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Brunei to Dumangas8th April 2007After a less than stellar time in Brunei, I headed to the Brunei airport about 6 hours early. Lucky for me, I had a fantastic book to read - The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I wont do a rant about it now - though it does deserve one. It did resonant with all the thoughts I have been having over here though. I did manage to catch some much needed winks at the airport. If I owned an airport I would build several rooms stacked with cubicles. Each cubicle would be like a pod and contain one bed. I would charge a small fee to use them and arrange for some sort of wakeup call. So many people try and sleep on uncomfortable chairs at airports. I'm sure they'd pay a few dollars for a proper bed. I know I would. By the way, if you are indeed an airport owner and you steal my idea, I will require a 50% cut. I jumped on my Royal Brunei plane all bleary eyed. Once again, I was informed where Mecca was, listened to the pseudo-blessing and bitched when the in-flight entertainment system didn't work. Again... Two hours later I arrived in Manila, still bleary eyed. Like the first time I arrived, there seemed to be no one at the airport to greet me. Hmmm again. This time though I was a lot more savvy. I purchased a SIM card and sent off a few frantic text messages. There were no answers. All of a sudden, a bounding Vincent appeared from nowhere and greeted me. Hooray! Ray, Eden and Lauren (a new volunteer) soon followed in a car and we all headed off to a Manila eatery for some food. Much catching up and eating ensued. The graduation at Pulao Elementary School was the next day so we didn't have much time together. They dropped me back at the airport at something like 1 a.m. and I was left to wait for my early morning flight. I was still pretty wasted and the airport wasn't due to open for another few hours. So I found myself a spare bit of concrete, slipped my front-pack under my head for a pillow, looped a leg around my backpack to prevent theft, pulled my hat over my eyes to dull the neon lights and drifted off to sleep. At this point I knew I was back into volunteer mode. Sleeping on concrete with all my earthly possessions about me is just cool. After some more waiting and checking in and catching up of sleep I entered the plane and headed off to Iloilo. Once in Iloilo, my plan was to catch a taxi to a Filcab station and then head straight to Pulao. But, who should be there at the airport grinning like an idiot by the incomparable leader of Tabucan, Captain Audy! Risa - the good friend with whom I stayed with last time and who will be putting me up again - was also there. It was fantastic to see them both again. I joined in with Capt. Audy and grinned like an idiot. They were also kind enough to rent a taxi for me all the way to Dumangas. We dropped my stuff off at Risa's house - where the ever adorable Nicole was onto me in a flash - and then headed off to Pulao for the graduation!
(c)
2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena.
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