Snoring

By: Stephen A.Quaye, Toronto-Canada.

For the first time in my nine years travelling experience, I had to wear an ear plugs for the six and half hours flight from Ghana to Amsterdam.

Gush, a passenger I believed he was not Ghanaian but from a neighboring West African country who boarded the plane from Kotoka International Airport made my journey a painful one.

This passenger who fined the journey smooth and loving rather created a nightmare for me and I believe some other passengers too on board the plane that day.

Interestingly, few minutes after takeoff the passenger dropped to deep sleep and started snoring big time which drew many passengers attention.

"Rakatatata, rakatatata" as the snoring sound went, I began to feel uncomfortable in my seat so quickly I picked my ear plugs which I usually use when landing when the pain from the gas chamber piercing my ear drum.

Resting his head backward on the head pad of the seat, the snoring sound vibrated loudly to me as his mouth was wide open.

Suppose he was a friend I was travelling with I would have pinched him hard to wake him up anytime he snored because it was nasty.

Or I would have folded my handkerchief and pushed it into his mouth to stop him from disturbing me and others.

Maybe that would not have stopped it entirely but reduced the snoring noise from "rakatatata" to "hhhmmmm".

That nasty incident reminded me of a story told by my late grandfather who said "a snoring dog does not care it is lying beside a high volume speakers at entertainment center, it will sleep and snore".

In fact the rate at which some passengers drop to deep sleep and get into deep snoring on board a long flight is seriously disturbing.

Suppose this passenger was travelling along with me from Amsterdam to Toronto, I would have approached him on the quiet and advised him to seek treatment because it was nasty.

However, I did not leave him to go with his ridiculous behavior. What I did was I wrote on a piece of paper, "Sorry, your snoring was very disturbing, please seek treatment" and inserted it in a hand bag hope he will see it.

By the way what do Cabin Crews of various international airlines operating from Ghana take passengers for?

I am asking this question because of their repetitive strange behaviour moments before take offs from Kotota International Airport.

Immediately the doors are closed and the plane begins to move to the tarmac for takeoff, you see Cabin Crew with two cylinder cans deflating the substance in a loud gushing noise above the heads of passengers.

The practice has become so common that passengers are beginning to express concern as to what the exercise is for? Killing insects, or fumigation whiles passengers are on board?

A recent one last week made a passenger to enquire what the exercise was for only for another passenger to jokingly reply, "Is to control the scent from your momone's, koobi's, dawadawa's and what have you" which created a big laughter.

But serious jokes aside, what is that exercise for and what chemical substance do they spray on board? This is because some passengers might be allergic to the chemical substance.

Ministry of health should investigate this and explain to the general public before something happens for us to find out what happened.

Beside those two points raised, some passengers traveling from home needs to appear somehow decent a bit. It is a fact that some passengers do not appear decent at all.

How can they travel a long distance and appearing in a "CHALIEWOTEY", unkempt hair with chains hooked to their waist dangling loosely by their side to board an air plane?

It simply makes one to suspect they are drug addicts or terrorists which makes boarder security agencies tough and frustrates everybody.

The ministry on culture should start educating people on some of these courtesies since the falling standard on tradition and culture is so appalling.

Courtesy for boys and girls in our schools, work places, churches, mosques, homes, on televisions, radios and in our newspapers will go a long way to bring about change for the better.

End