hall 3) as it is called to a place we the recruits don't know but all that we were made to know was that we were going to KILIMANJARO FOREST.
As we began to journey, we made to perform some task on the way (e.g arrangment of puzzle of the seven principles of the NRCS) of which the representative of our group couldn't fulfil and we were made to pin lie flat with our heads buried in the ground for 3 minutes, after that we continued our journey with singing of songs, clapping of hands 👏, stamping of feet and the likes.
Any time a senior officer or the commandant passes by us we were obliged to compliment him and when we fail to notice his presence we were drilled.
We got to a point where we were made to lie on the floor and roll down an asphalt(tarred) valleyed road without stopping of which I became unconscious and almost threw up but was able to control myself. The next task was to crawl on a bushy grassland(with insects of different kinds) and anytime a formation officer passes by they'll make jest of us and step their feet on mud and stamp it on our clothes.
The next task was climbing down from a very high mountain into a valley(the great KILIMANJARO) with the help of only a rope. This was done with the assistance of some officers, next was to pose like a man reading newspaper 📰 and the formation officers asked for headlines of which questions was posed to the reason why it was said and if one failed to answer more drilling. Then I was called upon by the Protocol Manager (PM alias the Punished or Lucifer), I was made to frog jump round a circle, then I crawled to the finish point through a levitated bar and that was the end point of KILIMANJARO(at 2 pm) .
Then it was time to journey back to our starting point, we were led back to an open field were we lasted down on the floor under the very hot and scourging sun ☀ of benin-city then every officer was made to pick a recruit for more drilling I was lucky because the officer that picked me left me alone while others faces more drillings...
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Then a hole was dug and water poured into it, an officer dips his hands into it and does the sign of the cross on our now multicolored clothes as a sign of swearing in.
Then the final part was the conferring and acceptance into the NRC by the commandant of our detachment(Praise be to God I screamed 😱 in my mind 😁)
This was all done and we were given light refreshments by the welfare committee, I was so glad it was all over...
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This is my Recruitment story, hope you like it.
HELP UPVOTE, COMMENT AND RESTEEM
