User talk:Saminu Cafe

Sergeant Ngorongo My name is Ngorongo. I am a termite. I have little story to tell you about myself. I have always been a fat fellow. People say I have big bones. In fact, my friends call me Bomba and Bomba means ‘fat boy.’ Well, I have quite a large appetite for food. When eating, I devour the food hungrily. Sometimes, even when I am given three times the normal ration, I still ask for more. Whenever am around, no food is wasted. All leftovers are brought to me and I keep all plates sparkling clean. This only period there is some respite is when I am really sick and unable to come to the table to eat. Nonetheless, I have my good sides. I am a nice termite. I help my friends whenever they need me, even defending the week when bullies try to hurt them. Sometimes, I use my big head to hit three to four of the bullies at a go. Kobe (God rest his soul) was a good friend of mine. None of the bad boys dared come near him while he was alive. They knew the length I would go to protect him. When I was little, life was very exciting. I was surrounded by lovely playmates. They were young termites like me. I have lived all my life in what you call a ‘nest’ or ‘Bunker’. I was born and raised there. The castle is build by scooping out earth from below the ground and sticking it together with saliva. It has a unique appeal. It is as high as 20 feet! Do not be surprised, this wonderful structure has no iron bars, beans or pillar holding it together. Yet, it can withstand bad weather and last for many years. It is made of extremely hard mounds of earth. This goes to tell you that like humans, insects are knowledgeable. Our castle is ranked one of the best n the region. Castles of this nature are found mostly in tropical regions (dry and warm areas), the only environment where we termites thrive. You would find us in temperate or cold climates. The castle is of great importance to us. It protects us from the dangers around and from bad weather. It shades us from too much sunlight, the rain and the hard-hitting cold. Moreover, we are shielded from dangerous animals that may want to have us for dinner. Oh, the castle is so wonderfully built that it is cool every time of the day. We do not feel the heat. Our castle is a mansion, with just the underground part going 15 feet down. This part houses a suite of rooms, known as the chambers. A large living room is built somewhere close to the chambers. Guestrooms are immediately after the living room, each with its own bathroom and toilet. The kitchen and the store are built close by. Kotoma, the warmest part of the castle is to the left end. It is built close to the surface. Here, pupae, that is the newly hatched eggs that are just developing are kept. It is like an incubator. Furthermore, there is the music room and steam room. There is a large hall in the middle of the castle, which serves as the theatre and there are private rooms built specially for the royal household and the senior military officers. There are also courtrooms where offenders and criminals are tried, and cells where they are kept away from the good citizens of our kingdom. There are spaces for the barracks, the parade ground and hostels for junior officers. Lest I forget, there is the Bakah, the queen’s room, which is as large as the living room; and the Jolo, the king’s room. The list is endless. I must not fail to mention the large garden where fungi is grown for food. Tunnels are dug in these rooms and they run out in all directions to the surface of the soil. They can be used as exit from the castle. From this point of view, it can be said that our castle was built by the best brains in the land. Nevertheless, the castle continues to extend. More rooms are being built underground to accommodate the young ones that are added to us every other day. For more space to be created, every grain of earth or sand is brought to the surface. Builders work round the clock to ensure this. More rooms, halls, theatre, and good network of passage are planned daily. When I was a baby termite, my skin was spotless white, like pure wool. I looked fragile like other baby termites. All I used to do then was play rough with my peers in the nursery where we were kept. Because we were too young to do any meaningful job, we enjoyed a free life. We would roll on top of each other for the fun of playing. We would leap-frog in total happiness. We would skip ropes and playfully wrestle with one another out of joyfulness. Sometimes, we would even scream and shout for hours until our throats felt raw. We did anything we wanted. We had all the time in the world. We loved every bit of what was happening to us. The food attendants were at our beck and call. They wanted us to grow up fast, so whatever we demanded, we were given. Every now and then, food was brought in to us and we were fed to our full satisfaction. We were living like princes and princess, so, we prayed fervently that we would continue to live life this way. It was fun, we felt good. To our shock, before long, the excitement came to a sudden end. We discovered that age was fast catching up on us. We had changed considerably in physical appearance. We were no longer babies but young adult termites. An adult male termite is a soldier while and adult female termite is a worker. One can tell the sex of a termite from its appearance. Adult workers have small heads. They cannot lay eggs because they are not perfect females, but they are very hard-working. They look after the eggs and the young, feed the king and the queen and other members of the royal household. They build the nest and repair the walls of the castle if they are damaged. They also fetch and store food. The adult soldiers, like the females, are infertile because they are also not perfect males. They have large heads with big, powerful jaws and two pointed teeth. The soldiers act as policeman inside the castle and as guards around the openings. They also search for food for the colony. They defend the castle against enemies I look more like a young soldier. Well, it dawned on we young termites in the nursery that we were ripe to take up the same jobs that the adults did. But first, we had to be properly trained. One morning, some young officers in the army came and marched us out of the nursery. We, young soldiers were taken to the barracks where we were enlisted in the military service. We were a great crowd, a multitude like the sands of the sea. My first day at the training ground was rather interesting. All of us young soldiers were excited. I can still recollect very well all that took place that day. The whole lot of the newly recruited were shared into platoons. There were about 150 platoons. Each platoon had 120 recruits, with three young officers attached to it to train the new intakes. In platoon 10 where I belonged, the ranks of the three officers were a sergeant and two corporals. The name of the sergeant was Kudu. Peke and Mado were the names of the corporals. The sergeant was a tall fellow. His face looked mean and unforgiving. His appearance gave him away as an experience soldier. He looked four years old. We discovered that sergeant kudu had fought in seven major wars. Peke and Mado looked younger. They were two years old and fought four major wars. At the training ground, we were made to go through rigorous exercises. These toughened our bodies. The three officers taught us a load of things. We learned to sing war song and were arranged in organized columns and taught how to march. We also learned how to overcome our fears and to attack and very power our enemies using various weapons at our disposal; weapons such as our legs and hands and our large heads and long poisonous teeth. When sergeant Kudu saw the effort that I was putting in the training, he confessed that I would be a brilliant soldier. Sergeant Kudu hardly commanded us, so I was very happy. The first few days into the training were not easy but we endured it while it lasted. In the course of our training, we went through untold hardship. Many times, we had little sleep but many energy-sapping exercises. I almost died of hunger. We were full of determination and so, we were able to scale through. The outcome was very much worth the pains. The training lasted for three months. The passing-Out Parade was marked in colorful style. We were in our complete military uniforms. We were fully-armed. A good number of delegates from other colonies were well represented.