Crew Spotlight: Safiq Ahmed
"Keep doing what you do best, day in and day out. Be humble. Be open to everyone and enjoy every contract."
Meet Safiq: He comes from Kalimpong, India - an east Indian hill town in the Himalayan foothills of West Bengal. He loves his family and loves to travel. "I’m the eldest son in my family and my sister is still in school. I am closest with my uncle Simon - he is my best friend, my brother. I always seek out his advice for big decisions." All around, Safiq prefers to keep life pretty simple: "I like music very much and, in my free time, I do song mixing. When I get time on ship, I deejay for my fellow crew members. I also play video games and do photography."
Why work on a cruise ship? "Obviously first thing is money to support my family and the second thing is that I get to travel. My favorite thing about working on a cruise ship is that we get to travel different places, explore different traditions, and meet different people every week." Safiq got his first taste for travel 7 years ago when he started as a waiter on Norwegian Cruise Line. For the last 2 years, he has been on Carnival Sunrise and developed quite a reputation for himself! "My favorite memory so far is guest Miss Margaret, she’s a Diamond guest in our company and when ever she comes on board she finds me first and requests for me to be her waiter for whole cruise!"
From all the photos of Safiq, anyone can see that has a sincere passion for life. He always smiling! Even though he is away from his family for months at a time, he keeps up his energy from the people he meets on each voyage. "I can meet different people every week and make families happy. That’s how my time passes easily! Plus you see kids play everyday and play with them - when they have fun, you have fun no matter how hard the job is."
Safiq smiles for his family, smiles for his job, and also smiles for Brightwell. "Since I started using Brightwell, it is easy to check and transfer money. I like the app because we can use it without using an internet pack and that’s awesome." Even though we recently opened up Cash Pickup in India, Safiq prefers to send his money straight to a bank. In fact, he even teaches others on ship how they can do it! "I teach my new team members and cabin mates what I know. The app is easy and very accessible for everyone."
This is Safiq - a hardworking, passionate crew member traveling the world delivering smiling faces to guests on board Carnival Sunrise. And he is not alone, there are thousands of other crew members just like Safiq. Their 'commute' to work is a 9-month long contract on board a ship that is sailing around the world. They leave everything they know behind in order to earn a better living for their families back home.
