Air Travel Chaos

I'm writing this almost a week after the events. (I feel a bit guilty about writing a blog rather than catching up with Family and Friends).

Finishing on site was a last minute rush, as expected. I was out at 7:00 am taking water samples and purging putrid partially decomposed polymer out of the boreholes.

A young English speaking Angolan guy who I had got some job contacts for and found some temporary work for, asked me what I was going to give him so that he would remember me as his friend. I pretended to mis understand and said something about my email address.

A guy on the flight who I told the story to suggested that I should have given him a black eye. There was something typically south African about that thought...

Check in at the Airport was at 9:30am for a circa 2:00pm flight.

Luanda airport is a real example of socialist ineficiency, when you go in you need to go to a counter and present your passport and flight documents twice Before you join the checkin que.

The little bureaucrat at the first desk told me that I needed to put some bank notes in my passport for the chief, otherwise I would have to que and get my bag searched. I told him I wasn't putting anything in.

After this I have to present my pasport, flight documents and a chit from the first guy before I can join an un labelled que to check in. (it is easy to get the que for the wrong flight).

Following an uneventful check in, I think documents were checked again and a form filled in before proceeding to the immigration desk, which takes about 5 minutes of typing on a keyboard for each person...

Then its on to security. Welcome to no liquids on flights. I Didn't witness it but heard of one man whose expensive aftershave was about to be confiswiped. He slapped a handfull on his own face and passed the bottle back for every other male in the que to do the same.

He need not have worried, it would not have been wasted, I expect it and a lot of other confistolen goods would be for sale on street corners that afternoon...

For some reason, I made it through un scathed, and was not invited into the small room to be searched for Kwanza (the local currency) which is not allowed to be taken out of the country, although i am told that some searchers get a little over enthusiastic and try to take dollars as well.

Next, sit in the departure lounge getting bitten by mosquitoes. there is a better lounge that you can pay to enter, but the basic one has a bar and good coffee, together with a hoard of female airport employees watching the soaps on the TV beside the bar.

Conversation in the lounge is generally good, as the expats begin to relax for the flight. I ended up talking to a man who has opened a small business in Angola with a helpful private partner who actually invested rather than asked to be given 51% of the funds brought in.

Miraculously, he has found good and reasonably priced living accomodation in the city as well. The normal going rate for a decent size house is $15,000 / month with 2 years deposit! No wonder everything else in the city is expensive.

George to Tony

Sorry to put something political out:

Just Imagine the phonecall;

"Hi Tony? it's Dubya. Listen, I'm in the shit. I need a favour".

"You sound worried, what's happened?"

"A baaaaad pole."

"What, a migrant worker, but they're good for the econom...."

"No you asshole! opinion pole! There's a majority against us be-in in Eye-Rack. We've got to sway em. Listen, you got any suckers ready for the big one?"

"Loads, you know me, always got a supply of diversions...

What can I tempt you with? I've got a group in Luton with incediary turbans, a couple in Bolton with armor piercing sandals, an Indian takeaway in Kiveton Park serving botulism vindaloo, and some headbangers outside London with anti aircraft soda pop then..."

"át's a boy Tony, Anti Aircraft sodie pop... You good for Thurrrrsday?"

"Come on George, you can count on me, you know you can! Nothing like a bit of hardship to bring out that "Battle of Britain Spirit". I've a few comittees ready for chairmen, so the airline chiefs won't get too upset, and it's a great way to get a few more laws through and some bad news out when everyone's looking the other way".

"Tone, You just saved our retirement fund!"

The countdown has started

I'm flying out Saturday, so should be back home Sunday afternoon.

The drillers are at 30m on the last 45m deep hole, so should finish tomorrow, then they have a standpipe to put in and another hole to clean out for a water monitoring installation.

For me, there's logging of the samples, another half metre diameter auger hole should go in this afternoon (I'll get a picture of that up later), and there is some surveying to do.

After that it's paperwork.

Another thing that I will try to post about later (if the photo's look good enough) is the locals on the site with the AK slinging guards, fighting over scrap tin sheets from the old fence.

It shows the level of poverty among people who are willing to go out and try to better their living conditions.

There but for the grace of God...

Homesickness

It looks like being a week Saturday before I fly out. Not good!

I don't know how other people cope with their working away. My technique is a compartmentalised mind, when I'm in one compartment, I can't see the others. It´s a bit like sitting in a cubicle in a big open office. Occasionally I hear something and stand up. then I can see the rest of my life; Patty, our home, and the little ones in it. Suddenly the cubicle is not important.

My house mates say that I'm mad for coming over here so soon after getting married. I aggree.

Time to forget about stinking sites in the third world and nerdy thoughts about gun's innards. time for some family life, before we all de-camp for Scotland. Trouble is it'll be another 10 days or so before I get home.

Just one outstanding thing from today: I found out that the young lady who has been temping here, has got herself a permenant post:

She'll be sitting in the same small room at the same office at the other end of town, that I worked in for a couple of months earlier this year.

It´s a small world. Terry Pratchet is right, there are only 40 real people in it, which is why our paths keep crossing.

Just looking forward to mine and Patty´s crossing again.

and just when everything seemed to be going well

At the weekend it looked like I was going to be finishing on time, however, I've had my second rig taken away again and it is looking like turning into a last minute rush.

My flights have been re scheduled, and it looks like next week before I fly out.

Albert, my drill supervisor is being taken away from me as well, he is going to a big over water job on the other side of Latin Africa, so we said our good byes this evening. It has been a pleasure working with him.

I've learned a lot from him, he's years past the official retiring age, and he grew up in an aparthied South Africa, classified as a "none white", so he has recounted tales of stopping at the side of a road to look at his map and having a cop appear with a tape measure, to tell him that he is being arrested for being however many centimetres inside a "whites only" area without the relevant pass.

He said a lot more about academic subjects that were not allowed to be taught to black children, the resentment of black children at having to be taught in Afrikaans, and the job descrimination and reservation based on race and enforced by law.

I Haven't met the guy who is replacing him on my site, so tomorrow should be an interesting day.

Tresspassers will be shot?

I visited another construction site in town, this morning and their security guys were walking around with some interesting toys. I signalled that I would like to take their photos and they gave the thumbs up, so here you are.

I had to visit the site again later in the day and one of the guys was working on his field stripped AK, hammering something on the gas block on the barrel, I think it was an attachment point for the forend or wooden hand guard. The thing is, he was using the magazine as a hammer.

I know Kalashnikov designed his gun to be soldier proof, but I hadn’t realized quite how well he had done it.

Part of the reason for the armed security is that the site boundary has not been fully secured yet and the site is used by street people.

The people in the adjoining slum (it is a smarter slum than the one next to my site, so perhaps "informal settlement" is a better description) have been complaining about the street people robbing them at knife point and dealing drugs.

Certainly there were signs that any shelter at all was being used as sleeping accomodation. this included scrap machinery that had been left on the site and holes in the ground.

My Security Guys weren't going to be out done.

I showed my security guys the picture of the guys with AKs, and one signalled that he would like to have his photo taken. He then reached inside his shirt and out came a rather pitted, but well boot blacked, work issue Tokarev!

I didn't know he had that!

When he posed for the photo, he was very good at not allowing the muzzle to point at anything, the hammer was down and, I don't know if it will be visable on the uploaded shot, but his finger was along side the trigger guard.

I like this guy. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at the safe gun handling and the well maintained state of the old pistol. The pitting obviously was not this man's doing.

It was a real contrast to the dry and rusty state of many of the police side arms that I've seen on display.

Help! how do you rotate a picture?