Rotation #5

There is a literary device used by Rudyard Kipling (eg, Gunga Din), and others, that I am going to try here. It is a prefatory whimsy, which has nothing to do with the main story. It is the ginger before the spider roll.

I decided to take up yoga. Someone loaned me a book on the subject, and I gravitated immediately to the section on supine postures. The first one, Shavasana, was pretty straightforward – lying with my back on the floor. The second one - Ekapada Uttanasana – built on the Shava by pointing the toes and stretching the upper muscles of one foot, followed by a six second leg lift. On the first Eka, I pulled a foot muscle, and I’ve been limping around for the last two days. People inquire, but I refuse to confess that it is from a supine exercise. I am reminded of my mother, who complained once that she had pulled a muscle in her neck while reading in bed. I was pretty ruthless for a couple of weeks with jokes about pillow-related injuries. Pretty ironic - karma got to me through Yoga.

My postings of late have been spare; looks like the most recent one, in July, promised a Part 2 follow up on the subject of social responsibility. This is probably not the right time for that, inasmuch as I had to fire an employee today for his role in smuggling copper cable out of the compound, and the recycling contractor that I had gone to great lengths to select from a pool of his peers based on his demonstrated professionalism and sterling character, was also implicated. Also, yesterday the US Embassy was attacked, again, which means we are back on orange alert, which stuffs my ability to move around within the local area. And lately the Yemenis workers have been getting rattled. Maybe it’s related to Ramadan. I don’t know. Almost every day there is some kind of a demonstration or protest of some kind, some involving violence, although, so far, it has been minor.

To be fair, it’s not just the Yemenis. Yesterday the Bangladeshis trashed their cafeteria at the SKS camp. SKS, a Korean firm, has four kitchens: Chinese, Bangladesh, Yemeni, and Korean. The Korean kitchen is actually quite good, not surprisingly, but the Bangladeshi is awful. I upbraided the SKS camp boss a while back about hygiene lapses in the kitchens and he told me that the different cultures have different standards (hinting that the problem was a figment of my cultural ignorance.) I asked him which of the cultures sought out dysentery and salmonosis. Anyway, regarding the Bangladeshis, you don’t usually think of them as outspoken or violent. I remember hearing an NPR radio report once about a Bangladeshi gang in LA, and imagined the futility of “please to hand over your wallet.” [truth in advertising – it is a PH punchline, gotta give credit.]

Earlier, I had to deal with about 100 Yemenis working for Gama, a Turkish firm, over a frivilous complaint about water quality. For clarification, most of the complaints from laborers about living conditions in the subcontractor camps are well grounded. I mean, I've seen things you wouldn't believe. But it is not unusual for laborers to vent their frustration about working conditions by making up a lame-o complaint about something unrelated. Water is a volatile issue; we're in a desert, right? Since I am in charge of water quality, I drew the short straw to go talk to the Gama Yemenis. I had seen the latest test results, so I was able to quell the complaints about "Gama is trying to poison us" by gulping down 750 mls right out of the tap while they watched. It was one of those minor victories that rarely presents itself, at least to me, involving an accusatory loudmouth surrounded by psycophants braying about an alleged atrocity, the rancor escalating with each breath. To nuke him in front of his peers with incontrovertibilia; the ridiculousness of his argument crystallized into a single, robust and punctuating belch. I didn't even need a translator. Mostly there was a bit of fidgeting, some looking around, and at length they wandered off when someone mentioned the Premier League match on satellite pitting Cheltenham against Coldchestershire.

People have been asking me whether the embassy attack has had any effect on this project here in Balhaf. We have a lot of fence and military protection, much more so than at the embassy. The surrounding terrain is impassable volcanic rubble that even the camels avoid, so I think we are adequately protected against any outside threat. It is the conditions inside the fence that probably present the greater danger, especially as we begin the reduction in forces and they start escorting people to the gate. Sometime during the next 12 months, this project will demobilize 8000 construction workers, leaving behind “the chosen” 500 permanent operating employees. Some of the more outspoken laborers, and the local tribes have begun protesting that no Yemenis should be laid off until all of the HVEs are sent home (semi-skilled Indians and Phillipinos.) We’ll have to see how that bad idea resolves itself. In the meanwhile, we continue to prepare for the imminent arrival of the pipeline, which is snaking its way across the desert towards us.