Eat – work – eat – work – eat – sleep

We/ I have entered that phase in a job which I suspect everybody goes through early on, regardless of where they are and what they are doing. It’s not helped by the fact that when I got here everything was flat out trying to get Phase 0 finished on time and now that has mostly been completed and signed off, we have entered a very flat period where technical people are staring at drawings and into holes in the ground and talking in some foreign language (other than Arabic) about things that I am sure are very interesting really.

I raised this issue with John today (John is our Construction Manager) and we had a little chat about it. It appears that I will be staring into holes on his behalf as he is off on leave soon. But it’s ok cause he’s going to give me a crash course into staring into holes and a list of all the possible comments that I could make so as not to look like I haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about – apparently though, this will not qualify me for membership of the Association of Construction Managers (made up name !), but it might get me through phase 1 exams !

Changing the subject – today I saw some photographs of one of the Landcruisers that got “whacked” (technical security term for “blown up”) a couple of days ago by a roadside bomb not far from here. I’m guessing I would have survived ok but I may be on the way home now with clean trousers ! I could try and get a copy of the pictures to show you but frankly it would just set some of you off again – and we wouldn’t want that now would we !

On a slightly related subject – I have just had put up 120 big red and white, skull and Crossed Bones, DANGER signs around the perimeter of the camp.

These show the limit of the “de-mined” area. I explained this a while back but for those of you who weren’t paying attention or who have just got here, before work commenced in this 1sqkm + area, the site was swept for munitions, mines and UXB and well over 1000 items were found and removed or destroyed. Supposedly to a level of 1.5m although an “expert” (and I’ve no doubt he is) told me that this depth cannot be guaranteed and besides we had measured 75cm of displacement caused by wind erosion (it’s what they call “shifting sands” I suppose) recently, so depths can only be given so much credibility. They recently discovered a shell that had gone straight into the sand and not exploded and was just sitting there one morning because the wind had blown all the sand away from around it. Anyway, the point of all this rambling was to show you this picture, which is not a very good picture I’ll grant you. The black dots under the pylons across the middle of the picture are about 50 sheep and goats, and their herder, completely ignoring all of our efforts to show where not to go and just carrying on regardless – there is only so much we can do before they have to help themselves (or do they actually know better than us ?)

Today’s inventory:

3 cigars

0 units

0 Dollars

Weather – windy again tomorrow. I know why they say the hot Moroccan winds drive people mad. They are relentless here and the sand and the heat that they force onto you makes me look forward to a bit of rain when I get home (and before you all say it, I don’t want to be reminded of that crass statement when I do get home and it is raining !)

Gym – relatively tough session back at the COB today. Cross trainer and some weights. Still feeling my way back into it whilst the Imodium does it’s job ! I’m planning 2 sessions tomorrow – wait out !

Food – No bloody noodles !

As I said earlier, I’m back at the COB (and therefore if you’re reading this I really did make it back safely) and will be here until at least Tuesday but I’ll keep you informed because despite my whinging earlier, this blog, and the gym, are pretty much the highlights of my social calendar (and despite what a number of you constantly say, I would be utterly pissed off without Facebook as well !)