Thankful Thursdays: 2019 Week 39
\\\* This week I am thankful for: The opportunity to travel for work, the starting point of which was a 3.00am wake up, final bag checks and then dragging myself into a taxi by 4.00am. For what it’s worth, taxi’s out here can be a bit hit or miss, thankfully this one was a big hit; a Sri Lankan national who had lived and worked in most of West Africa in the early 2,000s and had an opinion on the Jollof rice wars. All of that made for a very pleasurable, if slightly woozy 20 minute ride to the airport. Bliss. The flight itself - business class via work - reminded me of all the delights of not travelling cattle class. All told - from leaving my house and arriving at my hotel at the other side - it was the better part of 16 hours, including a lengthy wait in Bamako for the President of Mali to fly off. The relative ease in which I travelled was something to be grateful for, as was what appeared to be a deportation, a reminder that just over 10 years ago, I arrived in my current country as an intrepid student but now have the luxury of belonging to another country. Friendly faces on one of the assets I stopped over at which made my easing into that work day the easiest it could be, given the circumstances Although my room on the first FPSO was iffy, I am thankful for the comparatively plush lodgings I ended up in, on day 3.