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.