Another Twist in The Tale

LEAVING DAR FOR PASTURES NEW
I was quite happy in East Africa jogging along at the Hotel School, opening various Lodges
etc., when I suddenly heard on the grape vine that the Company’s next move for me would
be to Cyprus where we had just been awarded a contract to operate a 300 plus bed hotel,
(Salamis Bay Hotel), on the coast not far from Famagusta. This was approximately 1972 and
this hotel was the largest hotel, bed wise, in the med, which was obviously going to be a
very lucrative hotel for our Company, once the building had been finished.
Back to the Hotel School, I was then given the date when I would cease working in Dar and
move to pastures new. However, I had 5 weeks to close down my responsibilities, do all my
packing, not only at home but all my possessions at the Hotel School, however I thought
that was going to be very easy to complete but I’m sorry to say I found it psychologically
very difficult as my mind somehow would not accept I was leaving this country for good, and
daily as I went towards my actual date of moving I found that in my office, if I wanted to get
up from my chair to do some packing with my secretary my body froze to the chair and no
matter how hard I found it my body would not move, which was I remember a frightening
experience as I could not find the energy to do my packing.
I told my friends what I was going through and the wife of one of the hotel managers said “I
will come and help you Derek otherwise you will be stuck here in your office, so I have got
to help you to move around and get this packing completed quickly”, I had to pack my
personal items such as carvings that I had collected, and the odd antique, etc., so I decided
to pack those and send them by ship to Piraeus, in Greece, to await my final decision as to
where I should send them next.
I met a friend of mine one day, who was an assistant manager of a British bank in Dar and
when I told him my problem I couldn’t believe what he said, he was also on the move and
he was suffering from exactly the same symptoms as I was experiencing.
He suggested I should visit a doctor, explain my problem and in his case the doctor injected
him with ‘something’ which did the trick overnight. I then quickly went to an Asian doctor
whom our Company used and he surprised me as he said many people suffered the same
psychological problem as I had experienced and within 24 hours I was back to my normal
energetic, enthusiastic Derek Riches.
The next problem, after being invited to many farewell parties, Valerie and the 3 boys
arrived at the Hotel School one morning at 10am, they went to my office and found me
huddled up in the chair trying to be ill, which was a frightening feeling as my wife kept on
saying “Derek you will miss your plane” but I was on another planet, the more I tried to be
ill, I just could not be sick and I felt absolutely finished and I said to Valerie “I’m not going”
and she really had a go at me and as I trundled towards the taxi suddenly this sickness just
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