How a Pakistani volunteer spent sleepless nights on duty during papal mass

Basiit Arif, 25, worked as the operational manager at the Al Nahda access hub.

For many who made it to the papal mass on February 5, it was a 15-16 hour long journey from their homes to the Zayed Sports City Stadium in Abu Dhabi and back.
But none of it was anything like the volunteers who spent three straight sleepless nights to ensure that the transportation of the attendees went smooth.
Basiit Arif, 25, who worked as the operational manager at the Al Nahda access hub - one of the 13 across the UAE - said it was his most exhaustive assignment yet, but the way he managed the scale of the operation with his team is what made him proud.
"I came to the site on the morning of February 3 and have been here since, barely getting any sleep. But I am glad that it all went well in the end," said Arif who led a team of 20 people concerned with handling 133 buses that ferried just over 6,000 faithful Catholics to Abu Dhabi and back starting February 4, late evening.
"It was break neck. We had no time for breaks but we also kept going on seeing the volume of people and their faith," said the Pakistani who graduated as an aeronautical engineer from Emirates Aviation College in 2017. "It's nothing like any other event," added Arif.
He had been working in a similar role at the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019, last month. "In football, there's at least a halftime," he chuckled.
"It's all about humanity. It didn't matter that we were involved in such a huge Christian gathering. We feel blessed to be involved in some way, by means of offering the faithful bottles of water as they returned. We were not required to do it but we did it out of our heart," said Amagham Sabir, 24, who was amongst the five zone managers reporting to Arif.
Arif and his team including another zone manager Fahad Nawaz saw off the last bus for Abu Dhabi from Al Nahda access hub at 4:30am before returning to welcome them back at noon.
abhishek@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE