I left Arik a year ago utterly frustrated by everything Nigerian
It's been slightly over a year that I've been gone, and three years since I started. The good times were actually quite fun in a perverse way. I always recognized that drinking it up at any expat drinking establishment could end in a Mumbai type experience. Or the cab ride back home at o'dark thirty could end up badly at one of the many road side stops (with brandished AK-47s).
Or I could have been the expat pilot thrown in a Nigerian jail who had the forethought to ring the UK embassy and get help. Who threw him there? The Chief Pilot. Why? He got short changed on money from Arik.
Or I could have been the crew at Maidugury when 700 people were slaughtered in the streets. I had been there just the week previous on an overnight. Or my TCAS could have failed on the several times it went off in the flight levels due to ATC mistakes.
Looking back, I'm glad I took lots of pictures, and I'm glad I'm not there anymore, and more confident that I'll never be there again. I've never been so mad at a company that I worked for than Arik during my last days there. It's much more relaxing where I'm at now.
Merry Xmas to any of my brothers and sisters still at Arik, and may you soon find your way home for good.
