“The Home Bird takes To The Desert”

The United Arab Emirates “UAE” , is acombination of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah, By the way, come to think of it, this Desert Emirate known as Dubai has a population of about half a million citizens. Of the 7 Emirates that came together to create the UAE (United Arab Emirates); top on the list is Abu Dhabi (the richest of them all) that serves as the capital and seat of government. Many times, people assume that all the Emirates are Dubai, not the case, each of these Emirates has its Ruler just like Dubai has Sheik Al Makhtoum whereas Abu Dhabi has Sheik Khalifa who doubles as the leader of UAE. All that said and done, word has it that, with all the Emirates put together, the indigenous population is less than 3 million people whereas the ‘aliens’ that include the Indian community, and other Asiatic communities like Pakistanis , Pilipino, Iranian and Afghanistan all account for nearly 6 million or so. No wonder the UAE does not grant its citizenship to anybody else; most likely, for fear of being swallowed up by these ‘alien’ communities! If you ever want to survive, better learn to take advantage of the situations, can I say that, keep your ears to the ground waiting for situations that you can always turn to opportunities! Now, at this very moment, RwandAir a.k.a Rwanda National Airline, has launched its flights to Dubai, what a better time than “fluking” a seat on the home grown Airline to the “land of the Desert”? No problem in that, after all, this is not gona be my first trip to the lands where oil flows on the village paths, eh! What is true is that, I’m coming in as an “ambassador” of the villagers! When an opportunity presents itself, only a fool would turn it down and I’m sure, the villager cannot be such a person! Maybe, because of my near “celeb” status, some “big fish” (not the fishand chips type) decided to include me on the lucky few that would have the “munyenga” to Dubai. We started off with a small launch part at the head offices of Rwandair located on the top floor of Kigali International Airport. This included a cocktail sort of, with plenty of brochettes and many tribes of drinks. After the bites, the chosen few were hushed through the check-in procedures and then the immigration to he departure transit area. A few minutes past 15:00hrs, we were ushered into the waiting Boeing 737-500 that was to transport us to the“oily lands” via Mombassa. We can call that moment, “when the home bird took to the desert”. We left Kigali with no much ado, it took us an hour and a half to get to Mombassa, and we did not take long because this was just a transit stop over. As for what transpired at Mombassa, that is a story for another day. Looking at the Atlas, Dubai appears on the north eastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, drawing a straight line from Mombasa to Dubai, it takes nearly four hours in the sky. Cruising at nearly forty thousand feet above sea level and at a speed of 600miles per hour, it took usclose to over five hours to reach our destination. Word has it that, Dubai is nearly 2000 or so miles away from Mombassa, a journey that would take 32 hours for a Scania bus nearly speeding at 100kph non-stop! To the lay persons, these statistics look like mere fiction! We arrived in Dubai close to midnight. Much as it was late at night, the temperatureswere still like it was during the day, the thermometers pointed at a gloomy 39˚C! No wonder God gave these “Villagers” the Petrol; it was so that they could have money to tame the wild Desert! mfashumwana@fastmail.fm