New Project in new Caledonia, beginning April 2010

This is a view from the top of the massif where the mine will be, looking down on the smelter and power plant (under construction). You can also see the coral reef offshore. To get some perspective of scale - the top of the massif is about 1000 meters high and the reef is about 1 km. offshore. The mine exploration and haul roads go back 15 - 20 km from the coast. It is a big project. We are facing west towards Australia, about 900 km.

arucaria montana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucariaceae) - one of 600 terestrial plant species in New Caledonia, many of which live only here. A significant number of them are red listed (protected) species. A growing list of plants have been identified exist only in the rarefied micro-ecosystems within in the Koniambo Massif. These are plants that have adapted to well drained, shallow soils essentially devoid of N-P-K, but rich in Ni, Cobalt and Chromium. Some of them, like the arucaria, have become adept at pulling water vapor from the air.

There is a team of staff botanists who are assigned the task of surveying, inventorying, transplanting, collecting seeds,operating a large pepiniere (plant nursery) as part of the revegetation and rehabilitation program. In addition, there are consultants who provide guidance on regulatory and technical issues, and university and NGO experts who study the significance of this hitherto unstudied ecosystem.

This is reason we are here. It probably doesn't show too well in this photo - on the lower right side of the rock you can see some shiny stuff - a combo of iron and nickel. Rather a convenient mix, because they are the primary constituents of stainless steel. Makes the refining task much simpler to produce the combined metal product - ferronickel. The geology of the area is as interesting and varied as the vegetation (no coincidence). Lots of chromium and cobalt in these hills as well.

A view of the world's second-largest coral reef, which completely surrounds New Caledonia. To the left is a navagational aid marking the entrance to Koniambo harbor. There is a river network that converges near Koniambo, and the fresh water pushing to get out to sea over the millenia created a natural opening in the reef. The reef opening and the mountain in the background, which is made of metal ore, made easy work of the site selection process.

This is Koniambo harbor, under construction, where, starting in mid-2012, ocean-going ships will bring in coal and limestone, and haul off ferro nickel product.

This is the view that I currently wake up to every morning as I look out of my cabin door at the project site in Kone' in the North Province of New Caledonia. Mostly mangroves in the foreground. The local tribes including the Ondju (I haven't learned all their names yet) derive a livelihood from the fish, and especially the shellfish (large crabs) they pull out of these waters. Hard to imagine that there is a huge industrial project going on.

Changes in Latitudes

Brisbane, Australia

If I step off another curb into oncoming traffic, I will deserve what I get. I have been in Brisbane a couple of weeks, and I still have mental lapses about cars in the left lane. Same thing on the sidewalk, when I occasionally find myself in a pas-de-deux with an oncoming pedestrian. It's not as problematic as in England, though, where the convention seems to be more strictly adhered to.

Indeed, with the exception of left lane traffic and steering wheels on the right, Brisbane looks and feels much like any modern, affluent American city, or better, it is a composite of several American cities. Climate-wise, it is like Miami – subtropical, with hibiscus, bouganvilla and palms trees co-mingled with southern hemisphere species that I can’t identify. Of course the seasons are opposite. We are just now beginning to feel the first chilly mornings when I wished I had worn something warmer as I hurry to my subway stop. I’m not sure I will ever get used to weather reports predicting cold fronts from the south.

The downtown skyline is very new, maybe like Atlanta, with towering and highly stylized designs which, one hopes, will stand the test of time. (although I am reminded of the frozen-in-time look of ‘57’ Chevys and Buicks with the chrome and winged fenders). Portland Oregon is its best comparison as a healthy city – both sides of the Brisbane River are lined with hike and bike trails, and most of the main thoroughfaires have bike lanes. Everyone seems to carry a backpack so they can bike or run to work and shower and change at the office. There are very few out-of-shape people here; I do my part to skew the curve.

Economy-wise it is like a prosperous Houston. Australia appears to have largely avoided the global economic meltdown. Brisbane is the capitol of Queensland, which is experiencing a boom in mining and energy from coal, iron and increasingly, coal seam gas. Engineers are well represented in the downtown happy hour scene, so it’s easy to butt into heated discussions about energy efficiency, carbon and the newest regulatory sensation – acid sulfate soils - which now has to be addressed (at some expense) when excavating along the coastline. Queensland is a bit like Texas in its self sufficiency and economic success – you hear occasional bloviations about seceeding from Australia.

In my experience, except for Canada, Australia is the most similar nation to the US. This is not surprising, given their histories, although Australia celebrates its English ties much more than would be palatable in the US. For example many of the public spaces are named Queens this or Reagents that. This bias is to be expected in light of the relative lack of blood mixing. If you asked an American their ancestry, you'll normally hear a significant mix of countries. Not so in the commonwealth, where most folks trace their roots back uniquely to Britain. But I think it is safe to say that the Australian experience, taking into account the things people do, their lifestyles, how they act around each other, their attitudes about the external world, overall is more American than it is British. For what that's worth.

This is a continuation of previous blog entries from my previous two year work assignment in Yemen. For the next two years or so, I will be working for Technip, a French firm, in New Caledonia. Technip is a JV partner with Hatch (Canadian) building a nickel mine and refinery for Xstrata (Swiss) in a remote part of NewCaledonia, a French Polynesian island in the south Pacific. I am currently working out of the Hatch office in Brisbane while I wait for my work visa to process.

Dr Suess' invisible hand wields its influence on tree morphology south of the equator. This poodle look-alike is one of the more common big tree species.

Interesting forms in the built environment: a pedestrian bridge spanning the Brisbane River, connecting the central business district with the south bank cultural area

This architectural motif is everywhere in the center city

more of this style of ornamentation

Brisbane's Central Business District

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

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.

Social Responsibility

Social Responsibility: I first ran into it while working for Enron. For lack of a better place to put it, organizational chartographers always attach it to the Health, Safety and Environmental Department. Initially it seemed like a nuisance, something that corporations had to talk about. In the early years, and of course, especially at Enron, it was a façade. Mostly, the thrust was to cultivate respectability among would-be investors of conscience – teachers retirement funds, for example. In practice, the SR practitioners would draft a rosy-sounding section for the next year’s annual report and then spend the balance of the year figuring out ways to make it come true. At Enron, the SR director and managers, having no job descriptions to anchor them, floated on inflated egos between meetings with stockholders and boardrooms, occasionally stopping by the office without ever producing anything tangible. Their’s was a caramely world of visioneering, consensus building and stakeholder partnering.
I ran into Social Responsibility again at BP, which is where I landed after Enron crashed. BP’s SR mission was more results-oriented. They were emphatic about documenting early compliance with the Kyoto protocol. My job, a 3-month contract position, was to calculate greenhouse emissions from its San Juan Basin coal bed methane operations. In talking with my counterparts from the other business units, it was clear that, although the calculations were legitimate, the comparisons with the base case were flawed, resulting in exaggerated claims of greenhouse gas reductions, which, of course, were trumpeted by the annual reporters.
These two exposures to Social Responsibility flavored my initial impression of this new and growing corporate mandate. Fast forward to Yemen, 2008.
As environmental manager for the YLNG construction project I am on the front lines. Gone are the slogany SR platitudes, the flowery vernacular, the business suits. I work in close quarters with 5,000 Yemeni workers, every one of them two generations removed from the 14th century, the cream and the crud of Yemen’s future: the clueless losers, opiated by religion, who resent the fact that their job is not an entitlement; and the up-and-coming laborers, foremen and professionals who see this project as a stepping stone to a better life for themselves and their families. I also have a somewhat unique position within Yemgas in that I interact with the local community in developing contracts, specifically for transportation and waste recycling services. Social Responsibility, seen from ground level, is real and pregnant with opportunity, for both sides – the developer and the developed.
The obvious example is teaching Yemenis basic skills that allow them to work efficiently. I’m talking basic skills, like, to begin with getting up every day and going to work. This ethic is ingrained in the western mind, whether we are employed or looking for employment, the lifelong struggle for compensation is a routine that occupies most of the daylight hours, most of the days of most of the weeks. The Yemen mind does not think this way, and by enlightening them, they can go out and share this insight with friends and relatives, and it will incrementally improve the competitiveness of an abysmally uncompetitive workforce.
Labor force development is not reported per se in any annual report as a social responsibility achievement, but the better managers at Yemgas are aware of the impacts they are making on peoples lives, and they go out of their way to teach their employees things that are useful, but are not necessarily applicable to the job at hand.
In recruiting contractors from the local communities, we initially tried the bid process; it was a disaster, resulting in contractor liens when the low bidder didn’t pay his employees and his equipment rental companies. So we adapted a procedure I learned at TxDOT: qualification-based selection. This was a zinger to the tribal mentality predominant here in the Shabwa Governate, a backwater even by Yemeni standards. We issued a Request for Qualifications along with a disclaimer stating that submitting an SOQ would not guarantee a contract. Most of the 12 proposals that we received were unreadable, or worse. When asked what was their proposal for disposing of non-recyclable waste, most answered something like “we’ll do whatever you ask us to do.” We selected a firm that had some experience with municipal garbage hauling.
Many competing firms couldn't grasp the concept of competition. They thought that the selection should be based on tribal status, and then once selected, the firm would figure out how to provide whatever service was needed. We had to blacklist one of the tribal heavies from entering the jobsite because he threatened our Community Relations manager. The government-privilege faction barraged us with angry visits from Ministers of this and that whose son or nephew was not selected. But we offered a contract debriefing to the 11 unsuccessful firms to explain where their proposal fell short. My expectation is that the next round of contracts in 12 months will yield to Adam Smith’s invisible hand: the tribes and government fatcats will tone down their bloviating and instead focus on giving the client what it asks for. This concept is the basis of every western business model; but it is, or was, until now, utterly foreign to the movers and shakers in Shabwa, Yemen. In a self-serving way we expect that this enlightenment will promote a better local contractor pool to support the upcoming 20 years of YLNG operations, but, one hopes, the ripple effect will penetrate into the broader business community as south Yemen continues to develop its natural and human resources.

interesting news item about agriculture and water in Yemen

interesting news item about Yemen politics

World Safety Day 2008

I saw it coming about 6 weeks in advance - the client instructed us that we would participate in this cheese bag UN-sponsored harmonic convergence. It was sold as an opportunity to raise world-wide awareness about worker safety to address the 2 million work-related fatalities each year. (Our project is not immune - 2 deaths so far, both Koreans.)

What I saw coming was that the planning was going to languish until the last minute, and then there would be a mad rush to schlep together a program. I also premonitioned that I would draw the short straw to do the slave work as event organizer.

And that is, in fact, what happened.

The math worked out like this: YLNG and Yemgas ponied up a $100K budget for booths, poster competitions, t-shirts, rescue demonstrations, fire drills, interactive educational software, exhibits, awards ceremonies (several of the EOs from Total and from Technip came from Paris to hand out prizes), and - this part actually didn't suck - live music as a capper at the end of the day. We moved about 70% of the 9,000 workers through the training and recreation centers in five waves of 1,500 at a time. There were 6 jillion details including road closures, bottled water, shuttle busses, security, translations of educational material, development of the drill scenarios, hiring and logistics for the live music. We had to build a stage and run a power line to it in order to get around using a noisey generator, and mobilize cranes to redirect the high mast lighting from the soccer fields to the concert area.

Amazingly, it all came off like competitent people were in control. The best part, of course, was the music, which started after the 7 pm prayers and went on until about 11 pm. The dancers were OK; I'm not much on all guy dancers, but the locals got a kick out of it. It was telling to see the grounds the morning after: thousands of pink strings - very recognizable: they are the binders used for packaging Qat. The show came off suprisingly well; the ex-pats enjoyed it (almost) as much as the Yemenis.

Strange Day in Mukulla

I traveled to Mukulla on Thursday to deal with a recalcitrant contractor. The owner, Abdullah, is clueless. The contract that we have with him is to transport mixed waste to his facility, sort it into recyclable and non-recyclable components, and then haul the non-recyclable part to a legit final resting place. (hint: "legit" does not include the nearest hole in the ground in the desert)

Clueless.

Instead of hauling this guk to a landfill, Abdullah has, instead, accumulated 3 months worth of it at his hell-like facility on the east side of Mukulla, and I am in the skittish position of wanting to revoke his contract, but not wanting to do it before he follows through on the sort-and-dispose routine. In fact, I don't want him to get a sniff that that is my intention, otherwise he will abandon many many tonnes of crap in his fenced place in the desert, said crap strobing with identification with a certain largest construction project in Yemen.

So I spent the day visiting landfills with Abdullah, explaining to him that this is the most important part of our contractual relationship, not hiring armed guards to greet me with abundant fanfare whenever I visit his facility.

OK. All that background info was just to set the stage for the strangeness of the place I wandered into during the afternoon.

We drove to the Mukulla municipal landfill, if you can call it that. Otherworldly is my name for it. I'll skip the elaboration: in a word - strange. We extracted the necessary information from the resident (literally) landfill workers (tipping fees, etc) in order for me to map out a solution to the Abdullah issue. Then, as we were leaving the landfill, my assistant pointed out a very crowded market place, which, he explained, we needed to inspect. So we parked and went in.

Turns out, it was a Qat market. On a Thrusday late morning at 11 AM it was a mob scene - hundreds of people milling around in an open air market sprawling with vendor booths selling nothing but Qat.

For the uninitiated (and for the record, I am uninitiated) Qat is a natural narcotic similar to cocaine. It is EXTREMELY popular in northeastern Africa and the Saudi peninsula. It is so pervasively used by Yemenis that the workers at the Balhaf project cannot comprehend the prohibition against using it. Backhoe operators at the Balhaf project, who have been told a million times not to chew it while at work, are dumbfounded when they are ordered to be removed from their jobs by Ex-Pat managers. The president of Yemen chews it while in conference with members of his cabinet.

I think it would be an interesting study to compare Qat with some of the other well-known drugs in terms of effects on motor control, addictiveness, long term health effects, etc. These things I know: it gobbles up a lot of the Balhaf employees income and there is no remorse - on payday, these guys make a beeline to the Qat dealers. I have read reports that its most incidious effect is that much of the arable land in Yemen (hint: there ain't much) has been converted to Qat crops. This, in spite of increasing rioting because of inflating food prices.

Pretty strange. Anyway, here is an insightful article from Yemen Times. The last couple of paragraphs touch on the Qat issue http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1152&p=view&a=1

Also, here are some photos of the Qat market and landfill.



My assistant, Hussein, squeezing the tomatos, so to speak. My guard, not guarding me. My contractor, Abdullah, in black.







Hundreds of people buying and selling Qat. The market area is huge.






Beggar woman working the parking lot outside the Qat market. I haven't seen any men beggars, but there are many women beggars, mostly at places where discretionary spending is occurring, like a Qat market. This is the first woman that I have seen wearing any color. Every other woman I have seen wears uniformly undistinguished black robes







Mukulla Municipal Landfill

Visit to Maifa

Sheik Bahnjah and William of Arabia

Most times when I have work outside the compound, it is in the direction of Al Mukullah, towards Oman to the east. Today I visited a small village named Maifa, about 100 miles to the west in the direction of Aden. The mission: a contract interview with Sheik Abdullah Ahmed Bahnjah, tribal elder and businessman. That’s what his business card says: tribal elder and businessman. Actually it says: auk geek hawlyk. Just kidding. Couldn’t resist.

While I am digressing, I’ll mention that there are no correct spellings of Arab words or names. Al Mukullah is variously spelled Mukalla, Mukulla, or Mukalluh. The Koran can also be spelled Quran or Qoran. The actual spelling is: squiggle with upstroke, two dots, backwards c with curly cue, vertical dash with hat. And you read it from right to left. When you ask a Yemeni to spell his name he looks at you like you’re kidding.

Anyway, I and an entourage of clients (ie, Total, Inc.) and soldiers, visited the village of Maifa to wheel and deal with Sheik Bahnjah. I was the lead negotiator, and I had translators straining to hear my every word, which I can get used to. And soldiers following behind me at all times. I don't think I will ever get used to that.

Abdullah’s qualifications in business lean more to the client relations side; I guess he leaves the technical details to others, who apparently had comittments elsewhere. By tradition, Sheik Bahnjah exrcises absolute control over contracts in his part of Shabwah. There really is no competition. It is not unusual for a tribe to set up a roadblock and stop competitors’ trucks going to and from the YLNG project. So, Abdullah had limited patience with my insistence on visiting his place of business, which was an open patch of desert surrounded by a cinder block wall. I recited a list of prepared questions, which he laughed at. Stuff like, what do you plan to do with 20,000 liters of waste oil per month? He assured me that he would deal with it, and all his sycophants nodded in agreement. I was really looking for something more like it will be accumulated in a bunded storage tank pending transfer to a blended fuels program in Dubai. But I could tell that Abdullah was more interested in showing us his farm, so I relented. Good move.

The best I can figure, Maifa is positioned over a huge sand lens that is underlain by impervious volcanic rock. The rock is an inclined plane and it drains water like an underground river through the sand lens from the mountains many miles to the north, where it actually rains occasionally, to the lower desert elevation, where it doesn’t.

Abdullah owns a vast spread of land in the valley where he runs a profitable farm raising bananas and papayas to sell in the markets in Mukullah and Aden. The village that he lords over, and provides for, is perched on the hillside nearby, but we drove instead to a small hill next to an irrigated crop of banana trees, where a tent had been set up and cushions spread around with ornamented pillows, just like in the movies. It was totally comfortable and inviting, and I took off my shoes and moved in. While the servants attended to grilling the goat and lamb over the open fire, I sipped on sweetened tea and watched the banana leaves do the herky jerk in the light midday breeze, the first green I had seen in 30 days.

We ended up spending most of the afternoon feasting, joking and loafing. Very little business was discussed. Abdullah was gracious and in good humor. He wished us the peace of Allah if he won the contract, and the peace of Allah if he didn’t. Everyone laughed and nodded in agreement.