Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to address you (this time, I will not borrow any word from Dr. Amin Dada ... R.I.P.), surely you might take me out of context or misunderstand me if I do so. I would like to declare without any fear that, Dubai has a very huge and magnificent Airport, not befitting such a tinny country. I lost count of the number of runways, leave alone, the number of aircrafts that lay calmly in the environs of this gateway to the Holy lands of Arabia. The place was littered with all sorts of aircrafts, Airbuses, Boeings, Antonovs and Kajugujugus. This confirms that, Dubai is the world’s business capital! We disembarked via a sort of Tunnel; this one went through the air instead of the normal tunnels that go through the ground. Once inside the Airport Terminal building, Allah Akbar! The place is extravagantly designed, no wonder this region has the oil wealth, how else would they have funded such splendid and profligate styles? The place is fitted with several escalators and conveyors that transport people up, down and horizontally from one place to the other. I was amazed by a friend who was travelling to such a place for the first time, he jumped onto the escalator as if it was a moving pickup truck only to be jerked forward violently! He almost lost his dental formula. We went through what looked like eternity before reaching the immigration counters; these were bigger than the whole of our Airport terminal building. Women were allowed through quickly but men made to go back and have our eyes scanned, maybe they are worried of contracting “male trachoma” eh? Eventually, we emerged out of the Airport terminal building, behold, the heat was like than in a Sauna. There were fans blowing away as hard as they could, they were armed with “small mouths” that spat a stream of misty water unto the propeller to create a misty scenario, wapi, this did nothing to the heat though. Actually, at half past four in the morning, it was hotter than the hottest midday sun in Tropical Africa. I tell you, these guys must be next of kins to the fire brigades or else, how would they put up with such temperatures ranging from forty degrees centigrade to fifty or even fifty five on the same scale? In brief, when God gives you, he gives both good and bad. He gave the Arabs the oil and added them the heat that results from the burning of the oil eh! Ok, the place has several high rises, if compared to Johannesburg; Johannesburg is just a “kid” city. Ends
