When my travel agent announced that I would be flying more than 17 hours from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Dallas in the United States (U.S.), I reminded her that I was neither going to Japan nor South Korea. She started laughing. I couldn’t imagine myself engaging in that kind of risk just to have a holiday. Flying is a risk. Flying for several hours is even riskier.
The choice before me was to dump Emirates for any other airline that would fly directly from Abuja to Dallas. But I was not travelling alone. And my wife had already compiled her shopping list as soon as she heard that the trip would take us through Dubai.
It is understandable why Dubai is such an attraction to women. Fascinating; alluring? Certainly! It’s absolutely mind-blowing. Everything works at the touch of a button. Life in the glowing city is programmed for fulfilment. Dubai glitters with all the attractions of modernity.
So, off we went. A little over seven hours later, the massive jet touched down and rolled to a stop. As we alighted, the roasting sun welcomed us into the desert-turned-city. Being in Dubai is like eating roasted corn on a sunny day: it’s hot but you enjoy it.
After Immigration and Custom’s procedures, I grabbed copies of the day’s papers. My favourite have always been the beautifully designed and well-edited Khaleej Times and Gulf News.
One interesting story in the Khaleej Times was about the birth of President Bill Clinton’s first grandchild. You may recall the due-date joke by President Barack Obama some days back that he would offer his motorcade to speed Clinton’s only child, Chelsea, to hospital if need be, as soon as labour pains started.
Obama, who was attending the Clinton family’s foundation event, told the media: “I was just discussing with President Clinton (that) if Chelsea begins delivery while I am speaking (at the UN General Assembly), she has my motorcade and will be able to navigate traffic.”
Another thrilling story in the paper was that deep inside the ground you walk on in Dubai is a city of pipes: a complex network encompassing thousands of kilometres – the lifeline of sewage disposal in the emirate. The network of connections, measuring 7,000 kilometres of sewage pipes collects everything that is flushed down the drain and transports it to the treatment plants.
A top officer of the sewage company was quoted as saying: “We collect sewage using gravity. The household drains are connected to the collection pipes, which are not horizontal, but go down, deeper and deeper underground…”
I learnt that at present, Abu Dhabi, the capital city of UAE, produces 850 mega litres (850,000 cubic metres) of sewage per day. This goes through three stages of treatment; and the result is water as clear as it should be.
The treated water is said to end up with zero per cent impurities, being just one step further from becoming potable. That step involves adding minerals to the purified water and that involves a huge investment.
The report stated that only a handful of countries worldwide are commercialising drinkable wastewater; and although perfectly safe and clean, not many people are keen on drinking it.
Abu Dhabi Sewage Services Company presently has 41 treatment plants that purify all of emirate’s wastewater, thus alleviating the need for sewage to end up in the sea.
As I read these details in the papers, I recalled that just before I left the country, we had hired waste evacuators to empty our soak-away. Back home, we still have quite a distance to cover.
On Sunday morning, we left for Dallas. The massive jet, with hundreds of passengers in its belly, roared off the ground at 2am (UAE time) and went non-stop for more than 17 hours before landing at the DFW International Airport, Dallas.
Curiously, I observed that both at the Dubai International Airport and the DFW Airport in Dallas, officials did nothing to check the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). I mean, nobody even checked our temperature levels.
Pan to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, intensive checking commenced as we moved towards the final waiting hall preparatory to boarding the flight.
Passengers held their breath as they underwent the health certification ritual. Everyone was first subjected to the temperature test with the infra-red thermometer before passing through a more sophisticated process handled by four young men and a woman.
Nothing like that happened in Dubai and Dallas. However, 24 hours after we landed in Dallas, there was breaking news on the NBC 5 that U.S. had experienced its first Ebola case. A Liberian, Thomas Duncan, resident in U.S., was the victim. He arrived the U.S. on September 28, went home and suddenly crashed. He was rushed to the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas where preliminary examinations indicated that he had contacted the dreaded EVD. He was immediately admitted.
Startled, health authorities and law enforcement agents in the State of Texas started looking for passengers who sat next to the patient, airport officials who attended to him on arrival, his family members and a whole lot of others.
I don’t need to tell you that the situation at Dallas airport has since changed. Every passenger is now a suspected Ebola virus carrier. Coughing upon arrival at the airport is now an offence punishable by quarantine.