Friday, September 29, 2006

I can see the end but I can't decide

This is it, I am at the stage where I can actually come up with reasonable estimate of when I should be done here! Always a sign that you are near the end.
But I haven't decided yet what I will do at the end.

I have agreed to come back for the last well here...(bummer!...well, honestly they just asked, they don't care one way or the other)...so I will be here one more time...but I know that the last day in any country after a job is day to just leave...It usually doesn't feel like staying longer. I guess mostly because then you end up carrying so much stuff. The only exception was Kazakhstan, where I stayed a little over a week in Almaty before going home.

The thing is that here I really have no place to stay in Hassi Messaoud. I don't want to have anything to do with the office because of that "snake" in the office, and I have no way to sort anything out from the rig. So I don't know if it is really feasible to organize something in Algeria without asking favours that I really do not want to ask!

On the other hand if I do not go to Djanet this time, I'll never go.

I know I will regret it! But weirdly enough I just don't feel like staying in Algeria. This stress at work just makes me want to leave, leave work, leave Algeria, just go away from here!

I may go to Ireland for a week or so...I may just go home...I just cannot decide.

I never said: It looks like I will be able to leave sometime around the 10th or 11th of October....so very soon.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

beauty is in the eye of the beholder




Everyday I go to the BBC news world website. I like it as a source of news and photos too. Yesterday I found those beautiful photos.


This is what they had to say about them:

" Chilean photographer Tomas Munita has won the prestigious Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2006 with his photo report Kabul - Leaving the Shadows. The award is presented annually for photos which convey man's relationship to his environment."

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Banned Book Week

I nearly missed it!

A's blog reminded me of it!!! Ramadan, Banned Book Week....so many things.

Once again I have to agree with A. Not all banned books happened to be books that I want to read, but as a question of principles it seems that books should not be banned..

BUT...let me open the nasty nasty issue of kiddie porn. As you all know it is against the law in Canada to have in your possession any kiddie porn, including book....How does that fit in with Banned Book Week....

Don't you just wish that life was simpler?
Don't you just wish that things were either bad or good?

===========
Hi A. ,
I guess that your sister is not going to like people answering you blog in their own blog! ;-)

celebrate with me

I have just turned in my resignation!

This will be my last well in Algeria. I am sorry to leave the Sahara, but happy to move out of a very political mirky environment...and this is not a commentary on Algeria, though it could be...it is a commentary on my work here.


I am actually thinking of taking the opportunity to make a bigger life style change...I don't want to make any rushed decision and I clearly do not want to decide something like this the way I am feeling right now...but it has been something in the background for a while....
I"ll see!!!

By the way this is a sculpture by J. Seward, Jr. which was part of a 20 sculpture exhibit in the downtown of Hamilton Ohio...however it is not there anymore, it was there in 2004 for four months.

Monday, September 25, 2006

So what is so special about those kittens?


They cost $3,950 and there is already a waiting list to get one. Any guesses?

they are the world's first specially-bred hypoallergenic cats.
US biotech firm Allerca says it has managed to selectively breed them by reducing a certain type of protein that triggers allergic reactions.
The cats will not cause the red eyes, sneezing and even asthma that some cat allergy sufferers experience, except in the most acute cases.
No genetic modification...no weird science!
It is done the same way that over the years people have selected different types of dogs to breed them for different things...
So I am not going to jump up and down about it...how that for a refreshing change!.....It isn't as if we haven't doing this type of things for thousands of years.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

and don't forget the sand ripples

Here it is dunes for ever


Pretty nice you have to say...but in a very different way.

different place with different colours

So different from what I see here. It is hard to think that I was the same person when I was there than when I am where I am now! It seems like two separate lives, two separate persons...

two Kenyan sisters

This is the eldest, who hopefully will get to go to "secondary" school next year.
I am not sure what "secondary" means in this case, I didn't grow up in this system.

Beautiful girl!
Probably too beautiful to have a real chance at education!

The day I took this picture we went together for a really long walk. It was very nice, lots of discussions, questions and also lots of quiet times just walking together. A rare opportunity to be with her alone since she was always busy.

At 14 she had to look after a lot of the work that had to be done in the house.





This is the middle daughter, 5 years old..... already a really cool "character"... a bit of a handful, but I really like her.

I like "women" with spunk...and spunk she has!!!

Ronali

I know that nobody who knows him will read this, but a special thought today for Ronali my "brother" in Yemen. I am sure that he is celebrating Ramadan.
It is nice to know of one thing that he is doing.

First day of Ramadan

"The holy month of Ramadan" started today.

So far so good...a little bit of a mess this morning for breakfast as things were getting sorted out.
Unfortunately an unusually hot day for this time of year made the first day a little harder for everybody, but tomorrow and the day after will likely be the hardest.


Also unusual is the sweet smell of stews and pastries floating over the entire location tonight ... a very festive smell.

I am going around wishing everybody a happy Ramadan and they smile. I know that one does not traditionally wish a happy Ramadan (though now you can get the cards, and the e-cards too), but it is the spirit that counts..they know what I mean.

Friday, September 22, 2006

buy the land get the bears

I'm shopping around...mostly over the internet since I am never home...for the place where I will retire.
I am making lists of what I want, and honestly it seems unlikely that I will be able to get it all. Something is going to have to give.

I want:
1. a house with no stairs..for when I am very old
2. a front porch where I can sit
3. raspberry bushes
4. a fire pit
5. maybe, an apple tree
6. lots of land for privacy
7. somewhere where there isn't lot of snow which needs to be shovelled
8. Not to far from a village of some sort
9. not too far from a library
10. not too far from a grocery store
11. not too far from a book store
12. it would be nice to be not too far form the ocean..but that's not a big one

I'm canadian and I really think that even though everybody seems to be moving to Thailand, Europe and the likes, I would like to retire in Canada. I would like to retire somewhere where I am not a foreigner. So I am looking at properties in Canada, mostly British Columbia...because of the "little snow" factor.
You know you are shopping for rural properties on Canada when one of the pictures to show off the property is a black bear!!! The picture I added here is actually from an ad for a property! Nice bear though!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

I really like this one

on my way to computer knowledge

I use firefox as a browser (this is not an ad, I really don't care whether or not you use Internet Explorer) and this morning after I lost powder while Firefox was running I lost all my bookmarks (which I think are called "favourites" in Explorer).....I had a moment of near panic here...but getting one step farther from complete computer ignorance I managed to find the Bookmark back up folder in my user profile and reload it as my bookmarks!!!

I'm quite proud of myself!!!...It doesn't take very much.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

and the rig is still burning

I just cannot find anything in the news, Algerian or otherwise about the burning rig about 100km from us. It is still burning, four people are dead and quite a few are badly injured....I know this from the the Hassi Messaoud office...but that's it.

I saw a video of the derrick falling down after 4.5 minutes. The flames were going all the way up to the monkey board and the derrick hand is one of the guy who died.

I don't understand why it isn't in the Algerian news...but I wonder if the last rig that burnt in Canada made it to the local news?

I said I wasn't going to talk about religion

Well, apparently I was lying, but I didn't know it at the time.
How could I guess that he pope was going to try to start a religious war by quoting passages from ancient texts.
Speak of missing a good opportunity. He could have stayed silent and not say a thing. He could have said something funny, or something smart, but instead he went for a anti-islamic quote from an ancient text!!!!

The reaction in the Middle East is of course all over the news.

Included for your "viewing pleasure" another photo from BBC world news website...a photo of an effigy of the pope being burnt in Kashmir.

I hate to think of how many people would be killed if christians were to burn an effigy of one muslim religious leader! Want to even try to imagine that?!?!?

The generosity of the maasai

Another thing in the BBC world news on internet today is an update about the 14 cows a maasai village gave the States to "console and comfort " the hurt nation after 9/11/01.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5339460.stm

I don't remember ever hearing about it at the time, but of course now I am more likely to notice something about maasais than I was before.

The photo is actually a picture of one of the cows of the family I was staying with.

I went and looked after the cow with Tony a couple of times and we'd pass the time by telling stories.... fable type of stories.
Looking after cows for most of the day is not really a challenge. Bringing them home is not that tough either as it turns out. They know the way and they walk right in the enclosure once you get them near the house.

My questions to London Fashion Week

1. Is that butterfly on her mouth to keep her quiet or to prevent her from eating?

It's always good to be reminded that the so called Western World does not treat women as objects.

You have to admit that the tough part is to figure out what is the most ridiculous: the toucan? the butterfly? the tulips, or the make up?

Why don't they just put those things on mannequins and call it what it really is : a sculpture.
This has nothing to do with a living woman!
Or is it performance art? If it is performance art, then just walking up and down a walkway is really lame!





3. Is it ok for non-pirate to wear this outfit?














3. How much for this outfit?

I swear I saw a pair of little yellow shorts just like those at the Women In Need second hand store in Calgary last time I was there...
I had my chance to be in style and I missed it!!!
I could have spent the dollar fifty!!!!

I had my chance and I blew it!!!
On the plus side people can sleep better knowing that I do not own a little pair of yellow short!!!




For copyright reason I should say: those pix are fro the BBC world news webpage

Saturday, September 16, 2006

In the news today


BBC world news today writes the following:
----------------
Al-Qaeda 'issues France threat'

Al-Qaeda's deputy leader has claimed that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France, it has emerged.
----------------------------

But somehow all this is not really making it to the mind of people on the rig since we found out that yesterday a rig in Algeria took a kick and burnt down. So far the count is for two dead, but the accident sounds particularly bad and the numerous wounded may not all be lucky enough to make it.
As you can well imagine there is a really weird mood on the rig today. One would hope that in times like this people will remember that we are all people working on the same rig...but honestly I know better than to hope that this will bring the troops together on our rig.

Sitting in the office this morning the company man, the tool push and myself were imagining ourselves having to make the call to the families and we had the goose bumps...A good exercise in reminding ourselves that time is only time, money is only money but every person on this rig is somebody's son or in my case somebody's daughter.

Here is my promise to you

I promise that from now on, and until the start of Ramadan (september 24th) I will not talk about any religion.
I imagine that Ramadan will bring some more blogs on the subject, but nothing until then!

Is it me? or is it that the world in a huge religious (Or pretend religious) turmoil right now?

This blog has sure gone from a travel/work log to a complete lunatic rant and rave about the "evil" of this world!!!! I am going to have to check in an asylum when I get back home!!! ;-)

nature versus nurture

How to explain what seems to be different type of people in different countries?

Is it really just culture and /or religion?

Could it be more and in fact could it be an inheritance?

Is there such a thing as French temperament? British temperament? Etc etc

This is of course the same question about the difference between men and women…the old nature versus nurture question.

A. (she knows who she is) warns of the difference between religious views and cultural views… and she is right. If you were to judge Christianity on the action of the so-called Christian world the all thing would come out looking pretty bad.
Jeeze, right now if you judge Christianity based on the action of the pope the all thing comes out looking pretty bad.

I think, now more than ever before, that the world would be a better place without any religions…. I thought that the next wars were going to be water-wars, but I have to say that right now I think that the next wars…well…really the present wars too, so maybe I am cheating….will be (are) wars of religion.


Did you ever think that the cross on ambulances were the cross of Christianity? I thought, maybe naively that it was the cross of a bandage!...
Other people thought different. In the photo with this blog you can see the ambulance we have here on location.

Friday, September 15, 2006

waving from the rig floor (as we call it)

It is hard to see in this picture but the guys RIH are waving at me to have their picture taken. (RIH=running in the hole=stuffing the drillpipe back in the well to get back to the bottom and start drilling again...hence me not being needed!)

thank goodness for the desert




The desert is so beautiful and the people are so annoying...why would I want to stay at the rig when I am not needed?

my "house"

This is my "house" with the back of my "office" right in front. It looks a lot worse than it is.

Jeeze, I tell you right now I am mad! I am just back from diner where, once again, I had to listen to the french (how do you write the plural of french...or do you try to avoid having to deal with more than one of them at any given time) going on about how here since it is "their" rig they are in charge of everything and the oil company has no right of decision on anything...going on and on and even including the right of people to go for walks etc (this was obviously because I was just back from a walk staying the entire time where the guards can see me as per the oil company's regulations)...They have absolutely no idea of how things work. All they know is that since they are french in their mind they are the best, the only ones!!! They can't even keep in mind that they are not in their own country right now and are absolutely rude and insulting to the locals every single meal! I tell you if I was Algerian I would have taken one of those guys at the back a long time ago.

It is a good reminder of why I left France and why I could NEVER EVER live there again. what a bunch of ignorant arrogant people!!!

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Tortured souls


The rain came too late for this guy.

Colours




I haven't done the "colours change so much" thing in a while!
Here you are you have to go through it one more time.

Two hours of Autumn

I like Fall. It is a great time to wallow in melancholy.

I haven’t seen either Winter or Fall in about three years and in a way I am missing them.

Today we had a minute of rain and the air is humid and cool. The smell is mildly reminiscent of Fall – no rotten leaves to be had though- and I feel satisfied that I just had my couple of hours of Fall for the year.

A couple of hours of justified melancholy.


Also a great opportunity for some photos with an unusual light.


Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Laughing...or at least smiling

I managed to go for a long walk yesterday since I am on casing break (a few days when I do not have to stay at the rig).
I walked to the old location of one of one of the other rig working around here. Not much of the rig was left, but just enough for one guard to be left on duty and have a radio with him. The deal was that I would go to the rig and "report in" so that the security guys would know at what time I got there and left.
It was a nice break. I did a loop around The Big Dune just south of us and was able to spend over an hour out of sight and far enough not to be able to hear the rig...what a great break!

Altogether I figure the loop was about 8 kilometres which in the sand is a good hike. I came back feeling great.

It looks like the security guys are actually getting used to having me around. The thing is my regular OLC (security guard) is not here and I have a replacement guy who is apparently WAY easier going. Right now we are playing "musical rig" with our OLC until our regular guy comes back. Next week we have a different guy... As long as I can come and go as I please I don't really care one way or the other.

I have to say that it was pretty good of them to let me go since the other expats from the rig crew have to go with an armed escort when they want to turn the water on and off from the water well a kilometre or so away. At lunch there was a few remarks about me being allowed to go and I just asked "Do you have a radio when you go to the water well" and when they answer no I just commented "That's why" and let them come to the wrong conclusion that I HAD a radio with me on my walk!

(the hyena in the photo is meant to represent me laughing and enjoying my new freedom)

I came, I dug a hole in the sand and I left


The plus side of working for 13 weeks the first time I came to ALgeria is that now things seems to go very fast.
Yesterday the ops geologist sent me an email to ask me if I wanted anything from Calgary since he is coming soon. My first reaction was "I just got here" which is not technically entirely true since I have been here for two weeks....for most people this is half of there time here.
The thing is that it looks like I will be done in about 3 to 4 weeks...depending on how much Ramadan slows us down.
Ramadan is start on the 24th of September this year. Next year it will be even hotter for Ramadan!

If I am only here for 5 to 6 weeks it is for sure going to seem VERY short! Too short maybe.

I must be doing something wrong somewhere because once again I have this weird feeling when I think of leaving...not a weird/good feeling either. Why do I keep on doing it to myself??

Maybe because the next well is the last well here, then the the company is letting go of the third rig...

BMI


The Spanish Association of Fashion Designers is banning models who have a BMI of less than 18 from the Madrid Fashion Week.

http:/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5341202.stm

BMI? I translate Body Mass Index....Now 18 is quite low.

Go check it out: http:/www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmi-m.htm

So are they going to design clothes that "normal" women can wear?

Saturday, September 09, 2006

missing what?


I only spent two weeks with those people and it was something like three weeks ago (a life time ago)....how can I be missing them?

It was such a simple life.

I think that this is what I miss.

But the harsh reality of it can be seen in this close up of Tony's shoes...that's also the reality!

What to do?


At work these days the atmosphere is pretty bad. In a way it is subtle but it shows up anywhere where there are more than two people on location. In other words I am only free of it when I am alone.
I am not sure if it is a war of race or a war of religion because the division between the two concepts is very blurred in the mind of Algerians, to them “Algerian” means “Muslim” and "expats" means "Christians". They read everything as being a religious matter (the national geologist when I surprised him sitting at my personal laptop offer "I am a Muslim" as the only reason why I should trust him, not realizing how offensive it is to say that to a non-muslim).
The expats feel it is a war of races. The Algerians feel that it is a war of religion.
Of course to most of the Algerians “expat” also means “dirty dog who is trying to treat us poorly in my own country and who should be kicked out of my country”.
And to most expats “Algerian” means “lazy stupid jerks who hates me but should kiss my ass because I am so much better than they are”.

I find myself sitting in between the two chairs. I can’t stand the racist comments that the expats do not censure around me…I don’t get to understand those made by the Algerians but I can assure you that they make just as many.
I don’t want to eat my meals with expats who make out loud comments against the Algerians but I don’t want to eat my meals with the Algerians who hate expats.

Soon it will be Ramadan and the locals have voiced that they feel sure that I will do Ramadan with them, and the expats resent it.
What to do?
I want to do Ramadan, honestly so that the people who work for me cannot throw in my face that they can’t work because THEY are doing Ramadan.
But I don’t want the expats to think that I am siding against them.

I remember being in primary school study religious wars and all of us kids going on about how it made no sense. I remember that I could not really understand it at all, how I felt that we were told the truth that there had to have been other reasons for the wars. Well I guess this is my chance to understand it now!

Friday, September 08, 2006

Maybe I should stop reading the news!

It just gets to me.
I mostly get my news from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/default.stm

Here are a few things that attracted my attention lately, in no particular order:

-the Wahhabi regime of Saudi Arabia is mulling whether to bar women from praying at the Grand Mosque in Mecca http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060907/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saudi_banning_women_2

- Al-Qaeda has urged non-Muslims - especially in the US - to convert to Islam and remind them that: "Any infidel blood will have no sanctity," ...Actually I am not sure they say "will have" as opposed to "has"!?!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5309376.stm

- "Beheaded Sudan editor is buried....Our correspondent says journalists in Sudan are scared, fearing they could be next if they do something to annoy the Islamic fundamentalists."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/5322818.stm
of occures reading about Darfour has got to be THE most depressing...which says something!

- A "virtually untreatable" form of TB has emerged, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5317624.stm


Then of course today in the news there is the Mexican land slide, the Russian gold mine fire etc etc etc
So, how do you stay reasonably informed without getting depressed?

Of course to relax you could always read the blog of Mahmoud Ahmdinejah, the president of Iran, where today the poll is "Do you think that the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another word war?"
http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/
(click on the little US flag at the top to see it in english)

just some photos




















Yesterday I went for a long walk and was "out there" for 3 hours. It was great. From this location I can go at least a couple of kilometres and still be in sight of the guards so as long as I do not pass the ridge of the dune and the guards can see me so I can go alone.

I took my music, a bottle of water and left. It was great. At the end of the day - and I try to be back or at least closer to the rig so they can see me by about 7:30pm because it gets dark- I sat on a dune facing the dunes in the lower picture and just watch as the light changed...what a great quiet moment.

the air around me

This morning the air is absolutely the perfect temperature. It is not nice and warm. It is not nice and cool. It is absolutely the temperature that the body cannot feel. The air has no motion what so ever and no moisture. This morning you cannot feel the air at all. It is actually weird. I cannot feel the air.

In a way it makes me acutely aware of the air around me because I am noticing how I cannot feel it. I had never realized before that I normally can feel the air around me!

It feels like everybody is a little quieter today. I guess this is why we call it atmosphere.

----------the atmosphere is quiet at work today.---------------