EVENTS HAPPENED on OCTOBER 06 2014
Weather in
Senegal is so hot and unbearable, it really makes me wish for a nuclear winter.
Seriously temperatures here are so high that I wet my coveralls with water just
to keep me cool and comfy. A lot of people here on-board didn’t like my kind of
idea and work tactics in a hot environment , they just basically tell stuff
that my kind of tactic will get me killed in the long run - honestly I think
they're jealous that I think more creative than theirs and they don’t have any
medical evidence to support their claims
On early
morning of Sunday October 5 , I woke up and saw a note from my co-worker saying
that work shift is temporary suspended for a day due to the recent national
holiday in Senegal called "id ul adha" (muslim holiday , hell don’t
know what exactly means) . So since it’s a national holiday for them , it means
any Muslim will literary drop what they're doing on work and go home to
god-knows-where to celebrate this holiday.
At 5:45 am
My Cabin Phone rang.
"Ring
a ding" twice…
That was
the queue I was waiting for and knew that work on discharge operations has
started. As usual I dressed lightly for adaptation on the hot dry weather in
Senegal. When I got there I heard from O.S. Ronnie that discharging operations
had already started at about 1am in the morning and total work will be finished
at somewhere around 4pm.
During my
shift, I gave some of my old shoes to one Senegalese watchman (named Mohammed)
and he was very thankful that I had some to spare. By the way the Senegalese
Watchman who was barred from entering the accommodation (I mentioned in
"Things about Senegal" ) , gave me a small plastic necklace and says
thanks you to me for the effort I when through just to give him the coffee.
Honestly I didn't expect for him to thank me about it - none at all . Besides I
only did what I think is right after what the people here treated him that way,
I said to him that I can't keep it but he kept insisted and said that it’s the
least he can do after the "humanitarian" treatment he received. I
accepted the small plastic and tucked it in on my pocket. I learned that his
name was "Ybrahim"
Senegal is
obviously a very poor country , definitely poorer and backward than any country
I had seen so far - A lot of people here live in poverty and other upper
countries (like European's and even Asian's ) brand African people to be
nothing more than thieves', raider's and to some extent cannibals, but in spite
all the negative things we say to them, they're good people on that place -
very good people who just got caught in between poverty. I had nothing against
these people and I often wonder why we treat them poorly and very different.
Hmpf ! The world isn't perfect anyway and the same thing goes in the Philippine
Sailing community , just didn’t expect that my own kind will treat these people
that horribly - are we that different from them ?
At around
4pm discharging operations was finished and sooner after , everybody was awaken
up and conducted a Stowaway search. This is a normal practice on any ship that
has been to Africa and is going to Europe. Apparently people here don’t want
any uninvited hitch hikers to be riding along on this ship on our way back.
7pm we
started unmooring this ship. After the unmooring , I was put on the task In
going to go to the gangway ladder and arrange the ropes there. It didn’t went
well on what I did and eventually I was told to go back up and let the A.B.
"Ruben" do it. Point taken that I'm not really good at that but the
thing that annoys me is what Pumpman Sepulveda said when I got back up. "you’ve been into a couple of ships and
still you don’t know yet on how to arrange that" .
First off I
didn’t ask for his comment , Second easy for him to say that because he's not
the one who went down there. Problem with Filipino people around here is that
they don’t know when to shut up and mind their own business. Fucking people
from the south !!! Totally lacking of modesty and courtesy , how very typical
!!
The
following afternoon , Chief mate anatoliy bayev gave us a job order to clean
out all the items used by Senegalese people , including the Suez room.
Disgusting as it may sound but these is the reality. People here treat them
like some sick people with contagious disease, really disheartening.
