OK, so here it is finally, the blog that'll be your eyes and ears to my Ghanaian experience. Sure I'll post pics in Facebook but I'm expecting officemates from here to add me there so I'll have to censor all my entries, I FUCKING HATE THAT. Not much I can do except post all my rants and raves here.
Anyway, I'll try to recall how it was like for from the time I had to fly out up until today, Saturday morning 8:07 AM GMT. No, that's not Ghanaian Mean Time, that really is Greenwich Mean Time. We're right smack in the middle of the equator so we're 8 hours behind from all of you there in Manila (di ba Paan kaya nga GMT+8 kayo!!! Ikekwento ko yan kay Zhai para batukan ka nya, hahah).
My last day in Manila was still as hectic as the whole week before that when there was so much paperwork and legwork and goodbyes that needed to be taken care of. I had to move my remaining stuff up to Adele's unit, surrender the mailbox key to Cityland 8 Admin, surrender the unit's keys to the broker's assistant, borrow a couple hundred dollars from Cecille just in case I get charged for excess baggage, wash up, get dressed, have lunch and make it on time when the gates open so I can check in my bags. Lester picked me up and dropped me off at the airport and we joked about all those teary goodbyes you see in the airport but that really didn't happen, thankfully. You'd think that when I get to the airport all the stress from leaving would've been over and done with already. I really did exceed the new maximum baggage limit of 20KG but didn't think I'd have to move stuff from my handcarry to my check-in bag TWICE while in the middle of the line. In between having to move my shit from one bag to the other, I was told I had to pay travel taxes and they'd hold my boarding pass til that was paid. Did all that and waited for my flight and was surprised to find out my phone's batt was running low. I wanted to text and call as many friends before flying out but I wasn't able to.
Switched off my phone, got on board and tried to enjoy my 8-hour flight to Dubai. I couldn't sleep!!! Either I was too tired or excited or distracted by the in-flight entertainment or it was just too much to have the lights on and off when it's time to eat or when you had to put your seatbelt back on or had to pee. From inside the airport, Dubai looked like The Fort. There weren't that many skyscrapers but the place looked real cosmopolitan yet clean, a lot like Singapore. The airport itself was just like Singapore's except for one thing...people were sleeping on the floor. My layover there was for 8 hours. There I was, real sleepy and tired and a wee bit cranky and I was doing time and a half before I even get to my final destination. I actually gave in and tried sleeping on the floor just like everyone else but didn't even last 2 minutes even if I was real sleepy. I ended up going around and let my instincts take over...so 2 things happened. First, I took a dump in one of the washrooms. Hahah. The water flowing from the bidet was warm, mmmmmmm...hahah. Second, I went to the record bar of the duty free shopping mall. I ended up buying limited editions of Brotherhood by the Chemical Brothers and Enigma's new album Seven Lives Many Faces. I LOVE IT. Wahahah!!! The place is just teeming with pinoys. No matter how much of an accent I put on when asking for information they always speak to me in tagalog. Wherever you went to they were there: those who just got arrived in Dubai to work, those who were working there already as cashiers or stewardesses or maintenance people and finally, those who are on their way home. WE'RE EVERYWHERE.
Tired and cranky and surrounded by Asians, smelly East Asians, blacks and all manner of caucasians, I finally got on board my plane. I remember seeing a black guy and finding myself real surprised because dammit he was HOT. Hahah. I was STILL up all throughout that final 8-hour flight. I wouldn't say it was horrible but geez, I need my sleep. The only highlight from that trip was the rough descent right before landing. I remember feeling that there was a lot of tension in the air because the descent was really shaky and you could see the overhead stowage bins shaking. You can feel that the passengers were on edge and right in the thick of it came a really loud and piercing shriek that sounded a lot like a woman's voice. If we weren't restrained by our belts I can imagine people jumping off their seats from sheer surprise or panic thinking the plane would explode or such. A nanosecond later there was a collective sigh of relief when everyone realized it was just one of the many annoying babies on board. We ended up landing smoothly and uneventfully.
Accra, Ghana. Finally. It was fucking hot outside, in stark contrast to the freezing temperature inside the plane. The airport looked a litte bit better than the one in Chennai, India but it's a far cry from Dubai's. I've read about it myself and I've been forewarned by my boss that the bureaucracy here is just as bad as any 3rd world country. My bags were checked at least twice before I was finally let out. I was met at the gates by our HR Manager Liana and by, surprise surprise, Kwame (our Executive Director). On the way to the car with luggage in tow, I was being greeted left and right NI HAO by porters who wanted a fast buck. It seemed the only asians they knew of were chinese! They were told no but still asked me for a cigar. I was later told here that us Filipinos were held with just as much regard as caucasians were. I tried to make as much small talk on the drive home. It's funny and I've told a number of you on YM that the place didn't feel alien. Just go the province and replace the population with blacks, that's it. My head was spinning and I couldn't think straight but I remember seeing all manner of goods were being sold in the streets (like Mentos) and the models for Coke in the billboards were black. I finally arrived at the staff house, which looked like a small villa and was showed my room. Liana and Kwame had to go back to work and even if I wanted to explore the place, I would've tipped over from having been awake for at least 24 hours now. I drank like a fish and flopped on the bed. They said they'd have dinner with me but I didn't really wake up until 2:00 AM local time when everyone else was asleep. I remember waking up several times before that because it was raining real hard and I could hear some shrieking from some people who sounded like they were getting soaked. I felt dehydrated and wanted more water, at first I didn't know how to get the hang of the door locks here. You can double lock them using just one key, not sure if we got something like that back there. I drifted back to sleep and was half asleep when Liana texted me if I was ready for breakfast. I met a few of the other pinoys over breakfast and we left for work around 9:00 AM.
To be continued muna dahil nakakapagod na magtype at mag-esep!!!
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