Thirty six days and counting

I have been on the offshore rig for thirty six days already. I am nearly finished but not quite yet.
Honestly it is a long time not to be able to go anywhere and most of all not to be able to go anywhere where there isn't noise...lots of noise....people talking, engines roaring, motors growling, hydraulics hissing , pumps churning, breaks squeaking, speaker blasting announcements and all that kind of stuff.
I'm tired of it.

I have just finally made, once and for all my mind up about the job offer for a permanent (as permanent as jobs ever are!) in the office in Johannesburg. After much troubled thoughts about it, after having changed my mind many times I have decided not to take it.
I cannot give up 5 months of holidays per year for 5 weeks just so I can go home in the evening. I cannot know today what I will do at 3:00pm on March 23rd in two years. I cannot picture myself getting up in the morning the first day of that job knowing that it is the first day of many which will be the same. And most of all I cannot put up with the brutal office politics.
I have to find a nice way to turn it down...I have already turned it down twice and each time they have come up with a better offer, but this time this is it.

I am looking forward to a few months of time off.... I know I am lucky! how many people can say that: "I am looking forward to a few months off"!
Maybe I'll regret it later, especially with the situation the way it is, but I'll deal with that when I get there. I'm not ready to make the reasonable decision which I think will not make me happy.

By the way I am still reading "The Corn King and the Spring Queen" and still enjoying it. I am about two third of the way through but I have little time for it, and it is not one of those books you can just pick up and put down in a second.

Unknown classic

Don't you hate it when not only you have not read a classic, but when on top of it you've never even heard of it before?

I just started "The Corn King and the Spring Queen" by Naomi Mitchison. I am reading in it the "Canongate Classic" edition.... I had never heard of either the book or the edition house.

So far I like the book. It is a story which could be a classic Greek myth. I won't say more until I read more.

Let's just say that right now at work it is the calm before the storm...I don't mean weather-wise I mean in terms of amount of work. Right now all is quiet but when it starts I will be VERY busy.

The Heart of the Matter

I think I have mentioned it before, but there are two books that I have been meaning to read for a long time and which always seem to come up in other books or articles I read.

One is "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, and I have so far never managed to make any headway with it even though I have tried reading it several times. I have even read the book written by the completely unknown cousin of Joseph Conrad who went with him on the trip who inspired the book...I can neither remember the name of the book nor the name of the author!

The other one is "The Heart of the Matter" by Graham Greene, and I recently just finish this one. I enjoyed it, in a quiet sort of a way. I've only read one other book by Graham Greene ("Travels with my Aunt") and I liked it too.
Even though I could not really relate to the main character, Scobie, who is a very religious police inspector living in a British colonial town on the west coast of Africa, I have to admit that at the end I was eager to find out how he would sort out his life. The book is really about the struggle a genuinely religious man goes through when his life becomes so far from what he believes in.
Apart from the religious aspect of it the struggle of a good man who becomes terribly entangled in corruptions and bribery due to the very fact that he is trying to be good, the story reminded me a lot of "No Longer at Ease" by Chinua Achebe. Both books take place in Africa (in fact both take place on the west coast of Africa) though I think it is a coincidence. I do not think that it is something which is related to Africa. I think it is related to human nature.
Does it not ring true to you that in some circumstances the more you try to be good the less you are likely to end up behaving the right way?
Again I do not think that it is an African problem. I think it is the problem of people who overthink how they should behave to ensure that they do what is right.

The brain cannot be trusted to make the right decision on what is good, is this true?

bits and pieces of the offshore rig

You all know that it is my first time offshore. I know rigs but so far it was always onshore.
In a way offshore is the same, at least in terms of human interactions and work that has to be done but one difference is of course that you can never leave. You cannot walk away for a little break, which I did a lot. The lay out of the rig with many levels, half levels, corners, complicated spots, is such that you can actually be on the rig and never see somebody who is there too. One guy who came on the same helicopter than me left 3 days later and the entire time I never ever saw him. I only realized when I saw him boarding the chopper to leave.

I mentioned earlier that we were lower now, well here it is: this is the side of the rig (with the escape boat) when it was high.


The base of the columns then looked like this

The cross beam you see in the photo above is the same one that you see in the photo below.

I went for a wander about under the rig today. I have to admit that it is very impressive. There is a real sense of massive industrial structure.
The chopper landed while I was underneath I couldn't see it but I could hear it (always very load) and I could see the effect of the wind it generates on the surface of the water and at that moment it really felt like the I was on Mars trying to move onto a planet that isn't ours where all we have that is ours is metal and noise and oil and grease. Weird feeling.
I am not a water person. As I was standing there in all this the only thing beautiful was something that I cannot live in (namely: water). My only "hope" was to cling to the metal and noise and dirt...very unlike the feeling you get onshore.

But it is not really all metal and grease, some of it is quite nice like the blue water in the moon pool (just the name of the open hole where the well center will be).



And some of the reflection in the water.

News from an old place

Remember Ghardaia?

They just had a flash flood and 29 people died!

Such a lovely place Ghardaia. I don't think I will ever forget that one particular moment alone in the abandoned garden of the empty hotel in the middle of the night listening to the call from the two mosques closest to the hotel with the smell of jasmin in the night air.
A perfect moment!

Rig food...always important

The rig I am on was offshore India for their last job and they brought with them their East Indian crew and their East Indian cooks. I'm eating curry every day at every meal. I don't have to because they also have western meals. It is just my choice. Also I think that it is best to eat what they really know how to cook. I tell you their curries are simple but pretty nice.

I wonder if I will get tired of it.

I am still sleeping like a baby for some unknown reason. We have more and more delays so it looks like I could be here for a few weeks but it could be worse.
Everybody is pretty nice apart from the night company man (the night boss. There is a day guy and a night guy) who is a typical jerk...but there is no surprises here!
The day guy doesn't like him either so I am not in a bad situation... and I did the day guy a BIG computer favour this afternoon and I'm hoping that it makes a difference in the long run.

The rig guys have already given me a pair of coveralls eventhough I never asked for one.
I wear it as my "dinner outfit", the clean coveralls to wear in the living quarters, and everybody is all smiles because the company geologist is wearing their company's coveralls!
It tell you it is hard to predict what will make people happy. I would have never guess that this would be one way of pleasing this crew.
Of course the East Indian crews are tickled pink by the fact that I have long black hair in a long braid and apparently they have commented to their boss (the push, for those who know the lingo) that I "even" smile to them!!!!

So generally everything seems OK.

The rig crow

I saw this crow on the rig this morning (we are 70km offshore). When I asked the doctor he told me that apparently this crow stayed with the rig when it moved away from India.
I thought nobody was feeding him and I was wondering how he was surviving since there is really no garbage for him to eat. But I found out that he is being fed a sandwich every morning and extras if he comes and asks for more. The crew thought that he would get on land when they stopped at the Seychelles but he didn't and here he cannot fly to shore in one go and even if he could he would not be welcome there. Crows here are not like this. They look like they wear a white vest.

We also have 2 sparrows, a male and a female. They are also following the rig.

I do have some photos

We can take photos as long as we are not drilling. I was very surprised about that.
These first two were taken by somebody else. The day I flew in the weather was awful with lots of fog and very high waves so there was no chance to take any pictures.
In the second photo you can sort of see how much this thing moves about when it is this high above the water, even when there is no waves....imagine on a bad weather day!!!! The day I arrived it was hard to walk.....never mind walk straight. I don't think anybody was even trying to walk straight.
Now the rig is 70 feet lower and a lot more stable, and honestly you cannot really feel the motion.

Today my office was just about set up so I took the time to "crawl" all over the rig. I went to what is called "the moon pool" which is the open part under the rig where the well will be (under water obviously) and in the shade of the rig the water was the most amazing blue I have ever seen!! I'll try to take some more pictures to show better, but you can sort of see it here.

Offshore

Well, this is it I am on an offshore platform, working. Or at least I should be working, but we are not ready yet and I am mostly waiting.
The rig is not even anchored yet and it is moving a lot.
Just before I decided to type this I was sitting in a typical office chair with wheels and I had my feet on the desk reading a book.... as I was reading the motion of rig was making the chair roll around and I was making a quarter circle with my feet at the center. The weird thing is that I am usually very easily motion-sick, but so far here I am OK. I cannot say that I understand why because it makes no sense to me what so ever.
Last night in my little bunk (exactly what you would imagine on a working ship) I slept the best sleep I have had in a long time. We don't even rock side to side. We seem to be rolling around. I have been told that once the rig is anchored and lowered the motion will be negligeable. I hope it is true because looking down a microscope with this motion is going to be a challenge.

No photos so far because photos are forbidden. I'll try to get a "permit to work" to take photos tomorrow but I am pretty sure that I will not be allowed.

moving?

So much time has past since I last wrote that there is really no way I can fill in the blank.
The most important thing probably is the fact that I am seriously thinking of leaving Canada...but the decision is not made yet.

The photo is from the Clarens area in South Africa. It represents a Rain Lion.
The mountains around Lesotho are rich in rock paintings like this one. I was lucky enough to see quite a few. I am particularly found of this one.
...by the way this is not a photo from the internet or anything like this. I took it. I was quite happy about the way it came out. The rock paintings can be quite hard to photograh.

Treasures from the library discard

I'm going back to work in South Africa this Sunday. I went to the library today to return most of what I had borrowed (I'll return the rest on my way to the airport) and to buy something from the discard to take with me on the plane. I was thinking of something easy to read which would bring no regrets if left behind by mistake. I was planning on buying a murder mystery but somebody must have just donated some books to the library because I found a collection of twelve books, all published by Vintage International, which were in good state and looked really like a good read. Some of them I would not have picked on their own but I thought that in a way it was great way to try new authors. It is as if an unknown person chose for me a collection of twelve books to read.
My attention was originally drawn by a book by Camara Laye and one by Doris Lessing.
Here is what I bought for 50 cents each:

Camara Laye "The radiance of The King" (Guinea/Senegal)
Par Lagerkvist "Barabbas" (Sweden)
Caryl Phillips "Cambridge" (England)
Doris Lessing "The fifth Child" (South Africa)
Tatyana Tolstaya "Sleepwalker in a fog" (Russia)
Julian Barnes "Talking it Over" (England)
Mario Vargas Llosa "The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta" (Peru)
Leonardo Sciascia "Open Doors, and three novellas" (Italy)
Robert Stone "Children of Light" (USA)
Kobo Abe "The Woman in the Dunes" (Japan)
Yukio Mishima "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" (Japan
Junichiro Tanizaki "Diary of a Mad Old Man" (Japan)


Also for 50 cents I bought the last book of the Harry Potter collection which was so far the only one I did not have.

I feel pretty lucky!

the never ending bank saga

Sometimes I surprise myself by being totally optimistic. I went to the bank and the document I had to sign had nothing to do with what I was told. It listed as what would be reimbursed to me only some of the transactions which we had been agreed on the phone. The difference between what I was told I would be reimbursed and what actually was listed amounted to just under a thousand dollar...a significant amount of money! So back to the phone and talking and explaining and asking.
Finally the list I had to sign on was complete and I did signed.

This time I will wait until I am actually reimbursed to say that the all story is over.

The end of the bank story...sort of

Well after several very frustrating phone calls with the bank during which I was treated with a mixture of fake politeness and suspicion the story came to an end last night.
The bank will reimburse me for the money stolen.
To be fair I have to say that in the end, regardless of how the process went, the result was fair.
I guess I will never know if the fact that in the phone call prior to that I ended up saying that I was starting to think that I should get a lawyer had any impact in the way they dealt with it. I can see their point that they have to make sure that I am not the one stealing the money, but I certainly felt that the process was very weird. Of course they record all phone conversation, everything that I say is taken as a legal statement and NONE of what they say can be use as such. I tell you it is not a pleasant process.

My final question to them was: "how can I protect myself from having my ATM card copied at a bank machine?" and the answer was: "There is nothing you can do. This is done by organized crime. It is their job and they are good at it. Bank card theft has been around for a long time but they have just become a lot more aggressive."

So here you are. Good luck to all of us with all this.

Tomorrow I have to go to the bank, sign an affidavit (which I will read very very carefully) and they will reimburse me the money they recognize as stolen.

Cleaned out

I guess after everything my first blog should really be about Ben's wedding (which went very well, I thought, and was gorgeous but for which I have absolutely no photos), my trip to Kruger Park (where I saw lions), why it is that I am not in Dubai where I am supposed to be (what's the point of cursing the travel agent once again); or I should talk about the Zimbabwe elections (going to the run off with the leader of the opposition not daring -so far- to re-enter Zimbabwe), or maybe I should talk about the violence in townships around Johannesburg against foreigners and particularly people from Zimbabwe...or I could even just describe my very short observations on the townships and shanty towns of South Africa because they are something quite particular to that part of the world (I've seen townships in Namibia too); but my head is not in it.
I just had trouble with my bank card and when I tried to figure out what was going on I found that somebody has cleaned my chequing account from "international withdrawal"...I would guess South Africa since I did not use my card anywhere in Asia. Now I have to wait till the end of the long week end and see what and if I can sort out with the bank.
On the plus side I am home so it should make dealing with all this a little easier...not to mention that if I was on the road this would be a much bigger problem....Things can always get worse.

You hear people say that things are "as bad as they get", then they should be happy for any change that bounds to happen soon because "if it can't get worse" it can only get better. But generally from my experience people who say this type of thing say it with gloom and little hope, in fact they usually expect things to get way worse.

May 4th

Once again I am in the Singapore airport after a work rotation in Johannesburg during which I did not blog.
The elections in Zimbabwe, as you must know, are far from over. They will have to go to a run off...and after all the violence against Mugabe's opposition it is hard to imagine that there are enough people left to vote against Mugabe....Anyway, presumably if it was of interest to you you followed the progress about it all....including the chinese ship full of weapons ..... *shrug*

I am just transfering in Singapore, on my way to Phuket to Ben's wedding.

Zimbabwe still peaceful even without final results

Thursday night in Zimbabwe and still no report of violence.

There are no new official results out of the ZEC, and seven seats still need to be announced.
Now deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga says: "If results from Saturday's election showed a second round was necessary, Mr Mugabe is ready to stand."
The tiny little "If" at the start is where all the hope of Zimbabwe stands. First teme I read it I read "results from Saturday's election showed a second round was necessary, Mr Mugabe is ready to stand."...HUGE difference.
It feels to me like a half admission that they realize that a stand off may not be needed....Now in fact numbers already show that there will not be a stand off UNLESS Mugabe challenges the numbers....

The BBC News World has a small summary of what some African newspapers are saying.

I'm going to back to work this Saturday and landing in Johannesburg Monday morning.....The first day is usually a complete write off with jet lag etc but I am looking forward to seeing for myself what newspaper in South Africa are saying. The other thing is, internet access when I work in Johannesburg is difficult, but I'll try to blog about some of what I read.

Zimbabwe results: still 7 seats to go but MDC has majority ZEC says

That's it the ZEC has given enough results now to show that Mugabe has lost the majority.

The weird thing is that there is little information. Below this I have copied the entire article about it. Who has ever seen such a short article?
You'll notice that there is nothing about how the news has been received. Once again we sit and we wait and hope that all goes well.

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News from the BBC
President Robert Mugabe's party has lost its majority in parliament, the Zimbabwe Election Commission says.

It says Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has taken 94 of the 207 contested seats, while opposition parties have won 105. One seat has gone to an independent.
Although seven seats have yet to be declared, this means Zanu-PF cannot win an overall majority.
The opposition MDC says its leader won the presidential election but official results have not yet been released.

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Later on Yahoo (Note this is again the entire article)
LONDON (Reuters) - The deputy information minister of Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party said on Wednesday that claims by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change that it had won Saturday's presidential election were "wishful" statements. "President (Robert) Mugabe is going nowhere," minister Bright Matonga told Britain's Sky television in a telephone interview. "We are not going to be pressurized into anything."

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Note that IF the 105 seats are not contested than they not only give the majority to the MDC but also will be enough to ensure that there is no Runoff (second round).

Zimbabwe, Mugabe reported to be working a deal to step down

Apparently all this time taken to release the results is really about giving time for a deal to be made for Mugabe to step down. Here is what is in the news:
"The outline of a deal has almost been reached for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to step down, opposition sources have told the BBC."

Honestly I didn't believe that this was one of the possibilities .... that Mugabe would just step down.....
But read this carefully: "outline", "almost reached", "opposition sources".....

But at the same time news are coming that South Africa is denying having any role brokering the election deals in Zimbabwe..... Why is this coming up from South Africa less than 10 minutes after the news of deal came up?
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An hour or so later the same website(BBC World News) reports that opposition leader (Tsvangirai) is denying the existence of such a deal.

The interesting thing is that there have been no new results released today, and it is now 10:00pm in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe, nearly 6:00pm on Tuesday

It's nearly 6:00pm in Zimbabwe and so far no violence reported.

Results continue to trickle in and the results show little change...PART from the fact that if they tay this way Mugabe will be elected. If this happen I will feel like I have watch a great psychological success, not in elective campaign but in how to release the results so that there is no distinct point that people can point out and say "this is when I knew. This is when it went wrong".

Just in case you haven't seen the numbers:
Zuni-PF (Mugabe): 64
MDC (Tsvangirai): 62
MDC breakaway: 5
Remaining: 79

Let me add a few more numbers:
210 seats are available
109 seats represent just under 52% to be elected without a second run