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.

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."

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?

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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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.
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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.