I came for the Food, I left smelling like Paracetamol

My First Time Volunteering.

I spent yesterday knee deep in pills.

Thank God I had a residual cold and I couldn’t smell anything. Only time being sick comes in handy cause I don’t know how I would have survived.

Okay let me start from the beginning.

Newsflash, NYSC Chronicles never ended, it just went on a brief hiatus (like my BTS boys did and now they’re back, they didn’t do us like One Direction).

On my lovely CDS group, they asked for volunteers for an outreach in a rural community and I thought to myself,

“Chineme, we’ve never volunteered for anything”

—so I said I’d be down.

The entire week before the day, I mentally canceled like fifteen times, thinking up different excuses and I actually canceled the night before but was convinced to uncancel by the guy in charge. Then I found out I influenced my friend to volunteer too, so that I meant I was locked into this thing.

Woke up early, cursed my decision making, got ready, hated my life, entered traffic, reasoned bailing, got texted by my friend asking where I was, sucked up my escape dreams and let the little part of me actually excited for this thing take over.

I got there, scanning for the food I was going to share, and noting someone piling up different drugs on a table.

At that moment, I realized my brain skipped over the Medical written in front of the Outreach and I wasn’t there to share and probably steal food.

I can’t lie morale went down a bit at that discovery.

So the officials in charge of us, legit just explained what they wanted from the event and literally left us, the corpers to our devices (there were corpers from like four or five local governments sha)

I looked at my options.

Registration? Deal with possible body/mouth odor? Nah.

Vitals? Unqualified, didn’t study nursing. So nah.

Medical Tests? Unqualified. Not a lab scientist.

Doctor? Unqualified like mad.

Usher? Qualified. But lack the patience for people, so nah.

Lastly, Pharmacy?

So that’s how I and six others found ourselves manning the pharmacy stall (well technically like five plastic tables).

In the seven of us, only one person studied Pharmacy. The rest of us stood, clueless in the face of chemicals, ready to be her happy little assistants.

She took down a list of all the meds available to share with the doctors, occasionally muttering chemical names under her breath as she moved around with the assuredness of someone that had the entire periodic table memorized and knew what each element did to your body.

It was beautiful.

It was giving I-earned-my-degree.

The rest of us? Arranging medicine on the table for pictures to Abuja as per the instruction of an official.

The event started.

The first person came, freshly consulted by the doctor, white slip of medical medicinal prescriptions in hand. I was eager, giddy even, to start serving and then another official told us that we can’t attend to anyone yet.

Why?

Well, apparently apart from the free doctor’s consultation and medicine, there was another side event which they needed numbers for. And that side event wasn’t starting until the State Coordinator—who was enroute—got there.

Okay but like, that’ll just cause a crowd.

A second pharmacist came, joined the first one as they spoke in their chemical gibberish.

We got things ready while the queue for people to collect meds kept increasing.

Finally after about thirty minutes, they let us know that we could collect their prescriptions so that when this side event was over, the guests could pick their meds and go.

I volunteered to collect the prescriptions (so I wouldn’t have to deal with pills).

I walked into the crowd, collected white slips of the first five, gave them to our two pharmacists and like clockwork they immediately started searching for chemicals like we were in an easter egg hunt.

Mind you, I took a glance at those sheets of paper and the handwriting was illegible.

Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that in med school, there is a specific handwriting all medical personnel learn to read and write in, to preserve secrets—I can’t think of any other reason.

We discovered our working system, the mages read the prescription, tell us how many to put in a nylon—for the little pills, then someone writes the name of the patient on a piece of paper and another seals the med nylon and staples the name to it. then its put in a bin.

We finished the five, I collected the next five (didn’t want to overwhelm our mages)

I did some odd jobs in between, like going to find more spoons and filling the cough syrup bottles.

Ten done prescriptions done, I collected ten more.

On getting back, one guy walked up to us saying he also studied pharmacy and as the words left his mouth, prescriptions were shoved in his hand, no explanations.

He was actually a good sport. A few chemical incantations and he immediately settled with the rest of the mages.

We worked gradually, the ten finished, I went to get another ten. While collecting, the first person I collected stopped me to ask when he would get his pills. I said later. Another person stopped me to give me their prescription sheet. I ignored the hand.

I’m very pro, there’s-a-queue-for-a-reason-be-orderly-you-dumb-fuck.

Chairs were running out, people were getting antsy. Shops hadn’t been opened. Collected the next ten—we’re at forty now.

Another guy came, studied pharmacy and we threw him into the thick of it. Even thicker than the first guy cause there were no chemical incantations. So we were officially ten people working the pharmacy. 4 qualified, 6 unqualified.

Then an NYSC official, in a plight to free up more chairs, told the first forty to pick up their meds and it was as if a carefully built house of cards tumbled down.

Honestly, let’s just say it was a grueling few minutes before the man realized what he’d done, sent everyone back and started letting them come in groups of five.

How will you not know your own name?

The amount of old people that gave us a name different from what was given at registration was astounding. Not to talk of the ones that you call their name and no response but call their number and the beacon in their head picks a signal.

No 1-40 left the premises.

By the time, I went to collect more, the ushers had understood what I was doing and came to help. They moved no’s 41-50 among the crowd to the recently vacated area and I collected the prescription.

That was when I realized I was lowkey ushering at some point after avoiding it.

The mistake made after letting the first forty go was that everyone thought they would also get to go immediately. I clocked that after I was collecting 61-70 and an old man held my hand, asking me in strong Yoruba, what was taking so long, with everyone around him looking eagerly at me for the answer.

I am an Igbo girl.

I looked blankly wondering how to say I didn’t understand but a few syllables slowly auto-translated in my head and I was able to get the gist of what he was asking.

I responded in English. He looked at me in confusion. I walked away. Job well done.

Some corpers tried to lighten up and stall by doing a talk, a mild exercise session and then a dance dance dance session but there is a limit to the ability to stall people who are eager to leave.

Working on 71-80 and every single eye in the venue was on our little pharmacy corner. Prescriptions were running out and I was absolutely terrified of going out there again.

An official said I should go placate them by speaking Yoruba. With fear-filled eyes, I mentioned to her that I was Igbo. We both laughed. I asked how far, they said State Coordinator was around.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Okay so these guys can start going.

Filled with morale, I went to collect 81-100. So many people would come with their numbers proudly displaying 257, 155 etc and would shove their white slip in my face. It is truly a miracle I didn’t lose my temper.

The State Coordinator came and the event started. Attention moved from us at the pharmacy table. There was a dance prepared and all. Honestly I don’t know wheere they found rehearsal time.

Then they came to out table and officially opened our pharmacy for dispersing medicine. So the hundred we’ve collected are?

Once this ended it felt like all hell broke loose cause now Everyone—including the officials—was eager to get out of there. The officials couldn’t leave until everyone had been given meds and there were over two hundred more people to serve.

This is when, I would admit, I hit a catatonic state. Four ushers took over the prescription collection and I focused on mass production of vitamin C and paracetamol, another girl on b-complex, an official at iron supplements.

We were counting pills into little dispensing bags like we preparing for the Olympics, measuring and sealing them with inhumane speed.

I was bent over that table till the crowd dispersed. I took a break to eat because someone would just yell ‘we need more folic acid’ and I would be back to counting and bagging up like I was an employee in a sweat shop.

I unlocked multiple combinations for adding up to 21.

6+7+8, 6+6+6+3, 7+7+7,4+5+6+6.

I just kept counting and sealing, counting and sealing.

Finally, into the evening, we were done. The crowd was gone. The table littered with empty pill bottles. Apparently we had emptied over four bottles of vitamin C. Three bottles of paracetamol. Two bottles of Iron Supplements. Folic acid finished.

I stood, cracking my back. The sounds that came out of there are never to be spoken of again.

All other corpers had left except the fourteen of us working the pharmacy. As a thank you from the officials (apart from the food and drinks we were given and some mages didn’t even get the privilege to eat), they gave us three cartons of spaghetti that remained from what they were sharing to the crowd.

I went home with five packs of spaghetti, extremely fatigued and smelling like paracetamol. While walking to the bus-stop with my newly trauma-bonded comrades, someone mentioned we looked like all those corpers from those African magic village shows.

They weren’t wrong.

With all the bustle, I forgot I used one of my books in the beginning as a backbone for a sheet of paper. And I forgot that I lent said book to an official. And that I hadn’t asked for it back. And that is how I randomly remembered this book squished between two people in a keke, on my way home, which I paid with my last cash.

Frankly I am mourning the loss of this journal cause it has the rough drafts of all Song Scenarios posts since March and a few ideas and a scene for my WIP (writing-in-progress)

Considering I don’t know this woman and can’t be sure she left it at that place, the chances of me finding it if I go back there (which I can’t cause it’s kind of far) is slim to none.

So yeah, that was my first time volunteering. I loved it. I love working under pressure, the multiple thoughts, the urgency. The only downside was losing my book (read

Song Scenarios

to show support and to allow me to pay for another journal)

It also hit hard that we are the new adults cause I was expecting them to have doctors only to find out that Corpers were the doctors. Like wdym I can get a medical checkup from someone my age?

I get why the people in the medical field get paid well too sha, cause what I saw yesterday ehn. Their grammar and vocabulary is completely different from us regular folk. We see medicine in brands, they see it in chemicals, and they know what these chemicals do to the body. I genuinely can’t imagine the encyclopedia of medical knowledge shoved in their brains.

Anyway, I will be adding both volunteer and Pharmacy assistant to my CV. If you see a job opening for pharmacy assistant, please don’t hesitate to hit me up.

Toodles.

As I post this, I just volunteered for something tomorrow. And to show I don’t learn lessons, I have no idea what I just volunteered for. I just heard HR say “I still need two volunteers” and my hands went up. Wish me luck.