by Renee Goossens © 2008
A couple of years ago I travelled to the UK in order to complete the research for my book on Pain Management.
En route, I had opted for a night’s sleep at Brunei. This was the airline’s main port of call, being Royal Brunei airlines.
A pick up car had been arranged to take me to the hotel and indeed a small airport transit van stood in the car park, not particularly happy at the idea of moving at all, friendly but slow. A few other passengers joined me in this humid, very green and beautiful space.
At the hotel I was greeted pleasantly by the Manager who assured me all I had to do, once I reached my room, was to call Room Service and anything I needed would brought to me. The first night I did avail myself of a very pleasant light meal. Slept well having asked how to get to town as I wanted to buy a few gifts for friends and also to see the famous Mosque which I knew was close to the shopping mall.
The hotel provided a complementary bus at 10 a.m. for any clients wanting to go to town, promising to return at 2 p.m. to pick us up.
Off I went with a few others to a complex comprising the German Embassy – I protested saying I wanted the shops, but was told the Embassy was sited within the mall and not to be concerned.
There was a very steep ramp from the pavement up to the mall. The bus quickly disappeared. There were some youths swinging their legs sitting on the top of the concrete and marble wall, so I asked them with sign language if they would be so kind as to push me up the ramp. This they did, giggling and laughing at the sight of an Anglo Saxon woman in a wheelchair totally unaccompanied.
This caused some dismay everywhere I went.
Women would stop and ask me if I would like them to accompany me, or to push me, offering to look after me, saying women in their country never went around on their own. They were usually in pairs. The men apparently were all at the mosque just then.
After visiting a few shops I became very tired and my face must have been a greyish white for one shop owner said, ‘You do not look well, come in, my dear lady, and I will close my shop for you and you can rest here and I will make you a special tea, in the quiet cool of the room, you could lie down on many beautiful cushions if you would be more comfortable.’
I was so touched by her kindness. I refused, gently but said that I had better really go straight home as I didn’t feel well at all.
It was a foolish miscalculation on my part to imagine I could be out shopping alone for four hours, pushing myself – sitting cramped in the wheelchair so I wheeled into another shop on the ground floor (lifts everywhere thank goodness), and asked if there was a taxi rank.
The two women in the shop explained they had no such thing in Brunei and women would not travel alone, and should not, it was not their custom.
I looked somewhat dismayed so the Philippine lady who was shopping said, 'I will take you home, to your hotel’. I told her it’s name and although I knew it was 20 minutes away I had no idea in which direction.
Amazingly, she met me at the foot of the ramp (a lovely flying down on my own, nobody in sight, I love freewheeling downhill although it is very silly for an elderly lady like me!) in a sparkling white Mercedes.
She explained she looked after the children of two doctors. The children did not return from school until 3 p.m. when she collected them at the door and drove them home, so she had four hours off during the day during which time her kindly employers had always told her the car was for her personal use.
Suddenly we arrived in a field of wheat, off the road. I went cold inside. All images of kidnapping came to my mind. Of course it would not be men in masks or with balaclavas, it would probably be a kindly woman used to lure an unsuspecting (and rather stupid) white woman in a wheelchair, so vulnerable, to hold as a hostage.
I began to cry. She touched me on the arm reassuring me she had simply taken the wrong turning. She apologised for making me afraid and said she could imagine all kinds of thoughts might be running through my head. This made me feel ashamed as she had been so kind!
On arrival at the hotel she jumped out first, running in to tell the manager what had occurred so he hurried down to greet me, and pushed the wheelchair up their ramp, settling me with a beautiful fruit drink (no alcohol there but I don’t drink it anyway).
Then he suggested I return to my room for a rest as I looked tired, and offered to send me up a light lunch, which I accepted.
On returning to my room, I turned on CNN news to see what the world was up to. It was the London Terrorist bomb. I would be there in 18 hours. I freaked, I must admit.
Phoning my son for advice (!) he told me the airport would be safer now than any other day and to go on my way and enjoy it but made me promise to have no more shopping excursions on the return leg of the journey!
We do foolhardy things when we travel, well I did. But I was protected by the goodness in the Universe, by God, by Allah or whatever you like.
I was blessed by goodness.
