We’re at the last leg of our long flight home – Doha to Manila. Traveling is good but I’d really rather stay home. Seeing other people and places is nice but I’d really rather be with the same people I’m close with. I’ve been away only four days but I’m already dying to get home to see my family and friends.
We’re at the Doha International Airport Food Court now for our dinner. I’m craving for Filipino dishes and can almost smell them. Unfortunately though, I would have to satisfy myself with burger and fries again despite the fact that the last food I ate at Tanzania was burger and fries. I have to buy the food myself though because someone forgot to order for me despite having said he’d do so since I stayed at the table to watch over our things. So I’ll stop at this point for now. I’ll get back at this blog after dinner.
I’m back with a full stomach and $7 less. Hakuna matata. I didn’t spend much at Tanzania anyway. Many thanks to my colleagues who were generous enough to pay for our dinners at Tanzania. I’m watching over our things again while I’m doing this blog. They went to duty free to look for stuffs to bring home. I begged off for the following reasons: (i) I don’t have anything important and necessary to buy; (ii) Even if I did, I don’t have enough money (hehehe…); and (iii) I want to finish this blog. We’ll be boarding anytime soon so I have to wrap this up.
I’m at Gate 14 now still waiting to board. Seeing a lot of Filipinos here makes me miss home more. I logged in my YM account but found none of my friends online. If you don’t know me yet, I only have very few friends so it’s not surprising at all to find no one online at this hour back home. Not having that much friends provides a good enough reason for me not to buy pasalubong. While some would reason that since they have many friends it’s better not to buy anything at all in case you forget one and cause ill feelings toward one another, I reason that having few friends excuse me from buying because since they’re so close to me they’re used to receiving nothing from me and giving them something would not only break tradition but will create expectations which brew frustrations and disappointments. I wouldn’t want to disappoint the few friends that I have would I? I’ll leave the gift giving to those in a better position to do so.
That’s all for now. It’s time to board. Manila… see you on your traffic-jam-ridden-moon-faced roads and wrap me in your polluted air real soon.
A few hours from now I’ll be leaving Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Although I have only around 4 days here, this very limited time didn’t hinder me from appreciating the city and its people as showcased the very rich culture of the country.
The locals are in a way like Filipinos – amiable and hospitable. Smiling faces and greetings of karibu will always meet you at every place you visit. At one point, we asked a local if it was safe to walk around the city and his reply was a resounding “Yes! Yes! The city is full of love and peace.” Most of the locals we met also have a relatively good command of the English language.
The infrastructure aren’t that different from the Philippines. The airport recalled memories of Cagayan de Oro and Iloilo. The city streets reminded me of Cebu. The traffic jam and the street vendors almost made me forget I wasn’t in Manila.
The food is great as well. On my first night, the hotel (Movenpick) restaurant (Serengeti) was having a “crab night”. The crab soup and paella crab were delicious. I also tried their local beers (Kilimanjaro, Safari, Tusker, and Serengeti). Although I have low tolerance for alcohol, I didn’t have a hard time downing a 500ml bottle of Kilimanjaro, which I think, as most of the locals do, is the best local beer.
In a few hours I’ll be leaving this city. I can’t say I’ll miss it but I’ll definitely won’t forget it. Asante and kwaheri Tanzania, until the next time you greet me karibu again.
I’m at Hong Kong International Airport right now waiting to board our connecting flight to Doha en route to Dar es Salaam. Considering that this is my first time to travel abroad, I feel it necessary to take the opportunity to compose something. It’s midnight here. Very few people around and fewer stores open. It’s very quiet. Far from the busy atmosphere many mentioned as the airport’s characteristic. I think, though most of my companions disagree, that this is the best time to be here.
I’d love to return here on a more personal circumstance. When I have more than enough to enjoy and appreciate the country. I know this is a far cry from what the country has to offer, but this will do for now. Surprisingly, I am actually enjoying my very brief stay here.
I attended mass yesterday at the Mary the Queen Chapel. The focal point of the 1st reading was Acts 2:11 which says: “We hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God”.
The gospel showed how so many people with different languages understood one another through the workings of the Holy Spirit. The homily of the priest mentioned the story of the Tower of Babel in relation to said gospel. He noted that what happened in the gospel is the exact opposite of that in the Tower of Babel. In the latter, God caused the confusion amongst the builders by making them speak different languages thereby resulting in misunderstandings (Genesis 11:1-9). Thus, the tower intended to reach as high as heaven was never constructed. As can be immediately noticed, this wasn’t the case in the gospel where the Holy Spirit facilitated the understanding among men of different languages when they were speaking of the mighty acts of God. The reason given by the priest why God caused the miscommunication of the tower builders but facilitated the understanding in the gospel was because the men sought to build the tower without God while the latter case sought to glorify him.
This explanation immediately called to mind something I read from Christopher Hitchens’s “The Portable Atheist” which contains an excerpt of George Eliot’s article attacking the teachings of a well-known evangelical divine of his time, to wit:
[A]ctions are good or evil according as they are prompted or not prompted by an exclusive reference to the “glory of God.” God, then, in Dr. Cumming’s conception, is a Being who has no pleasure in the exercise of love and truthfulness and justice, considered as affecting the well-being of His creatures; He has satisfaction in us only in so far as we exhaust our motives and dispositions of all relation to our fellow beings, and replace sympathy with men by anxiety for the “glory of God.” x x x He is a God who, instead of sharing and aiding our human sympathies, is directly in collision with them; who, instead of strengthening the bond between man and man, by encouraging the sense that they are both alike the objects of His love and care, thrusts Himself between them and forbids them to feel for each other except as they have relation to Him. He is a God who, instead of adding His solar force to swell the tide of those impulses that tend to give humanity a common life in which the good of one is the good of all, commands us to check those impulses, lest they should prevent us from thinking of His glory.
With my limited reasoning faculty, I cannot comprehend the true reason why the tower builders was handed that fate. What is clear though from these teachings is that an action is never good if not done for the sole purpose of glorifying the name of God; that an act spawned from his own moral impulse to help another human being is not good unless the ultimate reason for such an act is for the greater glory of God. It appears then that God, as portrayed by the religious, is an envious and narrow-minded being who cannot, and will not, permit an action to be considered good if not done for His glory.
