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Portrait of a Traveller: I September 3, 2014. I should have said, 'No'. The Dubai International Airport hums and throbs. Travellers check out and check in like bees on their honey combs. United Arab Emirates. Welcome. The fellow behind the desk scans my passport. He is a piece of ease in a long white cloak and a headscarf held in place with a black rope-like cord. I wish he could find something wrong, wave me aside from the long queue, and put on the next plane to Nigeria. His eyes--two balls of blankness, dwell on me from behind the screen for the third time. “The photo is a bit blurry. But it’s okay. Have a nice stay here." He hands me the green booklet, and a lazy smile cracks his expressionless face. I am disappointed and relieved at the same time. Outside the airport building, under the dark sky of the night, a blanket of heat wraps me. The city shimmers like a multicoloured painting on a black sheet. I board a taxi. “That’s Burj Khalifa. The tallest building in the world,” the driver says, pointing at a cluster of structures standing like coquettish damsels in sparkling robes relishing the spectacles of admirers. “I drive up there... take photo... send to my wife and children... in Nepal.” His crisp, sky-blue shirt is struggling to hold his stomach. “You Africa coming?” He asks, reassured by my nod. “Nigeria....” “Ehn....Africa same... same language enh…” “No.” “Ahh...what language speaking....English?” “Many languages.” “English, no...?” We pull over in front of a three-storey. I take the lift to the last floor. Mr. Kosmas, the agent, lives in a single room. A huge bed is pushed to one corner. Two settees complete the semicircle arrangement. In the middle is a table, and on the wall next to the door a plasma TV. “Welcome,” he says. His hairless head gleams under the fluorescent bulb. The beard lines on his face shows a recent shave. His eyes wear a patch of light-red in their sockets. The skin at their sides squeeze when he smiles. And he smiles easily, with an air of graceful living. His words are breezy. He utters each word as though he fears attention on him would be lost if he remains silent. He sent a Range Rover car to Nigeria two days ago. He will travel back home in a week’s time. He can’t wait to be with his wife. “Dubai tires you,” he says Four mobile phones lie on the table. Two ring. He holds both to his ears. “Hello, the work is assured. You have to pay in the money for the visa process to be completed.... Hello. Who is speaking please? Sorry, the line is blurry. Call me later please.....hello, yes, he is here. He will come tomorrow.” He turns to me, and in a hush, “It’s your boss…you have to do whatever he tells you, " then shambles across to the kitchen--an enclosed space in the corridor, to fetch me some drinking water. The two other occupants of the room grumble their welcome at me from the bed where they are sitting. “So this guy still dey bring people come this country ba?” one of them says sitting up--a paste of grim on his round face. The other shakes his head, then settles his eyes on the TV. Earlier at the lift, Mr. Kosmas said they are his cousins who have come to visit. The settee carries my body to sleep. * Morning grants me a hot bath, though the water is not heated. Mr. Kosmas calls the employer I am going to work for and scribbles his number on a sheet, “Call this number when you get there,” he says. On the visa copy, in the box next to ‘Occupation’, I read 'Cleaning worker'. But I still feel the need to ask him: “What kind of work is that?” “How much?” Questions roll and roll in my head, but my voice refuses to carve them out.