Wednesday, December 20, 2006

FIRE!! FIRE!! FIRE!!

Bang! Bang! Bang! - Someone was banging on out hotel room door. I thought it was one of the sisters looking for my wife to go on a shopping excursion. The sisters do sometimes have midnight meanderings in the malls.

Turns out that the banging was being carried out by none other than our group leader - "There is a fire in the hotel!" he informed us. "Get to the bottom floor!"

He did not have to ask twice. I woke up my family and we bolted. There were others in the hallway already, looking at each other confusingly and beginning to panic.

We opened the doorway to one of the stairwell and proceeded down, but could only go a few steps - the stair well was filled with a whitish smoke that burnt our nostrils. We turned back, I was beginning to feel the first pangs of panic - I know these are old buildings with possible no fire escape. We rush to the other stairwell - this one was much better - we proceed down. We saw some people rushing up - "go to the roof!" they yelled. I told my wife "Don't you go to no roof! Bring the kids with you. The only place I am going is down! Don't listen to anyone!" We proceeded down. We passed a hotel supervisor who informed us, "Everything is under control. Go back to your rooms."

"Nah aah, The only place I am going is outside!!" So we went out and waited. Turns out that it was a small electrical fire in the office due to some overload circuit. Better safe than sorry.

After a couple of hours, we went back up and tried to sleep. The night passed uneventfully.
Tomorrow we leave for Madinah, inshaAllah.

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