Well Water

I logged a partial victory today, mostly due to external forces, but it’s going in the V column anyway.

An interesting cocktail – it has elements of hydrogeology, meteorology, sociology, economics, local politics and spirituality.

First, the spirituality part: Yemenis, and in my experience, most Arabic-speaking Muslims invoke the term “inshallah” about once every three sentences. “If God wills it” is the translation. Muslims are big on explicit and visible expressions of deference and devotion to Allah – head coverings, five lengthy prayer sessions per day, etc. I have noticed that the Yemenis who are comfortable enough to talk about religion with you are not particularly interested in converting you, so much as making you aware that Allah is the one true god (to the exclusion of whatever screwed up faith you may have going.) Anyway, one downside of the constant reinforcement of God’s absolute control can be a laissez faire attitude towards personal improvement, or even maintenance of what you already have. You don’t really have to worry about it. What’s the point? God provides. God is ubiquitous and omnipotent (chant ten times while clanging head against pavement). It's Marx's opiate of the masses on steriods

Hold that thought as we move on to the weather. I have been in Yemen since October 13, 2007. During that time, it has rained exactly once. I remember it well – October 25, 2008. It rained about an inch or two here at the project site, and somewhat more in mountainous part of the watershed. The Wadis (ephemeral creek beds) filled up and flooded the worksite briefly. Luckily all the project drainage is designed for 100 year storms so it was only a brief hiccup for the expat companies (although many of the Yemeni subcontractors parked their vehicles and equipment in the Wadis, and there was a fair amount of damage.) The sparse rainfall – eg, once every couple of years – means that recharge to the groundwater aquifer is meager, and unlimited pumping from water wells is not a god-given providence.

Regarding water distribution: Yemgas operates a reverse osmosis plant which de-salts seawater for domestic usage – showers, cooking, cleaning, etc. Yemgas provides this domestic water via a metered distribution (pipe) network to the Subcontractor camps and backcharges the cost to cover its operational overhead. (drinking water is a separate issue – it is provided by vendors who truck in bottled water from commercial treatment plants). The Subcontractors learned early on that they could obtain domestic water more cheaply by filling vacuum trucks from the water wells at the local villages. This is what we environmental types refer to as an indirect impact.

I started the battle as soon as I arrived, trying to get the Subcontractors to quit sucking water from the village wells. There were several obstacles: at times, the RO plant was undependable and we could not always meet all of the domestic water needs. This was compounded by a huge demand for water during commissioning of the boilers and hydrostatic testing of pipe runs. Also, the villagers got used to the fees paid for the water pumped by the Subcontractors, and they resisted efforts to curtail pumping (ie, they pleaded with management). If the village sheiks thought about it at all – a stretch – the spectre of aquifer depletion was likely deferred to the highest authority.

The status as of Week 32: boiler commissioning completed, desalination plant commissioned (which satisfies all of the industrial water needs), the RO plant was throttled back to half production capacity when the storage tanks started overflowing. I was not looking forward to the struggle, but I could no longer in good conscience allow unrestricted pumping of aquifer water. Then it happened. Earlier today, some idiot at the Al Juairy village got angry at one of the Subcontractor tank truck drivers and decided to resolve the matter with an AK-47. Shots were fired, but luckily nobody was hurt. The ripple effect was immediate; all of the tanker drivers have refused to drive to the wells, and the ROP plant is back to operating at full capacity. Problem solved without a struggle.

The village idiot will suffer significant consequences once the sheik finds out that his only revenue source has dried up, so to speak. Not just Al Juairy, but all of the 6 or 7 villages that derived income from selling well water.

This episode reinforced a couple of principles that I hold dear:

1. The power of Adams Smith’s ubiquitous and omnipotent hand. In this case it is too little too late, but my guess is that in future dealings, the village idiot (if he is still with us), and all other idiots-in-training in Al-Juairy and surrounding area, with think twice about mixing firearms with business.

2. This village idiot dynamic is the model that I was alluding to in an earlier posting re: dealing with Arab terrorists: these guys live and interact with, and are related to regular people. As long as the regular people do not feel alienated from the west, or better, if they feel like they share something in common, they will offer a calming influence, and even a police restraint on many, not all, of the wackos in their midsts. The Bush Administration did their best to alienate regular people. As a result, in Iraq and elsewhere there is little first line deterrence of the type that is ongoing in Al Juairy tonight.

Internet musing

Here in Balhaf, the internet connection speeds at home and office are equally slow. I used to think it was due to our remote location, but I have come to realize that the whole country of Yemen is slow, connectivity-wise. I spent an overnight recently in the Movenpick Hotel in Sana’a – arguably the most luxurious hotel in the country – and the internet was snailish there too.

To put things into perspective, if you remember the early days of dial-up connection and Compuserve, Earthlink, Mindspring, Prodigy, OnRamp (anyone remember OnRamp?), those connections were faster and more reliable than here. At one point, after a year and a half of internet misery, I happened to click on a non-descript folder off to the left in my email server and discovered that fully half of the emails I had composed during my first 18 months had not been sent due to a “time out” error or because I turned off my computer while the message was still in the pipe, including several heart wrenchers after my mother died.

One adjusts though, and I have developed a routine of household tasks that I can attend to instead of serving a cyber prison sentence waiting for something to happen after pressing the “enter” button. For examples: I put away the laundry (sidenote: daily laundry service picked up and delivered doesn’t suck); push-ups; brush teeth or floss - I am unquestionably among Yemen’s top 5 percentile of tooth flossers. I water the tiny patch of Bermuda grass that I am cultivating by the front steps. I keep my guitar on a stand near the computer so I can play it while watching the hour glass in the monitor. Downside: my guitar sound has devolved to a distracted monotone. Upside: I can play lots of the error sounds from the control panel library; I have 300 versions of the “time out” sound. You can’t really read a book while continually checking for onscreen developments, and, in the other extreme, you might get engrossed in what you’re reading and discover that you have been internet timed out, which means you have to repeat the hour glass routine.

Just one more computer comment (because I intended this just to be intro material for something more meaty): there is a governmental censoring agency: Yemen.net. Not infrequently, and sometimes when you least expect it you will be visited by the tan and brown Yemen.net screen of death. References to sex will bring out brownie, as will any of the Carlin 7. Atonement costs you a cold reboot. One assumes that a negative reference to a certain historical religious Arab person will trigger a lockup, or worse. Then sometimes the censor shows up and you can’t figure out what code of conduct you have transgressed. Probably a political or religious mis-translation on the part of Yemen.net is the best I can guess.

Mis-translations are a way of life here. You learn to be v-e-r-y concise when issuing instructions to HVEs (Indians, Philippinos, Koreans and Nigerians, mostly) that you cannot afford to screw up. Hand gestures are extremely useful. Among the ex-pats, english is required as the official language of meetings and correspondence. I am one of perhaps 50 native english speakers (most are british or canadians) on this project, so I find myself very frequently in a meetings listening to a french manager explaining something in very broken english to a room full of widely mixed, non-english mother tongues. One time someone described a smashed toe as an injury to the “foot finger.” I looked around the room and noted that a british guy and I were the only ones smiling. I actually learn a lot of francais by the mistakes they make when they literally translate.

Here’s another curious mis-translation that I can kindof understand, but not really. I solicited proposals from the local tribes for garbage collection services. One of the sections required a description of the ultimate disposal method for the non-recyclable waste. Out of the 12 proposals received, three of them used the term “holocaust” to denote “incinerator.” These proposals were from different tribes who were competing against each other, so I wouldn’t expect plagiarism. Don’t know. Weird.

None of the foregoing was particularly meaty. Saved for another day.

Bir Ali

There is a small fishing village not far from Balhaf where one of our vendors has set up a recycling facility. I go there from time to time, as security conditions permit, to inspect the operations. The village itself is a pleasure to visit. The only commerce, aside from the recycling, is related to fishing - there are two ice houses with primitve ice making equipment, and a central auction area where the fishermen bring in their catch and sell it to the highest bidder.

There is also a coral beach with some open shelters where you can relax and watch the turquoise waves break on the smooth coarse-grained sand. This area was popular with adventuresome Soviet tourists who, once upon a time, were kindred spirits with the communist regime in South Yemen.

Photos show the recycling facility, Bir Ali Beach, and a tasty repast with recycler employees and, of course, one of my ever-present military escorts. On the menu - grilled goat, fresh tuna from the fish market, and lots of honey-containing bread and banana combinations. Yemenis are very proud of their desert honey.

Rio de Janeiro

Copacabana Beach (left) and Ipenema Beach
Easter in Brasil, 2009

Portugal

[photos shown above, not in very good order: 1] Castle of St George in Lisbon; 2] the 3 km winding pathway leading down from the Moors castle back to the historical village of Sintra. This alone was worth the trip to Sintra. 3] battlements of the Moor Castle (circa 900AD) overlooking the Atlantic. 4] folk dancing in the Rossio (Lisbon)on a Sunday afternoon. 5] elevated view of Rossio seen from the hilltop Sao Jorge castle, one of the cool old structures that withstood a major earthquake and tsunami that flattened most of Lisbon in 1755.

Luckily, I am constitutionally prepared for travel with all of its fits and starts. For me, being a well-prepared traveler is a luxury I can’t justify, given the huge administrative overhead, and the inflexibility that comes from locking into something only to find later that it was not the best offer. Plus, I enjoy the actual traveling part of travel, at least in foreign places where all of the sights and sounds are exotic, including the street sweeper at the train station humming a tune, or conversations during long flights on those occasions when you sit next to someone who has interesting and new ideas that they want to share. Also, travel time is a great opportunity for long, unbroken spans of reading, which I don’t do enough of except when I am held hostage, distractionlessly waiting for a train or plane. I am rationalizing here, of course. Mostly, poor planning results in always having the worst seat on flights, not getting a good hotel, and sometimes missing out on things not-to-be-missed. But these travel inconveniences don't bug me enough to do the things that need to be done to prevent them from happening.

Many times the poorly-prepared approach to travel yields unexpected benefits, as for example, my visit to Portugal. I had really wanted to spend a few days in Lisbon, but when I queried the Travelocity website for the cost of a 4 day-stopover enroute to Rio de Janeiro, it was prohibitive: eg, my round trip flight from Sana’a to Austin, including a ten day stop in Brazil was $3900USD. When I modified the search to include four days in Portugal, it brought the cost up to about $8K. So I booked the non-refundable Travelocity itinerary to Brazil and Austin, and later discovered the requirement for a Brazilian tourist visa. I had no choice, so I got off the flight in Lisbon fully expecting to have to purchase another Lisbon to Rio ticket after obtaining the visa from the Brazilian consulate. What I found out was that the Travelocity paper tickets are valid for six months. For multi-city itineraries, you can stop and stay at intermediate locations without any advanced notice, and no penalty costs. One of the perks of paper tickets… and poor planning.

Regarding Portugal, the 2 days I had to hang close to the Brazilian Consulate because pf poor planning notwithstanding, my impressions are based on walking around Lisbon and a couple of day trips to out-of-town tourist destinations, so its not like I am ultra informed.

Generalizations are always invalid, but I have to take license here, for brevity. Portugal is the Canada of Europe, overshadowed as a tourist destination by other, more obvious spots, not that there is a much of an initiative by the Portugese to export an image to the world. There is a contentedness that doesn’t acknowledge or need external validation; it seems like Portugal is mostly for Portugese. You can see it in the minimalist approach to urban architecture, arts and culture. In Lisbon, the public squares, statues and fountains are understated, compared to the other European capitals; there is nothing that shouts to the world: Vivo Portugal.

The culinary offerings are unimaginative: it is hard to screw up fresh fish, which is available in abundance – especially cod, hake, sardines, swordfish, grouper, squid and octopus – but the preparation that I observed was uniformly underwhelming, even at the time-honored traditional restaurants, which were generally uninviting, with chairs and tables lined up like a grade school classroom. I wouldn’t have arched an eyebrow to see menus printed on mimeograph paper.

Portugese art is underrepresented on the world stage. There are several art museums in Lisbon, but nothing of acclaim. There is little by way of film or written accomplishment, and there is no Portugese entry in the classical music repertoire. I had a beer at a cool music bar in the Barrio Alto district and asked the bartender if she could play something Portugese. She told me that Portugese people don’t really listen to Portugese music.

Portugese is the world's 5th most spoken language, but you hardly know anyone who speaks it, and nobody you know has studied it. Portugal seems to be flying under the radar.

On the other hand, I warmed to the unpretentious Portugese hospitality. I, as an Austinite, especially appreciated their “laid back” personality. Lisbon is a great place to visit as long as you are not looking for the splash that visitors normally expect from European capitols. What I found was a comfortable and unstressed place to relax, and once I ratcheted my expectations accordingly, I began to discover and enjoy the neat places where the locals hang out, especially the Chiado and the Barrio Alto. Plus, everything is ridiculously cheap – at least outside of the tourist districts.

The natural scenery and climate, dominated by the Oceano Alantico are exceptional. I spent a day in Sintra, a short train ride west of Lisbon, and was awed by the splendor of the castles, the Celtic, Roman, Visigoth and Moorish history, and especially the natural beauty - including redwood forests - where the rugged terrain meets the Altantic.

As I wait in the airport for my flight to Rio de Janeiro, I am reminded to mention that Portugal is totally safe. As I roamed the streets of Lisbon by myself at night, I never once felt uncomfortable about the people around me. This might change in Brasil.

Daybreak in Rome, April 4, 2009

I have a four hour layover at Fuimicino Airport in Rome enroute from Balhaf, Yemen to Austin. During the next several days I will partake of the flight services of four different airlines, spending time in four continents, thanks to Travelocity. A mixed blessing that: Travelocity sells unreserved seats on flights from various airlines to provide packages for people like me who are willing to accept the near certainty of travel screwups in exchange for a low rate and the opportunity for extended stopovers for sightseeing in intermediate destinations along the way. Rome is not one of the sightseeing stops, but due to a screwup in my flight from Sana’a, I have a longer-than-expected wait here in the airport that tour guides refer to as Aeroporti Leonardo da Vinci.

I had forgotten about some of the unique aspects of Rome that I had experienced several months back during a week-long vacation here. From the waiting area where I have set up my laptop I can see the silhouettes of the famous pines of Rome; I had forgotten about the Roman landscaping technique of trimming the pines like poodles. Or maybe they just grow that way, not sure. I am sure that this is the only place where I have seen cumulous puffs of pine boughs floating on the horizon. It’s a surreal sunrise scene after a harrowing and sleepless 6 hour flight in steerage on Yemenair flight 633.

I stopped into a bustling café for some cappuccino and a brioche, and was reminded of the roman penchant for bustle. It dawns on me that the impatient rudeness of waiters and cab drivers in New York probably derives, at least in part, from the influence of Italian immigrants. Same style and substance; they don’t intend to offend, it’s just that they are so heavily burdened with responsibility for so many customer expectations.

I forgot about the lovely language (not so much the overly-burdened café proprietors). The wisps of the conversations I hear from bustling passers-by hurrying to their flights are pleasantly melodic: Italian made the work of Verdi and Puccini a cinch. The Arabs that I interact with at work know nothing of this; their language is a cruel and accusatory in cadence and intonation. To the uninitiated, “what a pretty hat” sounds like “I kill puppies.” Not so, Italian. Sentences are micro-concerts, with introductory theme, an arpeggiated midsentence (modulation to a minor key signals materia trista) coming to rest gently on a punctuating bass note which invites the start of the next sentence. Rhythm is important, which explains the hands; every Italian is his own conductor. Of course I have no clue what they are saying but it sounds like: fulMINici dellA formAGGio a LOUra. Translation, in my mind: roses are the perfect expression of God’s divinity. More likely: I placed a pipe bomb in the suitcase of the Travelocity tourist.

At 11:55AM I will board the TAP flight to Lisbon where I will stop over for a few days while my visa to Rio is processed. I don’t have an itinerary; don’t know anything about Portugal except porto and Magellan. I am thinking about renting a motorcycle for some cruising along the coast. Same with Rio where I will spend a week before continuing on with Delta airlines, arriving in Austin on April 15. Actually I know a bit more about Rio; I know I enjoy the music. And the photos of the beaches are inviting. I hope to dispense with my normal have-to-see-everything travel credo. The beauty of Travelocity, for me, is that the cost is less than the normal flight faire to my home of record, and therefore I can expense the entire cost of the vacation travel. So if I feel like lounging on a beach chair just reading and drinking capirinhas all day, I just might feel good about it.

the seasons, they go round and round

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090325-PUBLICRECORDS-903250330

2009 photos

Gas arrives at the Marine Flare from Marib, 320 km away

jetty in background, significantly complete, as is Tank1 (the closest one)

The jetty extends 1 km offshore to the ship berth, where it will load up and head to the handful of global ports that have regasification plants, notably Sabine Pass and (soon) Corpus Christi, Texas.

March 2009, Balhaf, Yemen

The winter honeymoon weather is over. Springtime in Yemen has arrived early with hot dry winds carrying the desert dust fine as talcum powder. What a pleasure, as my S. African friends say.

But this spring is different from last year because we are seeing the beginning of the end of this project. The gas tie-in with the Marib pipeline is complete, and with it, a heightened awareness of things-that-could go-wrong. Sometime in the not-too-distant future we will move in to the SIMOPS phase, which means that Train 1 will be brought online and turned over to Total to operate. Simultaneously, construction will continue on Train 2, with all the welding, cutting, grinding and other sparky activities that are so often disdained in areas where new valves, flanges and threaded fittings are getting used to the idea of carrying explosive gas at high pressures. But this stuff is boring. There are other could-go-wrong scenaria with human interest flavor to type about.

Here’s an example of a situation which could have turned ugly, but didn’t, except for the principals involved.

One of the large Subcontractors, Gama, a Turkish firm, announced their demobilization schedule. Gama has a large number of Yemen (of course) and Indian laborers. The schedule was skewed towards demobing Yemenis during the first wave. The argument, which has a kernel of truth, is that the Yemen laborers are not as detailed-oriented as the HVE Indians. As we move towards SIMOPS, lots of the final work will be in the form of punch list items, which requires attention to detail, because you might be working on one task for two hours, then move to a different task. Each task requires different equipment and materials and, notably, moving to a different work location without wandering off, or just stopping. As a general rule, the Indians are better at doing that than the Yemenis. Not that any of the work is complicated: we’re talking shovels and wire brushes.

The Yemenis, predictably, played the Yemenization card, which is an agreement between Total and the Yemeni government for preferential hiring of Yemenis in lieu of HVE (highly valued ex-pats. used to be TWN - third world nationals, but the PC police forced the change). Gama refused to negotiate, arguing that the Indians were more expensive – higher pay, and transportation costs – why would they keep them instead of Yemenis if the qualifications gap didn’t require it?

So, after several days of unrest and demonstrations (unnervingly centered on the Yemgas main building) one morning 600 Yemenis refused to go to work. The management reaction was swift, and 250 Yemeni military came onsite and rounded up 60 of the identified ringleaders. Rather than busing them out, they made them walk 2 km through the camps, shouting and chanting the whole way.

In hindsight, it is pretty clear that the ringleaders were all tactics and no strategy. No teamsters these guys. One imagines the post mortem among the evictees:

“So what do you think went wrong; strikes are supposed to bring employers to their knees?”
“Uh, 40% unemployment in Yemen?”
“No specialized, hard-to-replace skills?”
“200 guys standing around outside begging for low skill jobs?”
“What about those lowlifes, taking our jobs, there ought to be a name for people like that.”

Christmas Eve in Yemen

There is some concession to Christmas on the project, although the significance of Bethlehem is downplayed. Still, the management sprung for a lobster cookout on the beach. I played the Nutcracker on the car stereo for a number of Yemeni passengers on the drive over, and they pretended to enjoy the Arabian dance. A mixed group: Indian, Azerbajahni, Welch, Yank. You guess.

Bir Ali