humidity : non applicable

I don't have a themometer. I just thought of checking the present weather condition in Hassi Messaoud on the internet.

present temperature at 7:00pm: 46C...fair enough

Humidity: N/A ...............
not "zero" just "N/A". Basically they are telling you "give you head a shake here...this is the desert. We will not even discuss humidity!"

Humidity: N/A.... Well the inside of my nose knew that!
As I wrote to JVC today showers are an excuse to stand under water waiting for the mositure level in the air to get to a level where the inside of your nose actually feels alright.
The bathroom at the rig, as you can imagine, are tiny, but it is very hard to get any condensation on the mirror and when you do if you open the door to run out quickly it dissapear instantly...and so does the relief for the inside of your nose.
I have never spent so much time thinking about the inside of my nose....
I remember the nice moist air of Trinidad and how good it felt on the skin!

Brief history of the Sahara

Very very brief history:
[from the same website than "geography of the Sahara"]

Around 5000 BCE: Climatic changes, with more rainfall over the Saharan region. Domesticated livestock appears in Sahara, leading to nomadic pastoralism.

Around 4000 BCE: First traces of agriculture.

Around 0 CE: The climate of Sahara returns mainly to desert, rather similar to modern conditions.

3rd century: Camels are introduced in Sahara, taking the place of horses. This allows a great increase in trade, but also banditry.

7th century: Islam is introduced to Sahara, but the conversion process would take almost 4 centuries, involving sometimes mild missionary activities and sometimes brutal oppression.

16th century: Climatic changes involve increased precipitation.

18th century: This is a period of gradual decline in the precipitation, involving a process in which many regions become uninhabitable, leading up to the climatic and demographic conditions of modern times.

1922: Storms and floods destroy Tamanrasset in Algeria.

What I find particularly interesting is the introduction of the Camel...actually they are Dromedaries..the Camels are in Asia and have two humps...Like in Kazakhstan. Here they have one hump.

Geography of the Sahara

The Sahara, with a size of 8.6 million km², is the world's largest desert, covering large parts of North Africa. Around 4 million people live here.

Its maximum length is 4,800 km, running from west to east, and up to 1,200 km from north to south. Sahara covers most of Mauritania, Western Sahara, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Niger and Mali, and touches Morocco and Tunisia.

About a quarter of Sahara consists of mountains. The highest peak reaches 3415, being Emi Koussi in Chad. Some mountain peaks may even have snow in the winter. The main mountain ranges are Hoggar in Algeria; Aïr/Azbine in Niger; and Tibesti in Chad. The Sahara's lowest point lies in the Qattara Depression in Egypt, at about 130 metres below sea level.

Sand sheets and dunes represent about 25% of the Sahara; the other parts are mountains, stoney steppes and oases. Pyramidal dunes can be as high as 150 metres, while mountainous sand ridges as high as 350 metres.

[Taken from Encyclopaedia of the Orient at "http://i-cias.com/cgi-bin/eo-direct.pl?ibn_khal.htm"]

Obviously I am in the sandy part of the desert but this may well be the most famous aspect of the Sahara but it is not the most typical.

five in your eye - I'm joking here

Isn't it the best part about traveling?
I get to find out about the Mzab, Ibn Khaldoun, couscous, orange blossom water in coffee (have any of you tried it yet?) etc.

I am slowy...I mean really slowly..learning a little bit of Arabic. Of course I am learning in a totally disorganised way depending on what happens around me. Here is an example I know how to say "five" because of the expression "five in your eye" which is something you say to somebody whom you think may be wishing you bad luck or bringing you bad luck...Lots of bad luck here so we were talking about it...But I don't know, well, I don't remember how to say any other number. I understand most of them, up to seven, but I can't remember them enough to say them...Those who have learnt a second or third language will know what it is like to know something well enough to understand it but not well enough to be able to use it and say it.

When you say "five" short for "five in your eye" you have to put your hand up, just like the picture, palm facing the person you are saying it to.
If it is not a joke you are best not use it at all, it is pretty serious stuff when not said jokingly.

Ibn Khadouln

Here is the thing: every Friday is a couscous Friday...We eat nice couscous here. People who are here on a regular rotation count how much time they have left by how many couscous they have let...obviously I don’t because it would not make any sense at all for me.

Anyway, I was talking about couscous Fridays with my friend Y. . He told me how if he was home today he would have a picnic with couscous and told me how they eat it out of one big wooden plate for all and how they drink milk with it etc etc…Then he went on about how he wish I was Algerian so I could go to visit his family and he would make sure we had couscous to eat. When I told him that I was thinking of visit Ghardaia (remember the Mzab) because it seemed like one of the safest place to visit for a woman alone, he agreed. And just as in any typical conversation we started talking about the Mzab and why it was there and where their culture came from etc and the name of Ibn Khaldoun came up. He is an historian-sociologist who wrote about the history of this part of the world. I looked him up on the internet and it does look like if you are going to read one book on the subject this would be the way to go. To put things in perspective I should say that he was born in 1332.

So here is a reading suggestion, Y. says that this is the only way to understand this part of the world, the Arabs, the Berbers, Islam and everything which is going on now, try IBN KHALDOUN also spelt "Khaldun". I know I will.

should I "elect to elect" or "revoke to elect"?

Here is the question of the day: Why do I spend so much money having my taxes done by a C.A. who specialises in overseas taxes and charges an arm and a leg when he ends up sending me emails telling me that the CRA called and asked for me to fill a form...and could I please fax it to the tax department!?!?!?

As a typical CRA tax form there is a part with just explanations -not that they make any sense- and in there the top part includes "some businesses cannot use..."...
I AM NOT A BUSINESS and apparently my accountant does not know it!
Scary!

I have to fill a "Election and Revocation of an Election to use the Quick Method of Accounting" (this is not a joke. This is the actual name of the form) and I have to decide to either "elect to elect" or "revoke to elect"...I don't even know what they are talking about. And of course I have to tell them the exact date when I want this "election of election" or "revocation of election" to start taking place...Again...what are they talking about?...My accountant...Hmmm...I should say "my soon to be ex-accountant" of course does not have a word of explanationor advice on it.

I think I will elect to elect starting January first 2005! Sure, why not?

Last time the CRA audited me they had to come up with an extra $600 that they owed me. I guess it is worth trying it again.

Anyway shouldn't it be called the CCRA?

30 degrees North / 7 degrees 30 minutes East

Maybe I forgot to say:
I am in the middle of the Great Eastern Erg.
An "erg" is an area of dunes...as opposed to a "reg" which is an rocky part of the desert.

Rob sent me this picture of where I am from Google Earth, pretty much confiming my suspicions that I was in a middle of dunes. (Jeez I am so funny!!)

the Lybian border is 180km East of us..an it is dunes all the way there.
Hassi Messaoud the town where the offices are and where we land when we arrive in Algeria is about 300km North-North West and it is solid dunes all the way there.....
I am not joking when I say that all I see is dunes....plus the spiders, the scarabs, the fenneks, the roughnecks, etc...

The view from here

I occured to me that I had not posted a good picture of the rig in the desert.
Here we are folks! this is where I am!

Like a hyena on a leash

Today I feel absolutely great. Amazingly great. I am in very good spirits. I feel relaxed etc.

Three days ago I woke up with something which I call a "pinched nerve" in the neck...I have no idea what it really is..I very much doubt that it is a pinched nerve, but somehow when you say that people know what you are talking about. Anyway! I had a killer headache on one side of the head behind the eye and all the way to the jaw...Not fun. Everybody was saying "you've been here too long...Even men can't last that long"...What ever!
That evening when I went to bed I decided that the next day I would take the day off...Technically it makes no difference since I sent the same reports at the same time.
But I slept the sleep of the "just" and woke up with my neck just about back to normal. I payed no attention to the cement problem we had and told people who wanted to talk about our problems that "not today! I am on holidays today!" and they just laughed. I listened to music, pottered about and did my job but without the stress of worrying about the cement. The following morning I went with two guards off location -we drove- and went for a long walk. When I got back for my 10:00am report I was "back working" but this little stint did me a world of good and I feel great.

The big thing here is that I now have one more link in my "leash".
Being able to drive off location an start a walk away from the rig, away from the noise, is the new "link" in my leash. I now have just a little more freedom, a little more space, a little further to go. This walk took two weeks to organised but now all agree that it is very easy - "feasable" was the word- and that I should do it more often.
I don't know if I will ever be able to roam free like the male geologist (God forbide!!! ....in this case literally so) but slowly I am gaining more freedom - my leash is getting longer!

Of course the fact that our cement problems are over is also helping a lot in the way I feel.

On I go

so why do I even care about muslim women's issue?

Honestly over a year ago I had decided that I had enough of the crusade for women's right. Women can be so frustrating, going for the cutesy factor, working at "catching" rich men etc... and I had decided that I was going to continue making sure that my life was what I wanted it to be but I was not going to step up to defend other women...and then.....TA DUM!!

P. and S. had a daughter!

So pretty much I can't give up... I know one woman does not make a difference but one woman + one woman + one woman +.....(you see where I am going) can make a world of difference.

She just turned one, and she likes chocolate!!!

Chocolate apart, doesn't she look to you like she is at least three!

space travel is money well spent

One more thing:

=======================
From:

http://www.snopes.com/
science/stats/thinksex.asp

Depending on which version you've encountered, the amount of time between naughty male thoughts will be stated differently, with "every three minutes," "every eight seconds," and "every fifteen seconds" giving "every seven seconds" a run for its money as the top finisher in this category. The number itself doesn't matter; it's the aura of authority with which the claim is invariably stated, as if this were an undisputed fact backed by scientific research.

Though steamy-minded men might be a nice concept to be enthralled by (also to come home to, but I digress), the theory doesn't hold up. According to the Kinsey Institute's FAQ, "54% of men think about sex every day or several times a day, 43% a few times per month or a few times per week, and 4% less than once a month." Though no one can swear to how often a particular thought flashes through any one guy's head, it's pretty clear from the Kinsey statement that the majority of the gender is not being overcome with naughty imaginings every seven seconds, as slightly less than half of them don't think about sex even as much as once a day.

Here is the part of the study they refer to:

· 54% of men think about sex everyday or several times a day, 43% a few times per month or a few times per week, and 4% less than once a month (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, Michaels, 1994).

· 19% of women think about sex everyday or several times a day, 67% a few times per month or a few times per week, and 14% less than once a month (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, Michaels, 1994).

===============================

I don’t think we need to consider mass lobotomies.

Jeeze! People should be able to think about what ever pleases them!!!
But the harassment and the oppression part is still not good….
I really think that the only answer is to keep men home! They should not be allowed outside their home without a female guardian!

Recently J.V.S. (she knows who she is) asked: “if we can put one man on the moon, why can’t we put them all?” and I have to say that it is a pretty good question. We should spend more money in space travel….we really should!!!

Note: I refuse to go the way of "sex" + "rocket" + "men" = joke, it is just too easy, too obvious!!!!

...so he can refresh his soul.....(is it what they call it now?)

Before people start wondering why the “burn their eye balls” let me just show you the other type of information you can get out there about women in Islam.

Here is a seriously offensive one. Just the table of content should give you an idea: but I urge you to go and read at least parts of it.
--------------------------------------------------------

The Place of Women in Pure Islam

by M. Rafiqul-Haqq and P. Newton http://debate.domini.org/newton/womeng.html

Men's Superiority
Women's Deficiencies
What is a Woman?
Husband's Rights
Woman's Rights
Man's Prerogatives
The Significance of the Marriage Contract
The Significance of the Dowry
Spiritual Standing of Women
Conclusion

Here are some parts of it:

1. WOMEN ARE DEFICIENT IN INTELLIGENCE AND RELIGION

The intellectual and religious deficiencies of women are stated in the following Hadith found in Sahih al-Bukhari which is considered by Muslim scholars to be "The most authentic book after the Book of Allah (ie. the Qur'an)":[13]

THE WOMAN IS A TOY

The previously mentioned deficiencies show the woman's inadequacy as a companion for man. Her deficiency in intelligence and religion prevent her from exchanging secular or sacred ideas or participating in religious or related spheres. To what level do these deficiencies reduce the woman?

"'Omar [one of the Khalifs] was once talking when his wife interjected, so he said to her: 'You are a toy, if you are needed we will call you.'"[21]

And 'Amru Bin al-'Aas, also a Khalif, said: "Women are toys, so choose."[22]

This was not just 'Amru Bin al-'Aas and 'Omar's opinions. Mohammad himself said:

'The woman is a toy, whoever takes her let him care for her (or do not lose her)."[23]

The belief that a woman is a toy is of vital importance for the spiritual well being of a man. For according to the great philosopher Ghazali

"In the company of women, looking at them, and playing with them, the soul is refreshed, the heart is rested, and the man is strengthened to the worship of God...this is why God said: 'That he might rest in her.' (Q. 7:189)"[24]

But you have to go and check the website yourself.

we could burn their eye balls

I am reading quite a bit about women’s status in Islam these days for the obvious reason. I can tell you that you can find very diverse point of view on the subject out there, as diverse as the people of the muslim faith are -makes sense!
I am not trying to paint all muslim with the same brush here, but I am trying to understand how the men of Algeria I work with view me...There are mixed feeling on this location on whether a woman should be here. Let's just say that I get "looks"!
On her location the other female geologist has to deal with a well respected strict religious "doctor" who calls all women "whores" and watches pornographic movies whenever he can sneak in the room with the TV.

Anyway!

Generally, in what I found, depending on the point they are trying to make authors will either play the “all people are equal” card or the “women are lesser beings” card…obviously it is hard to play both, but apparently both are found in the holy scriptures.

Funnily enough all I can find on the side of “all people are equal” is always concerned with comparing Muslim women to other women.

Here is an interesting example:

“liberation by the veil” taken from http://www.islam101.com/women/hijbene.html

“Modesty and chastity , very important ideologies with Islam, are achieved by prescribing standards on behavior and the dress of a Muslim. A woman who adheres to the tenements of Islam is required to follow the dress code called Hijab, other synonymes are Veil, Purdah, or just Covering. It is an act of faith and establishes a Muslim's life with honor, respect and dignity. The Hijab is viewed as a liberation for women, in that the covering brings about "an aura of respect" (Takim, 22) and women are recognized as individuals who are admired for their mind and personality, "not for their beauty or lack of it" ( Mustafa ) and not as sex objects.

Contrary to popular belief, the covering of the Muslim woman is not oppression but a liberation from the shackles of male scrutiny and the standards of attractiveness. In Islam, a woman is free to be who she is inside, and immuned from being portrayed as sex symbol and lusted after. Islam exalts the status of a woman by commanding that she "enjoys equal rights to those of man in everything, she stands on an equal footing with man " (Nadvi, 11) and both share mutual rights and obligations in all aspects of life.

It goes on. If you want to see more go to the excellent website.

I say: “we could also burn the eye balls of men and the women would be freed of their constant sexual cravings expressed in unappropriate settings, or more reasonably we could force them to stay at home and make it a law that they should not be allowed outside without a female guardian. That would work too.

Sahara thoughts

As I explained earlier the thing about the Sahara is mostly the light,the light and the colours.

Somebody asked me about the sound the "sea of sand" makes: The sound is the sound of wind with the sounds of thousands of little sand grains hitting you during windy times -probably a quarter of the time .

I am more a smell person. Smells are very light and really practically non-existent: The smell of dust, of gypsum dust, the smell of dry...hard to explain...maybe more a sensation that a smell..(?)

Things that I did not expect in the Sahara:

-there are often clouds in the sky

-the wind is warm and feels quite different from other winds. It has the warmth of a living creature and for me the lack of vegetation smell and moisture on it reinforces the sense that it has a purpose of its own and is not just a courier.

-the dunes in the morning are covered in foot prints of scarabs and a few scorpions.

-the sand goes on for ever and ever and ever…I knew it but to see it is something else

-the dunes look like mountain chains

-from the air the dunes looks like roses or star fish arranges in a very orderly fashion

-the dunes change all the time but they do not move per say…the sand moves, but dunes pretty much stay around one spots and their peak rotates around a center point .

-watching dunes is addictive ;-)

-there are lots of insect and lizards in the desert

-most of us do not stand a chance to survive for 48hrs alone in the Sahara (and this comes form a woman who would like to see all the deserts on this planet, goes camping and hiking in Death Valley, Joshua Tree all the time…well not all the time, but a lot). The Tuaregs have this alien like ability to go with very little water. I would be embarrassed to drink as much as I do in front of them.

-even when there is little wind there are constantly light coloured patches of sand running on the surface of the sand. Those are not an on going blanket of shifting sand, they are definite bodies with boundaries and they run around. Their motion looks like the motion of a human crowd as seen from the air. I can see how the idea of spirits or magical entities would seem a likely way to explain them. They are beautiful. On days when the wind is strong before the sand storms I love to go out there and watch all of them racing around the desert.

Moments

You know how you cannot remember everything so memories end up being just "moments" remembered. Sometimes when you live those moments you know you will be remember them and sometimes you are surprised to find out later that they are still here.

Last night I was working not as the geologist but as the night company-man. I was waiting for something..and it doesn't matter what...i was standing on the floor watching the kelly go round and round and down and down for hours...I standing there from eleven at night until four in the morning.
I love standing on the floor at night waiting. Everything is quiet, everybody is busy doing their thing. I have to be attentive but my mind is free to venture. There is a sense of purpose that cannot be disturbed all while I am really not doing anything.
Last night was especially nice because there was a light but warm breeze and the driller was a guy so quiet that you would think he was dead (but a smooth dead driller on the break handle!!). There are the two of us completely absorbed in our own thoughts doing something important but doing nothing. Two of us doing something together but totally ignoring each other.

I was enjoying the breeze, savouring being in the Sahara trying to imagine the desert beyond the circle of light of what I could see when I surprised myself by remembering one night in Kazakhstan standing on the mud tanks for hours like this looking in the distance. I remembered my thoughts at that moment, I remembered a brief interuption from one of the guys I really liked (Actually as I write this I just remembered that this guy and I shared the same birthday...I had forgotten) and it was nice.
I realised that I miss the steppe of Kazakhstan and I realised that I will miss the Sahara...in a way I've started missing it already.

The hands of muslim women

Of course the most famous hand of a muslim woman is the hand of Fatima (the daughter of Mohammed the prophet).

the story goes as follows:
" One day Lady Fatima was cooking Halvah in a pan in the garden when suddenly the door opened and her husband the caliph Ali entered along with his new bride. Fatima was deeply grieved and dropped the wooden stirring spoon in confusion and unaware, she continued stirring the halvah with her hand. Because of the grief in her heart she never even felt the pain of her hand mixing the hot halvah. However, when her husband hurried to her side and exclaimed in surprise "What are you doing there, Fatima?" she felt her hand burning and the pain. Thus it is from that day on the hand of the Lady Fatima has been used in the Islamic world as a symbol of patience, abundance, and faithfulness, and thus it is that girls and women wearing this necklace from whose end the hands hang believe the hands of Lady Fatima will bring them good luck, abundance and patience."

And it is even in the news these days:
" "The Hand of Fatima" that many Muslims in France carry as a sign of faith is a superstitious throwback to paganism and has nothing to do with religion, according to some Islamic scholars. The image has been in the news recently with French President Jacques Chirac's call for the banning of religious symbols, including the Muslim veil for girls, in the secular state school system.The Fatima amulet is called a "Khamsa" in Algeria, from the Arabic word for five, and is seen as protection against the "evil eye." "

And one more thing about Muslim women's hands, a thought of mine, not a scholarly research:
Note that the only culture where women decorate their hands with henna as a matter of daily life (and I saw it on most women who covered themselves almost entirely in Yemen) are the women who can only show their hands (and again in the case of Yemen not even always, some women covered their eyes with a black veil and their hands were on black gloves).

headless coffee

Here is something worth trying, a new way to drink coffee. It is simple, portable and pleasant and obviously an Algerian tradition.

Add a few drops of orange blossom water to it.

Rheda (I am not going to explain who he is) told me about it after I told him that I had bought some orange blossom water in Hassi Messaoud. He assures me that coffee this way tastes best at 4:30 in the afternoon!

My friend Youcef from Ghardaia brought me a little stainless steel bottle with a long neck especially made to hold the orange blossom water. Now that I know what the bottle looks like I recognised it on the counter of the coffee shop at the airport.

I actually really enjoy coffee that way...maybe not all the time, but around 4:30 in the afternoon!!! ah ah ah ah!!
I can see that this is something I will keep on having every now and then and I know that I will remember this particular well, these particular people, this particuliar area because of it...kind of neat I think.

One thing to say about Rheda: in October 1984 when the first three expats were beheaded in Algeria (one French, one German and one Italian if I recall) he was there. He said that he had supper with them and 7:00pm and covered their headless bodies at 9:00pm. He also said that he would never forget it and had to admit that in a way he was pleased that there were expats there because somebody had to die and since he was the boss at the time if there had not been any expats it would have had to be him.
The heads were stolen and it took 16 days to find them... headless bodies have a way to pop up in the islamc world...In Kazakhstan we also had to find the head of a body...Muslims cannot receive a proper burial without their heads. I suspect that it is a old superstition more than an actual muslim belief.

From coffee to headless bodies, quite a jump....the truth is that I suspect that when I have coffee this way I will often think of Rheda and think of this story.

Long dark hair

What is it about the way I look? And I really think that it is the long dark hair. It makes me look like a traditional woman of quite a few ethnicities. I could be Mexican, East Indian, Indian, Kazakh, Yemeni (presumably, who knows what kind of hair Yemeni women have apart from themselves, their female friends and their husbands), Lebanese...from far of course, not from close....and also apparently I could be Algerian...Actually on this one I have to agree.
Once again one of the guy on the rig approached me to let me know that I reminded him of his daughter...I look just like her apparently...He said it was nice for him, it made him feel like he had a daughter of the sands...and it should be nice for me since I had a father of the sands!!!

In Yemen I was adopted into the tribe of my brother, Rownali. That was a real adoption with formal announcement etc. This time it is just a passing comment...I can only be adopted into so many tribes!!!

Price of gas

The other day when we were going to the grocery store we had to stop at the gas station and that reminded me to ask about the price of gas in Algeria.

"Regular" is 22 dinar per litre…so about 37 cents per liter.

My first reaction was: "It is so cheap!"

But the next question was: how much money does a gardener / house keeper at the base makes. The answer: US100$ per month!! But I should add to be honest that the company running the base is known for being a terrible company to work for….

I’ve been trying to find out for a while how much the guy who cleans our rooms and offices makes so I can leave him a tip that makes sense. Possibly he makes US $20 per day to work on site.

It is always a hard question to ask: how much money is "normal" money?…

Even at home I would be hard pressed to answer this question…How much money does the cash register girl in Safeway make?

the plane ride

Ok, I mentioned the plane ride that makes me sick, let me explain.

In the morning when the air is cool and the sand is cool there isn't any thermal cells (or what ever you call them) and the ride is nice and smooth, and I am not sick. In the afternoon, or even late morning on hot days the difference in temperature between the sand and the air is significant and the air heated by the sand of course has to rise and form thermals...this results in very turbulent flights when you are at low altitude. During the actual flight it is OK, but the last 10 minutes are just a killer. The turbulences added to the heat, or what ever it is, results in a deadly combination...let's just say that people being sick are not uncommon. So far I have been able to not throw up but only my pride holds me back and once I came pretty close. I actually had cold sweats and the shakes (both hands and knees) when I stepped out of the plane.

Going to town this time when we arrived in Hassi Messaoud we had lateral winds and it turns out to be a great advantage to people like me. To avoid them the pilote stayed high as long as possible and did a sort of a nose dive at the last minute so we spent very little time at low altitude. Of course we also landed on one wheel, or I should say jumped once on one wheel then landed on that same wheel. The angle of the plane was steep enough to force the passengers to hold on, but low enough no to be scary...eventually the pilot did manage to put the second wheel down...I tell you those guys are good.

the song of the day

To be sang on the tune of "I dream of a white Christmas"

I dream of a soft pillow
a wide soft bed and a pillow
something that comfortable and nice
something that does not give me a stiff sore neck
la la la la la la la la

etc etc etc... very catchy
I forgot the exact tunes so the words may not quite work.

One night in town

With the problems we have at work there isn't much for me to do at the rig.
The alternative is to go to Hassi Messaoud (an hour flight away in a Twin Otter) and stay at the base where the oil company has its offices and its accomodation. It is an OK place, it even has a swimming pool but it is the office and you cannot leave the compound unless you have a driver etc etc...in other words it has potential for becoming very boring something like 10 mintes after the first shower...And even then the shower is not that great...in fact I noticed yesterday that the water coming out of the shower was salty. The well water we have here at the rig, which I grant you does have some bacteria, is fresh water.

After a all rigamarole yesterday afternoon the in-country-manager decided that I should go to town, officially because I have been here for 9 weeks and I need a break, in reality because he was having a BBQ and needed more women!! and that is the plain truth!! And you know it is sad when I am invited as a female figure as opposed to as one of the guys!!! sad, sad, sad!

Anyway, I wanted to buy some lemonade crystals...I have had this huge craving for lemonade made out of those gross crystals...don't ask. I also wanted some soap that smells better than what they give us at the rig and a few stupid things like this, so I went.
The BBQ could have done with some atmosphere..any atmosphere...
I have no bathing suit here with me so the pool was out....I honestly came to Algeria having done the worst packing job ever!!
The evening was a bit of a fiasco...well, maybe not fiasco but a "flop" for sure.

The thing I always have to think about when I have a chance to go to Hassi Messaoud is the plane ride...I get sick in that plane ride....so the trip has to be fun to be worth it.

I did sleep very well on a big comfortable bed with a soft pillow and I woke up only once wondering why it was so quiet and where I was....Of course I always wake up many times, but only once did I wonder...I slept like a queen...so just that made it worth the trip....the soft mattress, the soft pillow and the cosy light duvet were heaven! Luxury, luxury, Luxury!

then there is surface texture

Now, surface texture is something else all together.
.....There is no way I can do it justice, absolutely no way. It is an on going fascinating thing. I'm just giving you an idea with two pictures.
What is neat about it ..............and no, I am not going to talk about grain size + composition + sorting, just forget about that...........
So the neat part about it is the feel under your feet associated with the rippling pattern...and the colours assocated with the patterns...I should be fair and say that part of the colour is related to the sand itself (yes, yes, size etc) and the light of the time of day as shown earlier, but there is more...always more...
When I go for my walks I try to figure out the way patterns and colours can be used to figure out if the sand is going to be firm or soft. Some of it, in broad terms, is easily figured out, but every now and then, usually right after I come up with a new theory on the sand's ability to support my weight, something goes "wrong" and I find myself walking through soft sand....

Walking on sand is amazingly like walking on snow, sometimes you break through sometimes you 'float". I like it...I am starting to go for longer walks...Yes, I know I still haven't explained anything about the guards.

and one more

I couldn't very well do a "study in colours of dunes" without posting this one!

Of course this one is on a totally different day, in fact this one is after the rain.

I can't remember if I mentioned it....
i saw rain in the Sahara..I must have mentioned it...

the colour of dunes

Well, i asked if you had enough of dunes and the only feed back I got was "pro-dunes" so here it is: a study in dune colours.



Those three photos were take with a half hour and within 100m of each other at a time when the light was changing quickly. It was around 6:00 at night.

With little light in the morning or the evening the dunes are grey, they they turn pink and orange and bright. At the noon hour especially on hot days they seem nearly white. Then back to bright orange or pink in the early evening and grey as the sun goes down...generally, but no two days are alike especially when you factor in the wind, the humidity (or lack off) in the air, the clouds...and everything else. Quite an amazing process really.

As you can see I am having quite a hard time putting three pictures on one blog...I've struggled with it long enough I think this is the way it will have to stay.

Time !!!

I just received the "information package" from the volunteer association. It includes a fun little bit about time. Here it is:
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"It is interesting to note that in the Swahili culture the day starts at sunrise (unlike in the Arab world where the day starts at sunset, and in the Western world where the day starts at midnight). Sunrise in East Africa, being exactly at the Equator, happens every day at approximately 6:00 a.m. And for that reason, 6:00 a.m. is "0:00 morning" Swahili time. By "Swahili time" I mean the time as spoken in Swahili.

So the hands of a watch or clock meant to read Swahili time would always point to a number opposite to the number for the actual time as spoken in English. That is, the Swahili time anywhere in the world (not just East Africa) is delayed by 6 hours.

Therefore 7:00 a.m. is "1:00 morning" (saa moja asubuhi) Swahili time; midnight is "6:00 night" (saa sita usiku) Swahili time. 5:00 a.m. is "11:00 early morning" (saa kumi na moja alfajiri) Swahili time.

Note also that the Swahili time doesn't use "noon" as the reference as in a.m. (before noon) and p.m. (after noon). The time is spoken using "alfajiri" which is the early morning time during which the morning light has started to shine but the sun has not risen yet; "asubuhi" which is the morning time between sunrise and a little before noon; "mchana" which is from around noon to around 3:00 p.m.; "alasiri" which is from around 3:00 p.m. to sunset; "jioni" which is the entire time period from around 3:00 p.m. up to a little before 7:00 p.m.; and "usiku" which is the entire time period from around 7:00 p.m. to early morning."

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Apart from this time may actually not be in my side on this one. Things are taking a lot longer than expected here...sometime today we will find out how much cement we have INSIDE the casing (for the non geology people: the cement is meant to be OUTSIDE the casing not inside!!) and a new time frame may very well be introduced to our situation. Mind you, we are on the "anything is possible" time frame most of the time!!!

I am still trying to find out how flexible the volunteer association is willing to be/can be.
If they need to be warned weeks and weeks in advance when people are coming this is obviously going to be a "no go"....I think I will still go to Kenya just to relax.

More arrowheads

two different sites. The rougher and the finer..not that far apart.
Pottery fragments are not as rare as arrowheads, but decorated pieces like the one in the photo are quite rare from what I am told.
I put looking for arrowheads and golfing in the same sort of activity... something to do while you walk around / a good excuse to get out there.
Yesterday I had a "revelation": arrowhead carvers were the first geologists. They had to recognise chert and know where to find it.
I thought of this when the guard who was with me -I still haven't explained the guards!-....when the guard who was with me asked what I was looking for...I told him and showed him the chert fragments and explain that they were a good indicator of possible arrowheads, so he looked and looked...and concluded "different people are good at different things. To me all the rocks look the same"...

Maybe after all

Well, after all I may be able to join the volunteer program. It turns out that if you cannot get a police record you can get three letters of references from "reputable" people.
I've asked a few people, so far Bob and Lucretia have come through for me and have written nice and perfectly respectable letters. I need one more and the one from Lucretia scanned and I am just about ready.
I've decided that I would go to London and stay a couple of days first to get some money and the buy stuff that I will need. Then I will go to Nairobi.

The malaria tablets should be sorted out.
The references should work out.
The plane ticket -cheap but flexible- I am still working on.
The volunteer program is pretty much just waiting to hear from me.

It might just work out! .....might!!!
I have to say that it would be fun to volunteer for three weeks and travel a bit either to the Indian Ocean or to Lake Victoria...We will see.
If the volunteer thing does not work for this time I will try again next time. And if it works this time and I like it I may get in the routine of doing it every now and then when I a not too far and the plane ticket is not too much.

what to do?

After I got everybody in a mess so I could get my malaria pills delivered to me (thanks Dave!) I found out that to go volunteer in Kenya I need to get a police record! Bummer! I wish they had mentioned it earlier...When I was still in Canada might have been a good time!
I had a bummed out all day today being totally dissapointed at the idea of not going, but slowly I am coming to the conclusion that I should to Kenya and Tanzania anyway. Just for a little bit, just for a holiday before going back home.
I was getting used to the idea of going somewhere else than home.
One of the gazillions of problem with this "not going home" plan is that I am not really packed to travel on a holiday. I did bring a small back back thinking that I was going trekking in the Tassili. But I have no back pack big enough to go travel around Africa. I have no bathing suit (Clearly a huge emergency right there) etc. Still I think that I should just go anyway.

Bill -The Big Guy

The big guy on the right is Bill, the company man.
He is hilarious.
Today at lunch as we are talking about god knows what when the all "do you fish" question came up. His answer: "Not anymore. Not ever since the incident". You can just imagine where that went. I just laught myself silly all while trying to say through the tears "I am not laughing at you"...He loves telling stories and he has some great stories.
He worked for years in Sudan and all kind of wild places, made some extra cash doing contraband out of Kenya and South Africa when he was younger.
He is a laugh a minute.
At the end of his last shift at one point he came to me and said "Hello, honey"...I just laughed and told him "this time, Big Guy, you have really lost it" -I call him Big Guy- He just laughed back and said "I am practising for when I get home".
I love drilling with old guys like this.

Are you tired of dunes?

I wonder, are you tired of me posting photos of dunes?

This is all I see all day I am not getting tired. I am sure that in the long run I am going to wonder why I took so many pictures of dunes....I am temporarily a dune expert. I follow the change in shapes, colours, firmness, ripple marks etc of the dunes around us. I notice details that nobody in their right mind would even consider looking at.
Worse I am enjoying it.

Now that's what I call laughing

This is an in-between photo for those like me trying to recuperate form the chock of the "less than one year" difference.
It is my fave pix of her.

Also a little bit more "Huckleberry Finn".
That girl looks good in green..and purple...and yellow.....and orange (take my word for it)...that girl looks good in anything!

I am telling you, we are not getting any younger.

last month I turned 5 millions years old

Here is the question: how do you go from photo number one to photo number two in less than a year?!?!?

I can't see the actual text of the book she is reading..I'm thinking that it is neither Mikhail Bulgakhov's "the master and Marguarita", nor Fyodor Dostoevsky's "crime and punisnment"...I sure hope it isn't Jane Austen....but the outfit she is wearing does scream "Jane Austen"!!!

But wait! This is nothing...She started walking....The girl is not a year old! Tomorrow she is starting her own Blog on the socio-cultural implications of exporting powdered milk to third world countries with added high points on her own philosophy on child rearing in the 21st century. Either this or on the special alloys used in aeronautics and how their heat resitivity versus original cost of both producing and manufacturing and the environmental impact of their use in the industry should be considered for better designs.....or anything else that might cross her mind!
Had I known I would have left her the key to my truck before going to Algeria...at this rate she will need it soon for her back country camping trips and her round the country tours.....and I am not saying with her parents either.
I am feeling about five millions years old!!!!
The way she looks I can't even honestly say that I am digging my heels in on the Jane Austen issue.....If she reads Jane Austen what are we doing reading anything else...when you look that good, I am sorry to say, you set the world's trends!!!

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

Last night the temperature went down to +16C....seriously cold for people used to +40C and higher....
the weather must be awful in Europe. It seems that the weather mostly comes from Europe.
In a way it was good because we have lots of problems with air conditioners...In my room the air conditioning unit works for about an hour, then I have to turn it off. When I get too hot again and I wake up typically if I turn it back on and it works for another hour or so. So far this has worked, but when it actually gets hot....

The wind yesterday was terrible, but I was thinking....Hmmmmm....more arrowheads being uncovered.

One Way Mirror

It used to be that when people wanted to know what was going on they would email and ask. Now that I blog I feel like I am behind a one way mirror. I don't know if people are looking in. I don't see them, I don't hear from them.
Hmmm!!! maybe I don't like blogging after all.
It is fun to write and post stuff up with a picture but ......

the Mzab

I am just discovery bits and pieces of Algeria through my contacts with people at work. Of course what I find out is first limited to the knowledge held by people I befriend and then filtered by who they are and what they are willing to discuss with me.

One of those people is Y., a very nice guy from Ghardaia, and I am discovering a little about the mozabites through him.
Of course of particular interest to me is women's status. The Mozabite women are known for being entirely covered in white, unlike the black dress for women of most of the rest of the Middle East, and for only showing one eye, the left eye always.
Y's wife also covers herself and I asked him about it.
Keep in mind that he is saying this to a white woman working on an oil drilling rig.
He explained to me how from their point of view women are the keepers of the traditions. He tells me that women were not allowed to leave the Mzab (the area where they live) for quite a few years so that their culture, ethnicity and traditions would not be lost. He talked and talked about women not being allowed to do all kind of things, loosing what I considered some basic freedoms and described it as the wisdom, the gift of the chosen people, the Mozabites. He cries for the situation of some other men in Algeria who marry women who are not modest. He is horrified at the idea that some men in the rest of Algeria marry women who do not know anything about the story of their family, do not know where their grand parents came from, do not know where the roots of their family are.

As he was talking I was thinking that after all many men died in wars to keep their cultures safe and maybe the sacrifice the Mozabite women make is similar. Of course the big difference is that typically men choose to go to war -or do they?-, whereas the mozabite women were forbidden to leave the area.....I've never talked to one of them, and likely will never be allowed to do it, so I cannot say what the women think about it.

This man has a young daughter and we were talking about his relationship with her and his past and present relationships with women in general. For me there is a strange contrast between his personal life and his cultural belief, but he sees no contradictions in it.
This is a man who decided to become friend with me.

He says that the basis of their identity is the triangle with the "shops" at the base, the home above it and the mosque at the top. If I understand well this geometry also reflects their architecture, or at least this is the way he views it.

Work!!

At the rate things are going here I will end up being here for quite a bit longer than first expected (the first estimate was for 50 some days). The real problem is that when I am down I will EASILY be down for 9 weeks, EASILY!!! It could turn into 12 to 15 weeks before anybody gets surprised.
I guess I have better start planning what I want to do during my time off.

Southern Algeria, Kenya and some work in Canada right now seem like the best combination.

@$*%!! That's too much down time!!!