Home is where you make it

Hooray!! My trip to Lagos was cut short by a day!! Actually, before we even get there...it's a long story. Let me summarise:

1) Wednesday
- Left Port Harcourt at 6:45 a.m. to Owerri Airport. It was a 2-hour bus ride through Aba Town.



- Arrived about 9 a.m. Flight's supposed to depart at 9:15 a.m. but couldn't find locate my ticket!



- Finally managed to get a ticket. Flight departs at 9:45 a.m.



- Landing delayed by 30 mins due to bad weather. Landed in Lagos around 11 a.m. and it was supposed to be a 45 min flight.

- Decided to follow my colleague to the Lagos office. BIG mistake!! The journey took almost 2 hours!! Arrrgh!! Traffice jam was at a grid lock due to some political rally.

- Arrived at Freeman's House around 2 p.m. Another BIG mistake!! Couldn't find an empty desk to work on. Couldn't find transport to send me straight to the hotel. So had to wait for the 4:15 p.m. bus.

- Bus only leaves at 5:15 p.m. Grrrrrr!! More traffic jam - grid-lock more like. So had to walk half way to the hotel. Took about 30 mins. to arrive at the hotel - and I haven't even eaten all day!! May as well have fasted.

- Within the 30 mins. managed to avoid being run over by 2 transit buses, and at least 10 ocassions by the okadas (motorcycle taxis). Who needs "Survivor Africa"??

- Too tired to notice hotel room. Seems comfy enough. At least the bed doesn't smell of B.O. and bathroom clean enough without risk of getting Hepatitis.



2) Thursday
- No transport to send to Eko Hotel where the workshop is. Found a colleague (bless him) who kindly gave us (me, the facilitator & another participant from Gabon) a lift.

- Turned out that the workshop will be compressed to 1 day. Hooray!!

- But now have to forward flight to Friday instead of Saturday. Arrrrgh!!

- Colleague (bless him again) managed to get me a seat on Virgin Nigeria at 9 a.m. on Friday.

- Workshop turned out to be a brainstorming session instead to discuss issues directed by the SNEPCO Leadership Team. So wtf are we SPDC and Gabon staff doing here????!!!! Grrrrr!!

- Had dinner with the facilitator.

- Managed to confirm transportation to bring me to the airport after countless of "pass the phone" game.

3) Friday
- Luckily traffic to Lagos Airport was not too bad. But the whole journey was a heated political argument amongst the Nigerian passengers. Arrrg!! I thought I was going to be caught in some "friendly fire".

- Flight to Owerri was delayed by almost 45 mins. because the refueller was late. Grrrr!!

- Got chatted up by some Filipino Paray at Lagos airport, who turned out to be quite useful. Helped me with my luggage - from putting it in the overhead compartment to carrying it all the way to the arrival hall at Owerri Airport. "Salamat, paray!!"

- Arrived in Owerri Airport today at 10:30 a.m. However the bus only departed at 12 noon because we had to wait for passengers from Warri. Arrrgh!! So close yet so far away from home.

- Got into another grid-lock somewhere in Aba. Arrrg!! So had to u-turn and go through another town. Can't even remember what it was called. Arpapo or something or other.

- Finally reached the R.A. at 3 something, and home at last at 3:30 p.m.

- Soooooooooo glad to be home-sweet-home. I love Port Harcourt!

- Missed the kids so much. It was so good to see them.

- Am off to sleep now. The end.