Once in a life time, one is tempted to make a decision that has to go right (emphasis mine) and does not have to think of what if it goes wrong. Different reasons may have sprouted that decision making process, perhaps a change in career line or the choice of a spouse and even the decision to relocate. These are landmark personal issues and it is paramount it becomes a success after all. I have made a bold decision, though I wont bore you with what the motivations were. We shall be cruising from Kano to the UK where I am writing this piece from. I must comment that I should have written this earlier but I decided to tarry a bit to form an impression of my new abode.
If you ask me what my feelings were on that Monday night when I boarded a KLM flight to Manchester en route Amsterdam, I would say those feelings of not knowing what to expect cropped up on my mind all through the flight, uncertainty would mildly described it. The questions I kept asking myself were "are you sure of what you are doing" and "is this the right thing to do", they kept creeping on. More so, I had just waved to my wife and our little daughter of barely six weeks old! Those emotional attachments stirred up my thoughts and I needed a re-assurance that I was right. Of course, this was not an impromptu thing, it was a plan of over twelve months and coming to its climax. I had sought for Allah's guidance right from the outset and all through the process. A reassurance came , "this is not your making, it is Allah's will". And that somewhat relieved me. I'll be going to school in Hull for twelve calendar months!
The thought of leaving the most important people in my life made me felt a cringe of guilt and an uneasiness that words cannot tell. Most people slept all through the flight as they were mostly on assignments or business trips, soon they will re-unite with their families. Mine was not the case, do not really know when I'll see them (not anytime soon), it all depends on the realities on ground at my new location. Felt some heaviness in my head by the time we got to Amsterdam,expectantly, having not slept all through the night.
I got to know that luggage is transferred on a connecting flight when we got to Amsterdam and I was asking where was the conveyor belt for my boxes, only to be told that it has been moved onto our Manchester-bound plane. Hmmn, I was impressed! Then the usual checks went on for a long while, reason chiefly being the number of passengers. Met a couple of Nigerians on the same mission as myself, in fact one was heading my location and we have been hooked up since then.
It was a cold Tuesday morning in Manchester, I was jet lagged of course but if I had a premonition of what awaits me I would have feigned illness and probably got a an express service at the UKBA desk. The queue was excruciatingly long and the Home Office staff had to painstakingly go through the particulars of every non EU passenger. How discriminating! Even nationals of the powerful America got this shabby treatment. That was a lifter! " If you are a British citizen or carrying an EU passport come this way" the official announced loudly. The immigration screening took like two hours, meaning I had been on the queue for one hundred and twenty minutes!
A team of volunteers from the school were on ground to ferry us to Hull but we had to wait for other international students who were also arriving. After a long wait (varying flight schedules and some were coming from as far as China), we filled up a bus and we were ready to head north. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the Theatre of Dreams (Manchester United Stadium) as we leave the airport but I never did.
It took a stretch of two hours of driving and we arrived Hull. The narrow roads, rows of same houses joined together and the right-hand drive were my first set of observations. The Chilly weather was not suprising after all, it was the late stretch of autumn and winter beckoning. We all disengaged from the bus and shortly after I had secured the key to my room on Cranbrook Avenue.
To be contd...................
