Bringing Africa to the UK

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“I’m outside” said the text message from Amer the taxi driver at 5.45am in the morning, it was taking me to the airport – but this time I was not flying, this time I was going with him to pick up Gideon (Ghana) and Suitbert (Tanzania). For both Gideon and Suitbert it was their first trip to the UK, for Gideon it was his first time on a plane and I knew they were excited.

The Travelodge, is not the most helpful of hotels, good prices especially in Windsor but not helpful. By the time we hit the road they would have arrived at the hotel at 9.30am, they were not able to check in until 12 noon and the hotel would not watch their bags for them either! It was agreed with my parents that I would take the lads to their house for a drink and to relax for a bit and then they could leave their bags there also. They thought this was a good idea so off we went, my dad instantly put them at ease chatting about his experiences in Africa, Suitbert asked if he was happy that I was visiting Africa, my dad said he was jealous… he still has time to go back there. My dad drove me and the guys to Windsor; they were impressed by his old style Jaguar car.

We visited the outside of the castle (too expensive to go in and they didn’t want to), the long walk, the Guildhall, fed the ducks (they have never seen swans before - they asked me if you can eat them, I said only if you want to go to prison), did some shopping and got disappointed over the fact that our fresh pineapple juice is not FRESH juice but is carton juice…

Joe arrived with their bags at midday so we checked them in and then headed for lunch, we then all proceeded into London where we visited (again the outside as too pricey) Westminster abbey and its shop – here we saw England’s oldest door, Buckingham palace and St James park before Gideon admitted defeat and almost begged to go back to the hotel, we took a black cab back to the car and headed back to Windsor.

The rest of the week was great we worked really hard discussing our policies, where we were going as a department and what we wanted to achieve, I really feel we had a fantastic week and it gave the team a chance to bond. I arrived at work most mornings about 7.15am to make sure the drinks, biscuits and tables were all set up, the guys arrived about 9ish and it was great to see Victor on the Monday morning too as I had missed him coming in on the Sunday. Victor was looking forward to seeing Irrum as he said he had fallen in love with her voice however she has a boyfriend so his heart was broken…

We went go-karting on the Tuesday which was great fun for the guys, Gideon unfortunately fell ill during the races but Victor and Suitbert really enjoyed themselves, I nearly got thrown from my kart and have bruises all over!!

On Wednesday we headed to Morley, Leeds and checked in to the Travelodge, I was surprised at how fairly decent it was – not 5 star or anything but homely, we went next door to the toby carvery, we thought “can’t be too bad” and it was late, then the waitress greeted us with the words “can you like urry up like and chose like cos I wanna go home like!” at this point I laughed, Victor confused said “why are you laughing?” I explained that she was rude and I found it funny, the waitress just got worse which had us all laughing, we asked her about fish as this is Gideons favourite “Errrrrm I don’t really know cos I like don’t like fish like you know what I mean like” after prompting she fetched us someone who could answer our question…
The next day we visited a workshop that maintains caterpillar equipment, very similar to what we do in Africa, their safety was fantastic and it was interesting to see what they have done and where we have to go…

On the last day Gideon told me he would like to buy his wife some ‘sexy underwear’ and would I help him, although not in my job description I made him promise to take me to his dads cocoa farm if I did this for him, he agreed, he wimped out at Ann Summers (actually all three of them did) especially after the discussion about the toys they could buy, Gideon did consider this as it would give him a break but there was a concern about repetitive strain injury, how randy is this man’s wife? So we ended up in Marks and Spencer, he asked me if I thought it was sexy, I said “at the end of the day it’s what you and your wife like, not me” he then blurted out “I want stuff that turns me on” my Initial thought here was “please god, I know I don’t pray much but please don’t let Gran walk past!!” After selecting his sexy knickers he decided to buy her a corset? I hope not for wearing together!

We were then spending the evening out in Windsor, Joe was invited to join as well which was nice and he really enjoyed himself, although he met Gideon and Suitbert briefly he had not yet met Victor, We headed to Browns for dinner where we all enjoyed a few drinks and I actually saw Suitbert wake up, I have never heard him talk so much, he claims he is a professor at Oxford University, his subject in Lizard procreation (strange drunken stories), Joe and I then showed Victor and Suitbert to the bars under the arches where we said goodbye until next time, Mike and Gideon headed back to the hotel but beforehand I said goodbye to Gideon and wished him well on his flight home.

I am going to miss the guys, it’s been a pleasure having them here, and I look forward to seeing them again soon

Here are some photos of the week

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