Social whirl

Well I felt rather lazy after dinner last night so concluded a lazy day by doing nothing!

So let me finish filling you in on last week.

On Sunday I caught a lift in with the visitors from Rijswijk, so I wouldn't have to cope with Ferret's driving again. After having done the necessary operations emails etc, I had a word with Mohanned about Ferret, basically firing him.

Well, I do feel I have given him more than a second chance and he didn't take it...and there are others out there who need the job just as much.

Next, my landlord came into the office to sign the contract (finally!) and the estate agent was there too. Small problem: the contract lawyer had had an argument with the lady who organises the signature and paperwork, and he had unapproved my contract for reasons unknown to everyone else.

So I had to get the Life Support chap, Andre, who got Ben-the-finance-manager to approve it so that the meeting could go ahead and the contract be signed.
In the middle of this drama, as I headed back to my desk to check where my next meeting was, I ran into the Ferret who started begging me to keep him. I could have done without that quite frankly, it felt really awful.
As I headed back to my desk my phone was ringing and it was a man from NOC (the National Oil Company) wondering why we weren't drilling anymore.
aaaaaaaaaa! stressometer exploding!!

Anyway, shortly after that Choochoo and I went to meet Ian, the second in command of Gas&Power, which is the part of our company that deals with gas plants, pipelines etc etc. Had an interesting chat with him about what they are up to: basically, waiting for us to finish drilling this well and find something!

I am starting to realise that this is not just a HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) well in the literal sense...everyone seems to have so many expectations of it, and people seem to have talked themselves into an excited frenzy about it...let's just hope we can deliver something!

I will do a separate work post, but for now, I'll just run through the rest of the week quickly:

Sunday night we just stayed at the LCM, catching up and attempting to play pool.
Monday night I had to go for the second panto rehearsal, but managed to leave quite early so we had a bit of an evening.
Tuesday night, Jimmy invited us along with Mohammed and Uwe to dinner, which was very nice. We met his two little boys and had a quick look around their nice house, which is right next to Sundar's and near a few other work people's too. Anne (Jimmy's wife) had cooked some really nice curries - I musn't forget to get those recipes from her some time soon, as they were really tasty and I have no idea how to make a proper curry.
Here are a few pictures of the evening:



Relaxing on the patio... ...near Jimmy's collection of petrified wood



Mohammed, an Omani friend from Rijswijk... ...Matthew and Uwe waiting hungrily

Our hosts for the night, Anne and Jimmy

All-in-all we had a lovely time relaxing on their terrace and enjoying the perfect evening...not even getting bitten by mozzies!

Wednesday was Happy Hour at Marc & Kathryn's. Every month someone from the company's expat community organises this at their home, as a social for staff and their families. It was a great way to meet the spouses and families of people I work with and for Matthew to meet lots of people too. M & K have a lovely house, definitely fitting for a General Manager.
I definitely want to volunteer to host a Happy Hour but it'll have to wait till the house is fully in order...'tis but a gleam in my mind's eye currently!!

All too soon it was Thursday and time for Matthew to fly home after almost a week of working from 'LCM home' and enjoying the facilities here. My new driver ( :-) ) Mousab took him to the airport, dropping by the office on the way to say goodbye.



Thursday night I was feeling completely exhausted so stayed chatting to Amgad until he left for his flight home to Egypt, then curled up with a James Bond DVD and slept till 1pm the next day.

So you can see that we were pretty busy last week and as I don't want to blog on work time, I was a bit stuck on that front.

In other notes, I have been going around taking pictures of plants I would like for my garden. I had a good chat last week with Barry-the-Petrophysicist as he is a keen gardener, and I have taken lots of pics of plants here at the LCM (dotted around this post). Some I have yet to identify, but I suspect it'll be more a question of recognising the plant at the nursery than actually finding a name for it anyway. If anyone recognises them though, please give us a shout!





So, as a summary of the week: Matthew was 'ere, house contract signed, driver changed, work progressing. Florence = happy.

Goodness, has it been that long?!

Terribly sorry you lot, but I have been very busy, and Matthew was here during the week so I really didn't feel like being on the computer in the evenings.

I left you last week feeling rather exhausted still by all the new things in my life and work in general.

On Thursday I had a good morning at work and got an appointment with Medilink at 4.30pm. In the meantime, no sign of a housing contract...sigh. Sunday it is then.

After many attempts at getting through, I gave Ferret a call to arrange a pick-up from the office at 4.15, and he was pleased I was going to Medilink. However, 4.15 arrived and no car. 4.20, 4.25...Khalifa-the-receptionist started getting agitated, trying to call him but Ferret's phone was off. Luckily, Helena decided to go home at 4.30 so I hitched a lift with her, asking Khalifa to make sure Ferret came to pick me up after my appointment.

So I went in to see the doctor, and this time I saw Dr Catherine, a French doctor who started with Medilink on 1st September and is here with her husband, who works at Wintershall. She is quite young (33) and was rather relieved that I spoke French as she is having to take a crash course in English to communicate with her patients. However, she did seem quite competent and made sure she explained everything to me.

Well I showed her the rash and she decided it didn't really look like urticaria (nettle rash) as it wasn't red, but rather thought it is dyshidrosis . She prescribed stronger antihistamines and a corticoid cream to relieve the itching, which I put on immediately and felt better for. It seemed to help for the back of my knees too.

I have been reading up on this on the internet and it does seem to fit what I have rather well. Unfortunately it makes for a slightly depressing read as there does not seem to be much of a cure, and identification of the trigger seems impossible too! So this is all rather annoying. Having cut out fish, eggs and changed soap to no avail, I am left with three possible causes: watermelon, swimming pool products and water composition (in the shower).

This last week I have hardly been in the pool and in a way things seems to be clearing up. However, it just seems to have gone into late-stage dyshidrosis so I am not sure if that was just a natural progression or the lack of chlorine/funny pool products.

Sensitive stomachs should now look away as here is are some photos of the current state of my hands: not only lumpy and swollen, but now also rather awfully visible :-(



Well I have managed to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist in London on Monday (more on that later). Now that I am with Bupa, at least I don't have to wait for months on end for this kind of thing. Although dental and eye coverage might come in handy. Actually I have a rant and a series of opinions on the British private healthcare system which I might go into one of these days when I have time to kill. In the meantime, it's better than the crummy NHS for my problems.



Right, enough about the disgusting state of my hands. Sorry for going on but I am rather unused to having anything go wrong so this is taking up a lot of my attention (and rather distracting during the day too :-(

So Ferret did come to pick me up from Medilink and when I asked him where he had been he told me he had been washing the car! He could at least have thought up a better excuse...
Anyway, that evening we had the company Iftar (ie when people break fast during Ramadan) so I had planned to give some LCM people a lift back to the camp then on to the Iftar. So I briefed Mokhtar, explaining to him that my boss was going to come too and that he should therefore be doubly careful! The car was going to take Amir and I from LCM, and Phil and Janie were going to meet us here so they didn't have to drive into town in the crazy Thursday pre-Ifar traffic.

Ferret took us back to the LCM in the minibus, which he had been given by our transport people as there were going to be several people on this trip. He dropped us off and we said we would be back out in 15-20minutes. Now anyone would assume that he would have waited in the car park but no! He decided to go out again into the rush hour traffic, so of course came back 25 minutes late. It was downhill from there as he was stressed because he was late, and answered the phone while he was driving ( a COMPLETE no-no from a safety point of view) then stopped the van in a blind spot over the crest of a bridge, then almost collided with several cars at high speed. We were all holding our breaths by this stage, then picked up 3 drillers from the guest house on the way in to town. So with 7 people in the van, he still continued to drive too fast, very jerkily and very badly. In the back we just ended up completely ignoring what was going on around us and having a good conversation, but the logistics chap in the front wasn't feeling too comfortable!

The Company Iftar was pretty nice. The food was delicious and it was nice seeing people outside the office, especially local staff as this doesn't happen too often usually. Ate lots of super-sweet honeyed oily desserts too and could really feel the sugar rush!!
Here is a picture of me there, with Kathryn G, taken by Mirja (Ide's wife).



We somehow got home in one piece and I went straight to bed.
The next morning I had to be in the office at 7:30 as I was standing in for Yvan, who had gone home for a few days, on operations. Nothing much has been happening with the well as the drillers have had to shut down operations in order to train the crew. Ouch. Anyway, I asked Ferret to come at 6:30 so that I could be sure I would be on time...and for the first time ever he was on time!! So I spent a few hours doing the reporting and sorting out some logging issues with the drillers then went home at 10.20 and straight back to sleep for an hour!

Next day, I also had to get up quite early for the first panto rehearsal at 9.30 at Tim and Kate's house. (Tim is the director). Ferret was a bit late of course, but we still had time to drop off Mike (explanation later) at the office before finding our way to Tim's house. Pick me up at 12.30, please, Ferret, and then we'll go to pick up Matthew at the airport at 1.45. Yes yes OK OK!

It was nice to meet the other people on the cast and after introductions we read through the whole of the first act. Avantika and I are comedy pirates called Low Pockets and High Pockets, so we don't have too many lines but some energetic dancing apparently is on the cards! I think Tim came to see me on Thursday to tell me about the role...anyway I am very excited as it is perfect for my lack of experience: just a few lines to learn yet part of the play anyway :-) So I do get to do something new and fun! Arrrrrr

The rehearsal finished earlier than planned and Avantika gave me a lift home. So I cancelled my Ferrety pick-up and repeated 1.45 to the airport about 50 times.

At 1.45, no-one. At 2pm, I tried phoning but his phone was off. So I phoned Mohanned the friendly transport guy and he arranged for Matthew to be added to the airport pick-up that had already been organised. When he arrived at the LCM with the others, I was amused to find that they were all people I knew from Rijswijk! In fact, Erik even sat at the end of my corridor! Amgad was also there, and Mohammed as well as a German chap called Uwe.

So I took Matthew around the LCM and we ended up lying by the pool for a few hours :-) Luckily, the weather had got better since the morning: when I set out for the rehearsal it was very grey with the odd spot of rain! Luckily the sun had returned by lunch time and all was well again in paradise.

Right, I am off to dinner now but will write some more later, or tomorrow.

Wedding bells...

I realise I left you all hanging on The Ferret's marital status and for that I am truly sorry.
Well it turns out that he does have to wait until after Ramadan, but what happened the other evening was effectively his engagement to the lovely Samira. Indeed, his story changed a little (or he just actually understood the question this time) and it turns out she is 36, not 24. But she still beeeeeeg wooooooman niice.

I am sorry to have neglected you for the last few days but life here has shifted into second gear. I must admit I did have a free evening on Monday but I wasn't very motivated. Then I sat down to write this yesterday and got completely sidetracked by the realisation that my laptop has an intergrated microphone so I can use Skype properly. Which I immediately and lengthily put to the test.

Anyway, here I am now and it is getting a little late but I still want to make sure I catch up.
Last Saturday, after my quick post about the weather, I went out to the international school for the panto auditions. I rocked up expecting something fairly relaxed, to find instead a rather professional set-up! First I was asked to sing - talk about being put on the spot! I ended up singing happy birthday as I couldn't think of anything else! They decided I could do a solo part with a bit of voice coaching from the music lady, who has experience as a singing teacher (what?!?! what happened to the singalong??). Then I went and sat over by the audition for the parts, waiting tremulously to be summoned for the part of the hen. They eventually called my named, and asked me to try a part along with Ide. This first character was a comedy part, as Ali Baba's rival. Then we sat down again, watched other people try different characters and started to relax a little.

The choreographer (!!) then came up and gathered all the remaining people to go and dance. To be honest I wasn't very taken with this lady at the first meeting, as she was rather too upper class hippyish for me. However, she turned to actually be quite nice and I enjoyed her little dance routine/exercises. We had fun attempting to dance like pirates (arrrrr) and then it was time to go.

But not quite yet. The director, writer and producer wanted Ide and I to come and try a different part: The King and Queen. The Queen is a larger-than-life character and following the director's tips after the first run-through I snapped into my best Hyacinth Bucket/Bouquet and had a bit of fun. Matthew always did say I had a lot in common with her.

This time, that was it. Matthew C, who I will from now refer to as Chewy or Choo Choo so we don't get confused with 'my' Matthew, had come to pick me up on the way to his house, to go and inspect the progress there. It was a house that I had originally visited on the pre-visit so very interesting to see how it has come along.
After this we headed into town to go to a restaurant called Barcelona, which, believe it or not, sells Spanish food. It was a nice dinner and a nice change from being in the canteen, although a bit pricey (for here). As we were leaving I ran into Xavier, who runs the canteen here at the LCM and, it turns out, owns Barcelona! Talk about a small world...

After dinner we tried to look at some furniture shops for some temporary furniture as Choochoo needs to move in this weekend. Unfortunatley only an abominable one was open at that time (9pm). It seems like things only open at 10pm, so they drove me back then headed back into town. CC told me he got home at 12.30pm after a few hours of complete madness (and some very bad furniture sightings). Now I truly remember why I wanted to buy everything at home.



My rash has stopped spreading but has by no means disappeared. In fact, it has become incredibly itchy and lumpy. I have put a disgusting photo of my thumb here but both my hands pretty much look like this and even Ferret has noticed it and wanted to take me straight to Medilink. I will go there tomorrow to get stronger antihistamines. By the way, I have not eaten fish or egg since the last visit but it doesn't seem to have helped :-(

Sunday was back to work, and Phil-my-new-boss was back in town. I just kept on reading up on the geology that day and going to the afternoon meeting for the rig, and we agreed to sit down on Monday to discuss my tasks and targets.
As I left the office, clouds of dust were blowing around the parking place outside and I had to cover my eyes and dart into the car. The weather was rather grey so I didn't go swimming, but just had a cosy evening in my room. About half an hour after dinner I suddenly heard a strange sound on the covered walkway outside my door...was that a downpour?
There followed a 1st class comedy moment where, intrigued, I opened my door and stuck my head out to witness this rare event...only to find that all my neighbours were doing exactly the same! So we all exchanged knowing nods, stuck our hands out to catch a few drops (yes, they were real!) and stare for a further minute before retreating into our rooms.

That excitement over, I woke up to a much cooler and fresher morning. It was only 20 degrees C!! and that is when I realised that, despite the constant aircon, I have already started to climatise to this place. Anyway, off to work a bit earlier today (I asked Ferret to come at 7.45 so he turned up at 8) and time for a serious word with the little mammal. Basically his driving had been getting increasingly erratic and unsafe over the last week, driving too fast, to aggressively and gesticulating away with both hands off the steering wheel.
That morning, he turned out of the LCM driveway and put his foot down. Time for me to do the same. I snapped at him to slow down, and when he tried to tell me that 100 was OK eeen Libya, I just told him again to slow down. Then I didn't say another word until we reached halfway and he couldn't bear it any longer, and commented that I was not happy. I explained to him why and that I would rather be 3 minutes late than have him try and catch up his delay and get us killed. He took it on board.

I discussed this with Choochoo who then went and told his driver that evening that I was thinking of firing the Ferret as he was not driving safely. Needless to say, the good old network did the trick. Monday evening Ferret was already very apologetic but by Tuesday evening, when the message had filtered through to him, he was the model driver and has been ever since.
To confirm the rumours I also have been sharing a car in the morning with visitors from the Hague who are staying here too, with a different driver. Although I have been doing this purely out of logistical thinking, he thinks it has something to do with his driving and tardiness.

So, to cut a long story short, driver problem: sorted. For now.

My tasks and targets review with Phil went well; it's in fact almost as if he'd read my work wish list and brought it all together in a neat little package! So I am going to be very busy over the next few months, but I am very happy, if a little scared by the responsibility involved. Time to take the leap! I cannot believe how differently I feel going into work and thinking about what I am going to be doing, compared to when I was in Rijswijk. Rather than send myself to sleep thinking about my project, I am instead already feeling sucked in and involved. I seem to have so much more energy around the office and I can feel my brain has been switched on to full again. And I remember why I was so happy in Salym and why I had promised myself to remember that the grass is, indeed, greener outside that black hole called Rij. As in, much much greener. It's an oasis out here!

Yesterday I sat down with Yvan and he briefed me on the daily paperwork that needs to be done for the well, so today I had a dry run with him supervising, and I've pretty much mastered it now. He is going home for a long weekend on Friday so I am going to be standing in for him and so is Jimmy. Exciting stuff (in theory...we'll see if we get any drilling done in the next few days). I feel rather more confident now that I know what I need to do/how it works here.
I'm getting tired now so will rattle on about my work a bit more in later posts - after all, I suspect that's going to make up a large part of my stories here.



Last night in the canteen I found a new fruit in the fruit bowl: here is a photo of it. Yes, it's pomegranate season!! :-) It is still sitting on my desk for now but will be much enjoyed tomorrow! I had dinner with one of the visiting GP (Gas&Power) guys who is based in Tunis. He is our security consultant for North Africa and had a few interesting stories. Funnily enough he had heard of Alette from our field trip in Tunisia (not by name, but reports of a European girl who had learnt some Arabic in Libya!). Just goes to show.

Today was busy; apart from normal work I asked a colleague to explain a geophysical technique to me (VSP - will explain later)...ouch, my head! This was one time where my brain was not switched on, rusty and reminding me why I never really enjoyed physics!!

I also went to see the landlord to discuss the bits that need fixing before I move in, and he will sign the contract tomorrow (inch'allah...).

This evening, Ide and Mirja invited me round for dinner at their house. Yvan was there too and we had a lovely evening sitting in their front garden eating the North African food she cooked. They live fairly close to the office, basically in town-ish rather than in the expat former countryside ghetto that I will be living in. On the plus side, they have loads of shops within walking distance. On the other hand, it is very noisy (except for during Iftar at the moment...everything was so still!) and they don't have the amazing Janzour fruit stalls.

By far the biggest event of the day was the arrival of my airfreight :-)) I received two books and a DVD of mine in a paper bag yesterday and was wondering what on earth had happened to the remaining 74.8kg so was rather chuffed to receive a phone call today saying my box had arrived at the office! The next unresolvable question was what to do with it, as the box would not fit in reception or into Moktar's car. I came out to find 7 Libyan men milling around the delivery pick-up truck waving hands and generally not knowing what to do. So I asked the transport people to organise a driver with a big car, who drove the box over to LCM for me and got them to leave it in my room. Problem solved. I am just about getting the knack of declaring what I want in a determined voice, which seems to be the only way to get anything almost done here.

When I got back to my room, I was greeted by the sight of my big box full of books, clothes, shoes and DVDs...hooray! I can now stop wearing my choice of 1 casual outfit and 1 business outfit and just wear proper work clothes to the office!

On that note, I'm off to the landy of 40 000 winks!

Sorak

Just a very quick one to say that, as I walked from the canteen to my room just now, I was wondering why I could feel the heat so much.

Well, it might have something to do with the fact that it is currently 40 degrees C!

Somewhere at the back of my head, I can still hear the UTAir hostess announcing 'minus sorak' as we landed in Surgut back in my Salym days. Well, rashda*, it is now PLUS sorak...and the circle goes around.

:-) This is exactly why I took this job

* this apparently means 'lady' in arabic, so is the new 'devushka' as far as I'm concerned! I have, it must be said, no idea how to count yet and certainly not to 40!

Chirp chirp...

...went the swallow.

This morning I headed over to the pool after breakfast to have a swim and a read, and I spotted my first swallow! It was whizzing around overhead (there are a lot of flies here) and then started dipping into the pool for a drink :-) It is the only swallow I have seen so far, and I imagine it is a scout for a larger group migrating south for the winter. I wish they could stay here...the flies have an annoying tendency to stick around people and land on your face...bvvvvv.

Speaking of wildlife, I also saw a white owl on one of my first evenings here. Otherwise I have spotted a few unidentified birds around, and some small doves. The nice thing about the swimming pool is that is attracts loads of fauna (though I did have to rescue some 23 beetles the other day!) and most of the time it is lined, and taken over by, dragonflies in all shapes and sizes. Unfortunately I don't have the right lens to take photos of them but they are pretty amazing to watch (and they also tend to drink while I am swimming). I have taken a couple of photos from the internet to illustrate some of the types seen here.



Wednesday and Thursday went quite well, I am enjoying sitting in the afternoon meetings with the rig as that is what I came for! but it is rather frustrating to see how slowly things are moving there. Obviously I am spoilt from Salym, where the drillers had it down to a tee...but why don't these drillers just get on with it, instead of spending hours discussing 'what ifs' that they can't do anything about in the first place?! grr, I'm glad rig 2 ('mine') will be headed up by Bert!

The logging from the other day went a bit wrong and a piece of the tool broke off in the hole. I think today they are finally 'grinding' it down with a mill bit. Behind that, they have fixed something called a Junk Basket, which does exactly what it says on the tin: it is there to help evacuate any rubbish that has fallen down the hole - in this case, metal shavings! So I will find out on Sunday what the status is on that - Yvan is the one following the well full time.

I also went to see various people in the office, from Gas&Power (different part of the company) and Finance, to find out about what they are doing and how we interact with them. Matthew C and I have started unofficially competing as to who will organise the most meetings to organise the other person...which is fun as we are getting through loads of things. I am losing and don't mind because he is doing all the organising!!

I also went to see a chap called Nick K, who is in charge of all the mapping. He will give me a GPS when I have signed the contratc on my house so we can pinpoint exactly where it is. He is having a great time out here, doing what he loves: at the weekend, he goes camping in the desert with his wife, looking for Roman and Greek ruins, flying a kite above them to get the best coordinates as well as an areal image!




The Ferret was apparently due to get married last night! I thought people had to wait till the end of Ramadan, but I guess it's just the end of fasting. I wasn't sure if I had understood correctly but he then started talking about Samira, and how she was 'a woman of traditional build' to borrow Mma Ramotswe's delicate phraseing ('she big wooman - good, hahaha', would be the verbatim transcription). So he will have something to talk about on Sunday morning! He was hopelessly late on Wed and Thursday but there is nothing much that can be done about it in the period of Ramadan. As of Sunday, I will ask reception to call me when he arrives and go back to bed in the meantime!!

I have been feeling really tired so slept quite a lot today and will try and do the same tomorrow. I think it has to do with all the changes, in weather, in culture, in work, in routine...and I seem to remember having a similar problem in Salym, though I think sleep patterns were so random there that I got over it a lot faster - a bit like jetlag!

I have developed a form of nettle rash over the last week, and as it didn't look like it was going away, I went along to Medilink to see a doctor. He turned out to be Tunisian and very happy that I knew where he came from (the places I have visited in Tunis) so took his time and actually explained what he thought the problem was. It seems like I have an allergy, which he thinks is caused by tinned tuna. Based on the amounts I have suddenly been eating I think it is quite plausible, so have been staying away form the stuff, which is no mean feat out here (Tunisia team - remember, remember). I am also trying to avoid other tinned foods which might have the same conservation products in them.
If that is not the cause, I will need to take a scientific approach to the issue and start testing things. I do hope it's not the pool. Or the water in the shower...

In the meantime, I am taking disgusting anti-histamine/anti-allergic drops and trying not to scratch all the skin off my hands :-(

On that cheerful note, it's time to say: Bye For Now!

Sunny, sunny day

Salam alekum!

Well yesterday was another busy day; Ferret turned up late in the morning as he had overslept - a combination of Ramadan and a nasty toothache (I wished he hadn't felt like showing me - yukes!), but I got to work in reasonable time; spent most of the day studying the regional geology for this part of Libya; lunch was a bit miserable...which reminds me that I haven't explained lunch.

There is no canteen in the office so work has a system which allows everyone to order from a menu provided by two nearby restaurants. This is then delivered to the basement where everyone gathers to have lunch when the email comes round from reception announcing the food. The choice is pretty good, work pays for the food and people never 'waste' more than half an hour eating so everyone's a winner.



During Ramadan things work a little differently; the system is still the same but only operated by one restaurant. There are often surprises with the food, usually involving the quantity. Which is exactly what happened to me yesterday when I found my tuna salad to be rather small...and no bread to accompany it! Though I was rather luckier than Matthew C who ended up with two dips and still no bread!

To get our food, we usually silently disappear downstairs on receipt of the email, not to make it difficult for our local colleagues. Coffee breaks are rather fun as people tend to sneak around anouncing coffee and people creep downstairs and sit around having coffee and discussing the day's events.

Anyway, enough about food, other than to say that by 3pm I was starving, with nothing to much on due to fasting and my not having accumulated stocks of snacks in my non-existent drawers yet. :-(



Around 3.30, I had arranged to go and see the house with Kathryn G, the Outpost lady and wife of Marc G, the manager. I am glad I asked her as she was full of helpful tips, and I got my final requests list drawn up. Apparently I am actually not that far from their house, though I still can't really work out where it is and the GoogleEarth imagery is too old.
After which we went back to the office and I sent off the list to the right people, who have since made up the contract and sent it out, so the whole thing should be getting completed very soon.

Exhausted and hungry, I went home and had a very quiet evening having dinner and watching a DVD. I also managed to borrow a US plug converter from my New Friend Glen, a Canadian working as a manager in a small company out here. So my camera battery was finally charged by this morning!



Today was a busy day at work, where I have pretty much sorted most logistical things out now. All in about a quarter of the time it takes in Rijswijk!! So I could start concentrating on my new job a bit and went along to the afternoon meeting for the rig, as well as sitting in on discussions about the latest nightmare in the well (lost part of a geophysical tool in the hole :-~ . I also sat with Matthew a little bit to look at his 3D seismic, which I will be doing more of over the next few days.

The computer lads delivered my smartcard today, making me officially 'there'. They have been very helpful over the last few days, also sorting out my laptop which was refusing to install anything (what next!). So I now have Skype!



Finally, after several days of locking horns with our inhuman HR man fresh from Rijswijk, I managed to get my stay here at the camp sorted out. He recently decided that I should move to the company guesthouse as soon as it was free, and didn't even want to accept to let me stay till the weekend so I could move my things in peace!! Luckily the friendly locals in charge of the booking helped me out, and I now have the go-ahead to stay here :-) so that should be nice for Matthew when he comes to visit, too.



You will have noticed photos peppered through this post. They are taken with my big camera (finally!) and are of the LCM camp, my cosy home till I move into my own.

Till next time...

Sunday: the new Monday

I went back to work this morning with a slightly confused feeling: was it Monday or Sunday? Was I going in at the weekend to work on a busy project or is tomorrow Tuesday? And more to the point, why wasn't anyone responding to my email requests??

Of course, it helps that the office here was busy and I managed to get quite a few things sorted, as well as start getting stuck into proper work. So it's been a good day, and I am still finding it rather nice to be able to have a good swim afterwards. This was followed by dinner (all prepared for me :-) then a free evening to flip through the John Lewis magazine that Barry-the-petrophysicist gave me, write this blog and watch Al-Jazeera.

The rest of my weekend was spent being very lazy, lying by or swimming in the pool all morning, reading, followed by some computer-based catch-up. So many more things to do, but it's nice to finally have time to do them (sorting photos on computer, updating friends' addresses, etc etc). Then yesterday evening I went along to the Oasis Club, which is owned by the British Embassy and usually quite hard to get into.
On Thursday an email had gone round from the Tripoli Players, the amateur dramatics society here which was organising the next pantomime (to be played in November). So I went along to the kick-off meeting, hoping to meet a bunch of people and with vague plans to offer my violin playing for the panto. I somehow ended up signing up for some acting...?!?!?! I have never acted in my whole life!! But somehow I thought this would be a great opportunity to give it a go. I'm sure I'd make a good chicken...anyway, watch this space!

Oh yes, and I now also have a driver :-) which is a concept that is surprisingly easy to get used to! "So I'll just give my driver a call..." Well it is rather useful as I am staying 10 mins away so need someone to drive me to work, and I also asked him to take me to Oasis. Only problem was, it was at the end of a day of fasting and he didn't know where it was, so had to phone someone then we got lost a few times as he was a bit tired and very hungry! (and craving caffeine and nicotine apparently!)

Moktar the driver is a nice little chap though. He reminds me of a friendly excitable ferret, talking at high speed about his time in Norwich and the merits of Libyan fruit. He likes to say yes a lot and giggles almost permanently. Which is rather nice as I can ask him about Tripoli and Libya and Ramadan and he is quite happy to answer any question. A grumpy driver would have been pretty awful.

The local staff at the office are struggling a bit with Ramadan. As it is so early this year, they have to stop eating and drinking at 5am and can only start again at 7.30pm. In this heat it is pretty tough, and I am not sure how the crews out in the desert can cope. For anyone working in a western company it makes for a pretty tough day and locals tend to arrive later and leave earlier than usual. For anyone else, and this must be the only Muslim country that does this, daytime is the time for sleep and everyone lives at night. Which is a little odd and means that shops open around 10pm and close around 3-4am, and apparently builders and plumbers are given to turning up on people's doorsteps at midnight to fix whatever is broken!

Well that's it for now, time for bed as I need all the mental power I can get at the moment, trying to jump into the projects at work and absorb lots of geological information and be able to use it very soon.

One thing remains: Happy 90th Birthday Grandmother!! I hope you had a lovely day :-)

Notes from the front: 3 days in

So, here I am, in Tripoli at last! I now have internet access outside the office, too, so I can get round to blogging pretty much whenever I feel like it :-)

After a rather mad August, I got my visa through in time and set off for Heathrow early on Monday (1st Sept) morning. I had got up at 5am to finish packing and make sure everything was left in order, so was ready for the my second breakfast in the BA lounge at 8:30! I was supposed to meet up with EJ in the airport, as he was stopping over on the long way round, but his flight got re-scheduled so we missed each other by an hour.

The flight over was uneventful, apart from the four slightly noisy but generally friendly Ghanaian men who moved into the seats on the other side of the aisle. Little did I know that my neighbour and his friends were in fact Michael Essien from Chelsea and 3 other footballers playing in British clubs! Only when a man came up and asked them to sign his Telegraph sports pages did I realise that something was going on...and after discreetly trying to flick through the sports section, ended up asking the stewardess at the front of the cabin!

Arrived safely in Tripoli, with quite a long queue at the immigration; nothing to worry about though, and I breezed through it all and went to collect my luggage. Hmmm.

After waiting around in the general chaos for 25 min I noticed that the belt with no flights listed actually had a number of bags coming round. After trudging over I found one suitcase and was left with a dilemma: how to find the other? At this stage I need to point out that, though travelling fairly light by my standards, I had a heavy backpack with laptop and other electronics/valuables/fragile items in it, a large handbag, and my violin case which is missing a strap. On top of that, I was supposed to lug around 2 large wheelie suitcases...and any hopes of a trolley vanished when I realised you had to go outside to find one then come back in. Anyway, the second case turned up and I somehow dragged everything to the large scanning machine then through to the exit, having been barged into by some thoughtless Dutchies who of course didn’t apologise for tipping my bags over (will I ever be able to escape?!?!).

The driver was waiting – in fact, there were 2 of them and a well engineer who had just come off the KLM flight. The two of us headed off with one driver...to find that he had a flat tire! A long story and remarkably unstressed Florence later, I was dropped off at the LCM camp where I am staying, and my forgotten (by the driver!) violin and backpack were delivered to me a short while later.
Now, I had my reservations about this camp I was to be staying at. I quite enjoyed the guesthouse we stayed in last time, and was only put here because I requested an internet connection.

Well, here are a couple of photos (taken on my camera phone – battery probs with big camera – no sniggers allowed from the Tunisia team!!) which speak for themselves!!

I unpacked all my things and made myself at home, then headed over to the restaurant/canteen for dinner – yes, it’s catered! And the food is pretty nice :-) In preparation for my first day at work, and because I had got up far too early, I then had an early night in the comfy bed.
Next morning, just after 8, the driver turned up and took me to work. The camp is in the Sirraj area, and is about 15m mins’ drive to/from the office. The next couple of days, I actually travelled to and from the office with a couple of geophysicists who were also staying at the camp. They have gone home now.

3 days in the office went by pretty fast, as I was busy settling in and sorting out all sorts of admin and access codes, as well as trying to remember who is who, where they sit and what their name is! It’s still a bit of a blurry challenge, though I am sure I should soon be able to work it out as there aren’t that many people here. Anyway, everything is in good shape and I should be mostly sorted by next week.

I also went to see our two houses with the Life Support manager Andre, a funny character with definite strong opinions about houses. Another new person had just popped by to say his had been refused by Andre! So I knew I was up against a challenge here.

Well, he didn’t even want to see the garden house, as it was built 4 years ago and wouldn’t have had the right wiring etc so we were left with the pool house. His initial reaction was to say “no”. I questionned this! and his reasons were, effectively, that the house isn’t nice or big enough, and that he was concerned that I would be here alone and not right next to other expats (only 2 mins round the corner!). He was, though, impressed with the value for money. When I made it clear that I would be here for more than two years, and Matthew would be joining me, he relaxed and after a bit more coaxing, eventually agreed. Phew!

After that we went to see another house for Niels (the one whose house had been turned down) and Andre suggested that I go for one of those and paid for the difference myself. All nice and good, but I’d rather spend 400 pounds a month on a mortgage in the UK than on a renting a huge house which would guarantee to have me spoiled for life. Although he did then try and sort out a deal with HR which would have meant me paying only 200 dinar (85 pounds), which was very good of him but was turned down by HR.

So, in the end, we have the so-called Pool House! I am pretty happy about this as it was my preferred choice and I’m sure we will enjoy living there over the next few years, both full-time and part-time as a sunshine haven away from rainy Europe!
As I didn’t get a chance to post about the pre-visit, here are a few pics of the house. It is almost finished and the paperwork is currently going through for the contract.

So that’s me for now, I haven’t actually been out of my little Shell/LCM world yet, nor do I want to for now as it is Ramadan and evening traffic is dangerous and shops and restaurants are closed till much later. In the meantime I am making friends here, there is a small community of new arrivals and regular rotators here which is nice.

It also seems like Tripoli salsa classes take place here, and I attended on on Monday, though I am not sure I will go back. The teacher is a German hippie whose dancing style I dislike (too fussy) and whose teaching is abominable. “There are 16 basic steps in salsa, here they are....” Another instructor is Italian and taught Bachata, much better but he is particularly unfriendly (apart from when he is around other Italians). But I did meet a couple of people from Malta, a Scottish chap, a South African chap, and a Russian girl.

No real contacts yet, but there is loads of time. This morning (it is the weekend here already) I ran into one of the ladies from Heather’s ladies’ lunch (which we attended during our pre-visit) which was nice. Also Sundar’s wife came into the office one day with their adorable baby, and Jimmy’s came in yesterday with their two little boys (leading Ide to start playing hide&seek behind the map cabinet...priceless).

So there you have it, a warm, human office with friendly yet hard-working people. I know 2 of them from Rijswijk: Sundar and Jimmy. There is also another new chap, a geophysicist from Malaysia called Matthew. Then there is Yvan, a Frenchie from Auvergne who fed me petit beurre and laughing cow the day I forgot to order my lunch (argh no spares during Ramadan), Ide who we met at the airport during the last visit, and Paul Kelly, a British geologist who seems like fun and eats as fast as Graham! I have yet to get to know the others. In total, there are about 15 people on the evaluation team (ie geo-related jobs).

The temperature here is pretty high at the moment! This morning I headed to the pool for an hour around 9 o’clock but by the time I left it was getting rather too hot. I think it peaked at lunchtime at 39 degrees...yes it’s +39 this time!! But I have been hiding inside with the aircon since this morning, the common room here has a nice glass wall which allows you enjoy the outside/sunshine without the associated heat. I will head back to the pool later – I found that between 5.45 and 6.30pm, after getting back from work, it is the ideal temperature for swimming then enjoying the gentle evening sun.

So now I might head off to play a bit of violin, though I have unfortunately forgotten to bring sheet music – anyone know of a good site to download some? (ideally for free as I am pretty sure to lose it in the next few weeks/months)

After which I will start writing the pamphlet I need to finish by end of September – yes, I am crazy and overbooked, but as always I wouldn’t have it any other way :-)

Thanks for reading, I’m back on the blog and will make sure I keep you posted regularly!

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