My Office

My office equipment. Air duster to blow all the dust and sand off the laptop and desk top. Fly swatter to swat the flies that manage to get into the office, we have my electric zapper to catch flies in flight and a conventional swatter to get those that land. Then I have my sunglasses for when I venture outside of the office and also the control for the air conditioning to keep things nice and cool. Bottles of water to keep hydrated and we now have a fridge that arrived today to keep the bottles of water and cans of drink cold. The printer/scanner arrived today as well which enabled me to print off my e-ticket for the flight home which I was pleased about.

 

It has been a bit like Christmas today in the office with all the things we have managed to get today. Serban came back from his leave and fetched lots of sugar, tea and coffee. We have a kettle in the office now and I asked the contractor to get me a couple of boxes of water so we can now make hot drinks. We also got brushes to sweep the sand up and a big yellow bin outside to put our rubbish in. I never thought I'd be so pleased to have these basic things out here but it makes a huge difference.

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Catering Facilities

The catering facilities on site are good although some of the food combinations are a bit bizzare. The staff are very attentive and like to serve you, but this is not always a good thing as I found out today. I said I would have some of what looked like stew and I got one piece of meat and one and a half mushrooms in sauce?? I made sure I got plenty of onion rings and salad to go with the miniscule stew portion and mash. This evening there is a barbecue and I have heard there are Lobster tails and Steaks on the menu.

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Football in the dark

One thing to keep us occupied out here is a kick around with a football. Last night I had a game of football against some Iraqi workers. The people that know me know that I don't play football and I rarely watch football but out here there is not a lot to do and I need the extra exercise. It was fun while it lasted, towards the end we had three huge lorries turn up and drive straight thru the area that we were using.

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Big Bugs - Ants

While playing football in the dark last night i nearly ran into a bar sticking up out of the ground. I decided to tie some plastic sheeting around it to make it more visible and while doing that I noticed some huge ants running about on the ground.

 

Today I went back to the same place and found the ant hole, Kirk and I decided to pour some water down the hole to see if we could get the ants to come out and sure enough they did. Kirks finger is in the photos so you get a better idea of the size of these things. They are certianly the largest ants I have ever seen.

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More Construction

These photos show the steel grid that make up the roof support for the safe haven in the camp. The safe haven is designed as a temporary place people can go to if the camp is attacked while under construction. It is a shipping container surrounded by Hescos (Huge sand filled cubes of steel mesh and fabric) with a steel roof support that will have Hescos placed on top.

 

This is the second attempt at the roof, the first steel support made collapsed when they filled the Hescos with sand so the contractor had to take it apart and rebuild it again. Three days later, they finished making the steel grid structure and were about to lift it into place when we stopped them. We told the contractor that the crane they had could not safely lift the steel in one piece. Either the steel would bend and buckle or at worst the crane would fall over. After much deliberation it was decided to cut the steel grid into three sections.

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Old Guns

These are some old anti-aircraft and artillary guns that I walked past when I went for my meals. They look like they are no longer in use and I am not sure if they are American or British.

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Sheep

Sheep herding across the oil fields. I cannot imagine this being easy work, trying to get the sheep to jump over the oil pipes.

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