Vacay time!!! So you think you can travel...

Hola mi amor!!! Yes, you in particular *wink wink*

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything. Quite frankly, I'm running out of things to blog about - YIKES! I mean, it would help if I was willing to take and post pictures regularly, but I value my pseudo-anonymity. Well, I'm creative enough to randomly come up with topics, so s'all good.

Anyways, tomorrow's my birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm only half excited :( I had a terrible mishap on Friday that for NYSC propriety reasons, I must not speak about publicly. But it brings me to the topic of this post - Traveling during your service year. Now remember, I will never endorse breaking the rules - or confess to which ones I may or may not have broken. Let's just pretend we're all angels and abide by EVERY. SINGLE. RULE. Sound good? Ok, carrying on...

I'm pretty sure a lot of aje-butter (and non-aje) corpers plan all sorts of fun trips in/out of the state of deployment or even outside Nigeria. BUT did you know that you're actually not supposed to cross state lines during your service year? *insert BB straight face and say Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight* The reason why we're not supposed to travel is supposedly because corpers are regarded as 'Nigerian property' and our LGI (Local Government Inspector) becomes our guardian, for all intents and purposes. Imagine if you traveled without permission, and something bad happened to you... the LGI has to account for what happened to you and why.

Of course, there are rules in place for if you MUST travel, and the procedure is as follows:

1. Confirm with your boss if it's ok for you to take a vacation. Mind you, corps members are allowed a 7-day casual leave throughout the service year.
2. Write a letter of application for leave (and travel) to your LGI.
3. If approved, next apply to your Zonal Director.
4. If approved, apply to your State Coordinator.
5. If approved, you may cross state lines. IF you are trying to travel abroad, you have to apply to the Director General of NYSC, via the Abuja office. Only the DG can give you approval to leave the country.

You must have compelling reason to want to travel - e.g. medical reasons (you must provide all sorts of evidence as to why you can't receive treatment in your state of deployment), convocation, immediate family crises, marriage (I think... although they might tell you to schedule your wedding until after serving), etc.

Now, I'm sure you can see that going through the process above to travel is tedious. Not only will gathering the necessary documents and going to the different offices be time-consuming, you might also run into all sorts of unnecessary comments, insults, etc. It's only in Nigeria where those who follow the rules are punished for good behavior.

I will not tell you what/how people (notice I did NOT say ME/I) flout the rules, but I'm sure you're smart enough to figure it out. And if you're not smart enough and run into trouble, then you don't deserve to go anywhere!!! And I say that in the nicest possible way :)

Hasta la vista baby! Yes, YOU in particular *kiss hug kiss, ewww remove your tongue from my mouth!*

Berry