Memoirs of a Nigerian Youth Corps Member-Episode 3

The room in the city was actually a junk yard I converted to a room. I painted it, fixed the lights and sockets since the room had not a single electrical wire. 

Upon all I did, the room was the least inviting to me as it still had other major faults. 

Here is a video of the room that explains it all.

  A tour of my first room in Ibadan during NYSC 
 click to watch the video

  

I remember the first night I spent in the room after I moved in. I bought fresh tomatoes and pepper that I wanted to use to prepare stew the next morning. When I woke in the morning, I found out that rats had messed it all up. I had to throw everything away. They came into the room through the bad door. The ceilings had little spaces that allowed cockroaches into the room. Sometimes my sleep would be interrupted by sound of roaches crawling through my stuff. It nearly killed me because I hate creepy crawly insects. Every morning and evening I would sprinkle dettol in the whole room, on the floor, on my bed and pillow...everywhere.  

In the afternoons and early evenings, the room was an oven.

An occurrence that made me almost go insane was when I got to my room in the evening from my day's outing and as I jammed the door towards myself, a rat jumped on my dress. I ran out of the house screaming like a mad person. After I came back to my senses, I packed a few things and ran to a friend's place where I spent the night. This was around 7.30pm. 

to be continued...