Surprised by the Philippines
May 9, 2007This is an old article in 2004 by a Nigerian journalist. Sometimes it's hard to imagine what's worse about the lives of people living in other countries.
THE GUARDIAN CONSCIENCE, NURTURED BY TRUTH
LAGOS, NIGERIA.
Thursday, February 12 2004Surprised by the Philippines
By Okey NdibeRATHER than head for Nigeria during the last Christmas vacation, my family and I decided to visit the south-east Asian nation of the Philippines. We had planned a two-week stay, but ended up spending four days shy of a month. In the turns and twists of its national drama, that archipelagic nation of more than eighty million people became an education in several ways.
Why the Philippines, so many friends have asked? Why endure a twenty- hour flight to spend a vacation in Asia? The short answer is that we went to visit my wife's immediate younger brother. In 1999, he left his job with a major U.S. telecommunications company to accept a challenge as a top executive with a Filipino-owned telecommunications firm. Ever since adopting Manila as his residential address, he'd asked us to be their guests. We thought that last December was as good a time as any to him up on the invitation.
