My Experience Series: My Jamaican Experience

Hello everyone! I am starting a new series which I hope to run every
week,it is titled "My Experience Series". The concept of this series
is hinged on sharing people's experiences; especially those ones that
have shaped their lives and existence,and from which we can learn a
lesson or two.

I got the idea to start this series while having a long chat with one
of my very close online female friends. What started as a normal chat
later delved into sharing of personal experiences,from
which the story am about to share came to the fore. Let me quickly
state here that all events and places mentioned in the story are real
but i will only change the name of the subject of the story to miss
Damian to keep her privacy intact.

I have titled her story "My
Jamaican Experience",it will be in two parts because it is quite long
but very interesting,with some lessons you can take from it.

My name is miss Damian and am from the south eastern part of Nigeria.
When I was about ten years of age, I went to abuja to stay with my big
sister and her family,where I completed my secondary education.

In the year 2005,my big sister was sent to Jamaica by the Nigerian
government on a national aid programme. She came back in the year
2008,and signed off on her contract,but in 2009,she returned to
Jamaica to take up another job there,and do make visits back to
Nigeria from time to time to see her family till the year 2011 when
she felt her family should be with her,so she sent for us(i.e myself
and her family) to join her over there. Though i had some reservations
about travelling to a country like Jamaica,based on my little
knowledge of the country,especially about their lifestyle and the
environment over there,but i was also quite cool with the prospect of
travelling outside the country as it would not only afford me the
opportunity to visit other lands but also afford me my first
experience of boarding a plane.

Preparations were made in earnest for our travel arrangements, though
my sister told me i would be invited by someone else since she had
already invited her hubby and the kids,so I would have to come to
Jamaica with a student visa with the impression
that i came on my own. There are no direct flights from Nigeria to
Jamaica,so we obtained transit visas which would take us through
london to Jamaica.

Now,the school letter my sister obtained for me over there in Jamaica
had a september resumption date on it while we
left in march. On getting to Jamaica,the immigrations refused me
passage based on the letter I had, even though my sister's hubby and
her kids had already been cleared and were already getting their
suitcases,but the immigrations stood their grounds and refused me
entry. My big sister and her friends were already waiting at the other
end of the airport.

I knew something was wrong when an officer was going about looking and
asking for my luggage because i was to be flown back on the same plane
to london that same night. I told them I couldn't travel without my
luggage as my inlaw had already taken it,so
they couldn't find it,and the pilot was already behind schedule on the flight.

To cut the long story short,they were able to get my luggage
and I was sent back till september. I was heart broken because every
effort to stop them from sending me back was not successful because
offices that could have made the necessary calls were closed. They
gave the flight attendant my passport to keep me in check.

I got to london where I didnt know my right from my left. The flight
that would take me to Nigeria from London was for the next day,so I
was all over the airport for the night. I was so sad cos i'd no family
in london that I could
have stayed with instead of returning to Nigeria.

I landed at Gatwick airport in
london cos i was travelling from the caribbean,from where I took a bus
to heathrow airport cos i had earlier changed the dollars i had on me
to pounds. I kept asking questions cos i was feeling very
overwhelmed.I spoke to the bus driver who gave me directions on how I
would locate the virgin atlantic stand where tickets were sold. I was
able to locate the place and I then approached the customer service
section where I asked the lady on seat for a phone to make a call. She
obliged me with her phone,and I quickly made a call to my big sister
to tell her I was fine. She was crying over the phone which also got
me crying as well.

I was told to pay an extra fee even though I had a return ticket,cos I
was told I wasn't being expected due to the date on my ticket. I
became angry and complained to the man there, explaining what I had
been through,and that I didnt have any money. He made some calls and I
was checked in without having to pay any extra money.

I passed through immigrations at heathrow airport and was ushered into
the waiting area where i slept off many times,waiting for my time to
board. Finally,i was checked into the plane where i saw some nigerian
celebrities returning home from london.

The plane landed in lagos the next day around 6am and it was my first
time alone in lagos since I
was with my sister's hubby the other time I was there to board a
plane. There was this guy I had been chatting with on facebook way
before I was to travel. He knew I wanted to travel and really wanted
to meet me in person
before i travelled. He lives in lagos,so i called him and he was
shocked since he knew I should already have been in Jamaica by then.

I told him to come pick me up at the airport,and he came,and I felt
really special. My family kept calling to find out if i was ok,and I
told them I was fine,my mum was very worried,but i told her i could
take care of myself having been in the cold in london all by myself
and nothing happened,and now am in nigeria where no one would be
asking me to show my ID.

I asked the guy where he was taking me,and he replied that he was
taking me to his place. I was scared,but i didn't have much of a
choice. We got to his place and i found out that he lived with some
other guys. I just knew i could never stay there so I asked him if
there was any hotel around, he took me to one. It was in the morning
of a friday,and I didnt want to go back to my parents' base in the
east so early,so i paid for three nights and left lagos on monday
morning to the east. The guy also came around a few times and really
made my stay in lagos an interesting one.

I stayed in the east for some months where i had to start processing
my travel papers all
over again cos my transit visa had expired. I got the transit visa
form,filled it,and told every truth I knew and my application went
through. I think i was lucky getting it a second time cos I had a
clean record throughout my transit;since i passed immigrations four
times through two airports.
Let me add that I could have gotten a transit visa to another country
besides britain;like I could have gotten one for US,Amsterdam or any
other country that had direct flights into Jamaica,but I chose britain
cos that was the route I'd used before.

Between march and september,2011,I was processing admission into the
polytechnic,and two days to my departure to Jamaica,my contact person
at the school helping with the processing,told me I had been offered
admission for library
science,but i felt sad and at a point confused whether to stay back in
Nigeria or move to Jamaica as planned. To be continued...