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When we last left our insipid traveler, he was in southern Japan, under the impression that he would be travelling CONUS in just a few days. Well, I’m still headed CONUS, but taking a slightly longer route to get there, primarily via Doha, where there’s some engineering thing I need to resolve. For good or ill, I’ll be making my first ‘round-the-hemisphere* trip. It would be ‘round-the-world, but I’ll be staying at mostly the same latitude and never dipping south past the equator. That excursion is still on the To-do list, but isn’t currently on the itinerary.
“Isn’t currently on the itinerary.”
It’s all subject to change. This last modification came about over the past 36 hours. We’re working with a contractor in Qatar who adopted a half complete building from the client. The main reasons it was half complete are that the original design was half-assed and would result in a structure that would blow over in the first stiff breeze, and the original contractor was about half effective in meeting scope, schedule, and quality control. My task, since I’ve decided to accept it, is to look at various holes in the ground, and the concrete that fills them, and write a report as to what I observed. It’s not particularly rocket science, but it’s simple enough that a Senior Project Manager can do it. Plus, I’ve got in my possession a very rare and difficult to secure piece of government plastic that grants me, specifically, access to the location in question.
Ultimately, my valid Common Access Card and relative proximity were the deciding factors, which is why I’m sitting in the ticketing lobby of the Fukuoka International Airport waiting for the Asiana counter to staff up. It’s about 1400 now, and the flight‘s not until 1925, so I’ve got some time to waste, either on this side of the immigration folks or the other. After I write this, I’ll find a noodle shop and order something off the picture menu that looks like it doesn’t have too many tentacles, then secure a boarding pass to Korea.
Until this week, the furthest west I’d ever been was Oregon, and the furthest east was Afghanistan. Although my flight to Doha stops in Incheon, I hesitate in counting landing at an airport as actually being in the country. Someday, I’m sure the Company will send me to work in Viet Nam or India, so I’ll wait until then to say I’ve been around the world. This trip will have to maintain an asterisk. As for south of the equator, we have continuous work on Guam, so I may get one of those projects eventually. There was some talk this week as well about me covering for our project manager on Chuuk when he finally decides to take some PTO. For now, though, Fukuoka to Incheon to Doha to Frankfort to Chicago to Moline. Another five days and 12,000 miles and I’ll be home.
I’m just glad I had the hotel do my laundry yesterday.
In reflection, Japan certainly holds a top ten slot on the “Nice Place to Visit, But…” list. I’m sure the Japanese like it here, but there’s just too little space for my liking it over the long term. They’ve got ways of dealing with it, fine-tuned over the centuries. They queue very well, and aren’t large, loud or stinky. Public transportation can take you most anywhere and isn’t entirely a mystery. The taxis are propane powered, have doilies on the seats and are operated by uniformed, whited gloved drivers. Cities are nicely walkable. Did I mention that most every meal included tentacles? I’ve got serious issues with tentacles. However, the Kirin girl at the ball game last night, upon serving a fresh beer, bussed my empty cup. Nice.
We had a free evening yesterday in Hiroshima, and went to see the local major league team at their fairly new stadium. Sadly, the Carp got filleted by the Swallows. The 3-1 final score doesn’t tell the story of how hapless the Carp were, but I’ll try. Their only run was in the first, when a lucky bloop hit had enough energy to clear the left field wall. From then on, it was all Swallows, outhitting 10-3 and under-erroring 0-2. Towards the end, the Carp’s third pitcher was ejected for hitting two batters in a row. He was replaced by their 6’ 8” giant, who threw little but dirtballs. Overall, it had the look of Triple A ball, but with Double A pitching and Single A hitting, all in a major league stadium.
The crowd didn’t seem to care. Although quiet into the second inning, they overcame their cultural silence and became a bit boisterous, though it seemed that their cheers were entirely supportive, leaving the general derision to myself and my mates, not that anyone could understand our English “Use the good eye, Ump!”.
And the whistling. We had to do that, too, as the Japanese don’t seem to whistle. Anyway, during the seventh inning stretch, the fans sang the team song, and then launched balloons, this being perhaps the weirdest thing I’ve seen here. We’d been warned, so for three hundred yen, we bought a four pack of long, red Carp balloons. Each had a hard disk in the open end to assist in blowing the things up to almost a meter in length and 15 centimeters in diameter. This disk also worked to weigh the nozzle down so that the balloons continued to climb until they were completely deflated, at which time they’d flutter back to earth, all 10,000 of them. I fully expected the stadium floor to look like the parking lot of a shady truck stop, but the fans bussed the balloons that fell near them, and order was again secured.
I’m sure this won’t be my last trip here.
Read More......
2012-09-21
Take the Long Way Home
When we last left our insipid traveler, he was in southern Japan, under the impression that he would be travelling CONUS in just a few days. Well, I’m still headed CONUS, but taking a slightly longer route to get there, primarily via Doha, where there’s some engineering thing I need to resolve. For good or ill, I’ll be making my first ‘round-the-hemisphere* trip. It would be ‘round-the-world, but I’ll be staying at mostly the same latitude and never dipping south past the equator. That excursion is still on the To-do list, but isn’t currently on the itinerary.
Read More......
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Japan
2012-09-15
Plans, Trains, and Automobiles
I’ve pulled all-nighters. In the time before, they were used to make sure that all of the available beer was consumed. Shortly thereafter, they were used to make up for the studying not done due to the beer consumption activities prior. In recent years, I’ve ridden all night on various endurance missions, but have spent more long and sleepless nights travelling from home to wherever (sleeping on a plane is really just being unconscious, so it doesn’t count as sleep). This trip is more of that, as you can’t fly halfway around the hemisphere and not take a mess of time to do it.
After the quick flight to O’Hare and a quicker lunch at Chili’s (not my choice), we boarded a 747 for the flight to Tokyo. I hadn’t been on one for decades, I suppose, although the novelty of being on the storied aircraft wore off as soon as I passed the stairway. Since my seat assignment wasn’t upstairs, who cares?
The international airport at Tokyo Narita is similar to every other large international airport, except that there’re more Japanese in attendance. With each successive meter we progressed away from it, things got progressively weirder. Such is the nature of Japan. We caught an earlier flight to Hiroshima, caught it barely in time, and had to be escorted through security and to the bus that would take us to the plane. On that bus was another of our crew, who was flying in through Singapore. He’d been here before, and I hoped he remembered how we figure out the final legs.
He didn’t.
The Hiroshima flight was half full, but all of the seats were assigned from front to rear, leaving the back of the plane empty, which is where I relocated once we were in the air. By this time, I’d been up for 22 hours and still couldn’t sleep, so I watched the clouds go past, and then counted golf courses once the cloud cover broke. It’s obvious how little space there is here. Cars are really small. Hotel rooms are really small. Compared to Americans, the Japanese are really small. Available land is really small, yet I could see golf course after golf course from the plane. As one disappeared from view, we’d start to pass over the next.
In Hiroshima, I pulled 10,000 Yen from an ugly teller, and got a single crisp, new bill. With each purchase thus far, the bills have been perfect, crisp and new. The coins are well circulated, from a single yen to 500 Yen, about seven bucks. The bills start at 1,000 Yen. I also got a well travelled Where’s George? Dollar as change at the base coffee shop, but won’t release it until I’m back CONUS.
Approaching the 24 hour point in any trip my wits are flagging, yet most critical. If I can’t wrap my sleep deprived noggin around the logistics, I’ll end up on some disputed island in the Sea of Japan, instead of in my cozy business hotel room. So very carefully, my crisp 10,000 Yen note went into the bus fare vending machine and not the soda and beer vending machine right next to it, or was it a bento box fish and rice vending machine? I can’t remember.
The further away from Tokyo you get, the less English you’ll encounter, be it people who can speak the language or dual language signage, so selecting the right bus could be stressful. However, if you can mostly pronounce the destination to a local, it all works out in the end, and we found ourselves still at Hiroshima, but 40 minutes away at the train station. There, we had our choices between trains and train lines, ticket tellers or ticket vending machines, and three levels of trains, one of which might take us to Iwakuni at 100 miles per hour or in the complete opposite direction at the same velocity. In retrospect, we should have taken the local train instead of the bullet train, as it would have brought us to the station a two minute walk from our hotel, instead of the station a twenty minute cab ride away from the hotel. The train was cool, though.
Anyway, I made it alive and unscathed and in bed in only 27 hours, ready to face whatever arises, for example, the really small hotel room, and the really, really small bathroom in the really small hotel room.
The first thing you notice is the electro-mechanical toilet.
Pause.
The next is the faucet on the sink, which is long and moveable, like the one in your kitchen. This is so that it can be swung over to fill the bathtub. The shower wand also runs off of the sink tap, so there’s just one set of controls. The tub is almost as deep as it is long, and it’s not much long to start. The room is efficient, compact and serviceable, and included a cool Japanese robe and slippers, the better to wear while heading downstairs for a steam.
We went to dinner last night, to a place that was a Korean-bred fusion of a fondue joint and a grill your own steak place. Shoeless and crammed around a low table, we ordered the Full Satisfaction Meal. This provided us with as much beer as we could consume and as much meat as we could cram down our collective gullets in 90 minutes.
Immediately, charcoal braziers were dropped into holes built into the table. Seconds later, we were surrounded by beer. Just after that, small plates of meat arrived – various cuts of beef, chicken and seafood. Our job was to grill the food and eat the food, drink the beer and order more beer, and continue this process for an hour and a half, at which time we’d be served a small bowl of ice cream, signifying the effort’s completion. There was salad, too, if I recall, but the bowls of kimchee, cabbage, and greens were lost in the flurry of carnivoracity.
Most of the dining here is more sedate. There’s plenty of rice and noodles, of course, and some thick brown curries. Breakfasts have been at the hotel buffet, where they’ll have eggs in some shape, rice, noodles, fish, curry, fermented soybeans, orange juice and coffee. Lunches we have on base at the food court, where I stop at the local place for Asian food, while the bulk of my crew eats at KFC, Subway, or Taco Bell. I don’t understand it, but that’s what they do. My first dinner in Japan was from the local 7-11, including some hot skewers of meat and a bento box of buckwheat noodles.
Surprisingly, it’s not all sushi, so I think I’ll survive the trip.
I’ll survive as long as I don’t go drinking with the client’s project manager every night, which I’d guess can easily get out of control. Recognizing this, I limited myself to three beers, a couple of shots of sake, and two songs at the karaoke bar. Seriously, what trip to Japan would be complete without participating in awful karaoke? At this particular location (and I don’t know why the others would be much different), a small wireless device was used to search the catalog, find a song and reserve a place in line, After that, the entire process was automated, so there was no need for an imaginary cape-wearing DJ. I chose a transportation themed tune by the Monkeys for my first outing, saving for my final number a dusty NOFX classic, “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock” (…when in Minnesota and you’ve got a drinking quota).
Immediately thereafter, we were presented with our bill. Coincidence? Hard to say.
The colors here are brighter on most things manmade, and big eyed cartoon imagery is everywhere; on clothing, billboards, television, and product packaging to name a few. Meanwhile, since roads are narrow and speeds are low, construction lanes closures are oftentimes delineated with a barrier of 2” pipe. At one local worksite, the pipe was supported by 30” big eyed, green plastic frogs at eight foot centers, each featuring a word balloon that says, “Sorry!” Our orange cones at home seem so impersonal by comparison.
Weirdest thing so far: this is work in the First World. How novel is that?
Next weirdest, Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni is an enduring base, and I see spouses and kids all over the place. On Saturday, the local Boy Scout troop was tramping about in their uniforms. We pass the elementary school and commissary on our way to the borrowed conference room, the community room of one of the family housing mid-rises. On base there are playgrounds, a skatepark and a bouncy bounce. It’s completely at odds with past experience.
Third weirdest, the local Hiroshima ball club are the Carp. I need to find a T-shirt.
Read More......
After the quick flight to O’Hare and a quicker lunch at Chili’s (not my choice), we boarded a 747 for the flight to Tokyo. I hadn’t been on one for decades, I suppose, although the novelty of being on the storied aircraft wore off as soon as I passed the stairway. Since my seat assignment wasn’t upstairs, who cares?
The international airport at Tokyo Narita is similar to every other large international airport, except that there’re more Japanese in attendance. With each successive meter we progressed away from it, things got progressively weirder. Such is the nature of Japan. We caught an earlier flight to Hiroshima, caught it barely in time, and had to be escorted through security and to the bus that would take us to the plane. On that bus was another of our crew, who was flying in through Singapore. He’d been here before, and I hoped he remembered how we figure out the final legs.
He didn’t.
The Hiroshima flight was half full, but all of the seats were assigned from front to rear, leaving the back of the plane empty, which is where I relocated once we were in the air. By this time, I’d been up for 22 hours and still couldn’t sleep, so I watched the clouds go past, and then counted golf courses once the cloud cover broke. It’s obvious how little space there is here. Cars are really small. Hotel rooms are really small. Compared to Americans, the Japanese are really small. Available land is really small, yet I could see golf course after golf course from the plane. As one disappeared from view, we’d start to pass over the next.
In Hiroshima, I pulled 10,000 Yen from an ugly teller, and got a single crisp, new bill. With each purchase thus far, the bills have been perfect, crisp and new. The coins are well circulated, from a single yen to 500 Yen, about seven bucks. The bills start at 1,000 Yen. I also got a well travelled Where’s George? Dollar as change at the base coffee shop, but won’t release it until I’m back CONUS.
Approaching the 24 hour point in any trip my wits are flagging, yet most critical. If I can’t wrap my sleep deprived noggin around the logistics, I’ll end up on some disputed island in the Sea of Japan, instead of in my cozy business hotel room. So very carefully, my crisp 10,000 Yen note went into the bus fare vending machine and not the soda and beer vending machine right next to it, or was it a bento box fish and rice vending machine? I can’t remember.
The further away from Tokyo you get, the less English you’ll encounter, be it people who can speak the language or dual language signage, so selecting the right bus could be stressful. However, if you can mostly pronounce the destination to a local, it all works out in the end, and we found ourselves still at Hiroshima, but 40 minutes away at the train station. There, we had our choices between trains and train lines, ticket tellers or ticket vending machines, and three levels of trains, one of which might take us to Iwakuni at 100 miles per hour or in the complete opposite direction at the same velocity. In retrospect, we should have taken the local train instead of the bullet train, as it would have brought us to the station a two minute walk from our hotel, instead of the station a twenty minute cab ride away from the hotel. The train was cool, though.
Anyway, I made it alive and unscathed and in bed in only 27 hours, ready to face whatever arises, for example, the really small hotel room, and the really, really small bathroom in the really small hotel room.
The first thing you notice is the electro-mechanical toilet.
Pause.
The next is the faucet on the sink, which is long and moveable, like the one in your kitchen. This is so that it can be swung over to fill the bathtub. The shower wand also runs off of the sink tap, so there’s just one set of controls. The tub is almost as deep as it is long, and it’s not much long to start. The room is efficient, compact and serviceable, and included a cool Japanese robe and slippers, the better to wear while heading downstairs for a steam.
We went to dinner last night, to a place that was a Korean-bred fusion of a fondue joint and a grill your own steak place. Shoeless and crammed around a low table, we ordered the Full Satisfaction Meal. This provided us with as much beer as we could consume and as much meat as we could cram down our collective gullets in 90 minutes.
Immediately, charcoal braziers were dropped into holes built into the table. Seconds later, we were surrounded by beer. Just after that, small plates of meat arrived – various cuts of beef, chicken and seafood. Our job was to grill the food and eat the food, drink the beer and order more beer, and continue this process for an hour and a half, at which time we’d be served a small bowl of ice cream, signifying the effort’s completion. There was salad, too, if I recall, but the bowls of kimchee, cabbage, and greens were lost in the flurry of carnivoracity.
Most of the dining here is more sedate. There’s plenty of rice and noodles, of course, and some thick brown curries. Breakfasts have been at the hotel buffet, where they’ll have eggs in some shape, rice, noodles, fish, curry, fermented soybeans, orange juice and coffee. Lunches we have on base at the food court, where I stop at the local place for Asian food, while the bulk of my crew eats at KFC, Subway, or Taco Bell. I don’t understand it, but that’s what they do. My first dinner in Japan was from the local 7-11, including some hot skewers of meat and a bento box of buckwheat noodles.
Surprisingly, it’s not all sushi, so I think I’ll survive the trip.
I’ll survive as long as I don’t go drinking with the client’s project manager every night, which I’d guess can easily get out of control. Recognizing this, I limited myself to three beers, a couple of shots of sake, and two songs at the karaoke bar. Seriously, what trip to Japan would be complete without participating in awful karaoke? At this particular location (and I don’t know why the others would be much different), a small wireless device was used to search the catalog, find a song and reserve a place in line, After that, the entire process was automated, so there was no need for an imaginary cape-wearing DJ. I chose a transportation themed tune by the Monkeys for my first outing, saving for my final number a dusty NOFX classic, “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock” (…when in Minnesota and you’ve got a drinking quota).
Immediately thereafter, we were presented with our bill. Coincidence? Hard to say.
The colors here are brighter on most things manmade, and big eyed cartoon imagery is everywhere; on clothing, billboards, television, and product packaging to name a few. Meanwhile, since roads are narrow and speeds are low, construction lanes closures are oftentimes delineated with a barrier of 2” pipe. At one local worksite, the pipe was supported by 30” big eyed, green plastic frogs at eight foot centers, each featuring a word balloon that says, “Sorry!” Our orange cones at home seem so impersonal by comparison.
Weirdest thing so far: this is work in the First World. How novel is that?
Next weirdest, Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni is an enduring base, and I see spouses and kids all over the place. On Saturday, the local Boy Scout troop was tramping about in their uniforms. We pass the elementary school and commissary on our way to the borrowed conference room, the community room of one of the family housing mid-rises. On base there are playgrounds, a skatepark and a bouncy bounce. It’s completely at odds with past experience.
Third weirdest, the local Hiroshima ball club are the Carp. I need to find a T-shirt.
Read More......
2012-06-09
Taxi
I hear what could be a singer down the hall and through the paper-thin walls of my room at the Sheraton. I think he brought his ukulele. I need thicker walls.
This story begins at the airport, where I arrived via Addis Ababa with nine others on a mission that only required four. Be that as it may, there were ten of us at this rinky dink third world airfield, thoroughly jet lagged before noon, and with the uniform thought of finding our hotel. Rental cars would have been an annoyance to manage, so we’re spending this week at the merci of hapless Djiboutian cabbies and their haplesser Djiboutian cabs.
We started a simple game early on, rating the cabs on the newly minted Djiboutian Taxi Scale. It’s the usual one to ten thing, but based on the notion that the best of all possible Djiboutian cabs is worse than the most beat up wreck you’ve ever driver. We didn’t really know what would be up or down limit on this scale, but we tried to be fair in our rating.
The average cab, a four point five, is a green over white Toyota Mark II. [They look to be seventh generation, which would make them between 16 and 20 years old.] Typically, the average cab has a manual transmission, three out of four cylinders in constant operation, no less than two windows uncracked and operational, peeled vinyl seats, and mostly working interior door handles. This is average, and average gets you anywhere in town for 1,000 – 2,000 Djiboutian Francs (six to twelve bucks), depending on the distance and regardless of the number of passengers you can cram into the thing.
The best thing about them is that they can’t go very fast on less than all cylinders, so any crash would be at a survivable rate of speed. The worst thing about them (and this is true around the world) is that if the radio/stereo works, the driver will crank American Pop/Country tunes through broken and tinny speakers, hoping to make us feel at home. Fortunately, working sound systems only occur on cabs rated five or better.
The variations of the bottom half of the class seem endless, depending on how battered the particular machine happens to be, and includes an assortment of these:
• Cracked windshield - where the crack grows during the ride
• Smashed windshields - with the apparent impact point directly in front of the front seat passenger’s head
• Inoperable window controls - nice when it’s 110^ outside
• Nonexistent windows - improves the overall dust to passenger ratio
• Lack of window trim at the door frame - leaving exposed and jagged metal right where your arm wants to rest
• Worn, cracked, and sagging seats - for added comfort
• Seat covers, dash covers, and package shelf covers in a variety of artificial and authentic animal skins - perhaps it’s roadkill
• Air conditioning (not hardly, just checking to see if you were still with me)
• Trash - it’s ubiquitous
• Generally decrepit bodywork - it’s expected
• Brush applied paint - it’s obvious
• Left or right drive - gives the left front seated passenger the added responsibility for checking traffic during passing
• Bald tires - but they don’t need wet traction
• Wobbly wheels - might fall off
• Rattling and inconsistent brakes - scary
• Spoilers with LED effects - tres cool
• Bad stereos, blown speakers, and amplified ululation - for appropriate theme music
In general, an automatic transmission is worth an extra point, although power windows are typically worth one less point, due to the fact that they never work. Most of the front seat belts seem to latch, but if they hold up in a crash is still a mystery I don’t need to solve.
Operator condition is another factor relating to the overall quality of the ride. Our ability to communicate in their mix of Somali, Patois, French, and a smattering of English (mix and match) is a hurdle, although we have usually made it to our various destinations on the first attempt.
In the afternoon, most of our drivers have a mouth full of green teeth brought on by the khat chewing they’ve been doing since their lunchtime siesta. Mid afternoon seems a good time to catch them, as they are well past the manic needy stage they’d feel before they start using and are on the mellow, downward side of their daily high. Those hopped up on khat are a little less attentive than in the morning, but still try to pass everything else on the road, which is sort of funny if they’re driving a cab rated two or three, foot to the floor, and riding the clutch so they don’t overburden the motor.
Once I’ve taken the same cab twice. Once I’ve taken the same cab thrice. In each case, I’m sure the condition got worse between trips.
Fridays here are like Sundays in the States, if the States were desolate, trashed out desert cities. Our driver that morning seemed to enjoy the totally empty streets and put his particular Mark II (a solid 7) through its paces, pedal to metal on the straights and using the entire roadway for the corners. Now, long ago, Dad told me that the first thing I need to do when travelling to a foreign place is to learn the phrase “you’re going too fast” in the local language. Sometime, though, the thrill is just what I need to set me up for the day, so we let him drive on unencumbered reaching speeds of 30, 35, and even 40 miles per hour.
It was intense.
The other night, we took cabs rated 2 to 6 downtown to find a locally renown Lebanese place. We found it next to the darkened windows of a snooty looking French place and hustled our group upstairs and into the dining room. After some chaos, we found that it was in fact the French place after all, and that it was the Lebanese place that closed, only to be occupied by the French place.
Dang.
And the food was horrible, by the way, and not just because it was French, but because it was horrible French. We drank them out of Tuskers, too, and the lack of additional bottles didn’t add to the experience.
It was dark when we left the place, and worked our way from the side street back to the square, past the ranks of higglers, beggers, and con artists. With ten of us, we needed three cabs, so I started scanning the square as we approached. Then, just to the right, I saw a pale green glow that seemed to both soften and brighten as I started to focus. Once within ten meters, I knew it was a very special taxi.
Typically this week, I’ve taken on the role of Team Logistics, which includes goat roping, security coordination, cat wrangling, schedule conflict resolution, nose counting and the development of cab assignments. In the latter-est, I first ascertain who has local currency, and then place people into taxis. It’s not real hard, but (I swear) these engineers are idiots sometimes and can’t figure out how to enter a taxi without someone telling them to get into a taxi (sheesh).
Usually, I’m in the last cab, because I want to be sure that everyone is accommodated, but not this time. I quickly arranged for the others, gave seating and payment assignments and practically ran to this extraordinary machine.
As I ran my hand lightly over the highly polished quarter panel, I was drawn to the pristine white vinyl seat covers. The underbody had LED effects, as did the spoiler, with a LED ring around the end of the tailpipe. The wheel had stark white wheel covers and matching mud flaps. The rear door opened without a creak, and clicked shut solidly. It was tidy, it was clean, it had a battery operated closet light mounted on the headliner. It had dingleballs and a little stuffed cherub glued to the dash. With automatic transmission and four working cylinders, I was sure that this was it, the elusive Ten, and the Brandi he played had never been so loudly (or most distortedly) amplified.
Minutes later, we were back at our hotel and the ride had ended, with only the memory of his illuminated ornamental hood bird to sustain me.
Read More......
This story begins at the airport, where I arrived via Addis Ababa with nine others on a mission that only required four. Be that as it may, there were ten of us at this rinky dink third world airfield, thoroughly jet lagged before noon, and with the uniform thought of finding our hotel. Rental cars would have been an annoyance to manage, so we’re spending this week at the merci of hapless Djiboutian cabbies and their haplesser Djiboutian cabs.
We started a simple game early on, rating the cabs on the newly minted Djiboutian Taxi Scale. It’s the usual one to ten thing, but based on the notion that the best of all possible Djiboutian cabs is worse than the most beat up wreck you’ve ever driver. We didn’t really know what would be up or down limit on this scale, but we tried to be fair in our rating.
The average cab, a four point five, is a green over white Toyota Mark II. [They look to be seventh generation, which would make them between 16 and 20 years old.] Typically, the average cab has a manual transmission, three out of four cylinders in constant operation, no less than two windows uncracked and operational, peeled vinyl seats, and mostly working interior door handles. This is average, and average gets you anywhere in town for 1,000 – 2,000 Djiboutian Francs (six to twelve bucks), depending on the distance and regardless of the number of passengers you can cram into the thing.
The best thing about them is that they can’t go very fast on less than all cylinders, so any crash would be at a survivable rate of speed. The worst thing about them (and this is true around the world) is that if the radio/stereo works, the driver will crank American Pop/Country tunes through broken and tinny speakers, hoping to make us feel at home. Fortunately, working sound systems only occur on cabs rated five or better.
The variations of the bottom half of the class seem endless, depending on how battered the particular machine happens to be, and includes an assortment of these:
• Cracked windshield - where the crack grows during the ride
• Smashed windshields - with the apparent impact point directly in front of the front seat passenger’s head
• Inoperable window controls - nice when it’s 110^ outside
• Nonexistent windows - improves the overall dust to passenger ratio
• Lack of window trim at the door frame - leaving exposed and jagged metal right where your arm wants to rest
• Worn, cracked, and sagging seats - for added comfort
• Seat covers, dash covers, and package shelf covers in a variety of artificial and authentic animal skins - perhaps it’s roadkill
• Air conditioning (not hardly, just checking to see if you were still with me)
• Trash - it’s ubiquitous
• Generally decrepit bodywork - it’s expected
• Brush applied paint - it’s obvious
• Left or right drive - gives the left front seated passenger the added responsibility for checking traffic during passing
• Bald tires - but they don’t need wet traction
• Wobbly wheels - might fall off
• Rattling and inconsistent brakes - scary
• Spoilers with LED effects - tres cool
• Bad stereos, blown speakers, and amplified ululation - for appropriate theme music
In general, an automatic transmission is worth an extra point, although power windows are typically worth one less point, due to the fact that they never work. Most of the front seat belts seem to latch, but if they hold up in a crash is still a mystery I don’t need to solve.
Operator condition is another factor relating to the overall quality of the ride. Our ability to communicate in their mix of Somali, Patois, French, and a smattering of English (mix and match) is a hurdle, although we have usually made it to our various destinations on the first attempt.
In the afternoon, most of our drivers have a mouth full of green teeth brought on by the khat chewing they’ve been doing since their lunchtime siesta. Mid afternoon seems a good time to catch them, as they are well past the manic needy stage they’d feel before they start using and are on the mellow, downward side of their daily high. Those hopped up on khat are a little less attentive than in the morning, but still try to pass everything else on the road, which is sort of funny if they’re driving a cab rated two or three, foot to the floor, and riding the clutch so they don’t overburden the motor.
Once I’ve taken the same cab twice. Once I’ve taken the same cab thrice. In each case, I’m sure the condition got worse between trips.
Fridays here are like Sundays in the States, if the States were desolate, trashed out desert cities. Our driver that morning seemed to enjoy the totally empty streets and put his particular Mark II (a solid 7) through its paces, pedal to metal on the straights and using the entire roadway for the corners. Now, long ago, Dad told me that the first thing I need to do when travelling to a foreign place is to learn the phrase “you’re going too fast” in the local language. Sometime, though, the thrill is just what I need to set me up for the day, so we let him drive on unencumbered reaching speeds of 30, 35, and even 40 miles per hour.
It was intense.
The other night, we took cabs rated 2 to 6 downtown to find a locally renown Lebanese place. We found it next to the darkened windows of a snooty looking French place and hustled our group upstairs and into the dining room. After some chaos, we found that it was in fact the French place after all, and that it was the Lebanese place that closed, only to be occupied by the French place.
Dang.
And the food was horrible, by the way, and not just because it was French, but because it was horrible French. We drank them out of Tuskers, too, and the lack of additional bottles didn’t add to the experience.
It was dark when we left the place, and worked our way from the side street back to the square, past the ranks of higglers, beggers, and con artists. With ten of us, we needed three cabs, so I started scanning the square as we approached. Then, just to the right, I saw a pale green glow that seemed to both soften and brighten as I started to focus. Once within ten meters, I knew it was a very special taxi.
Typically this week, I’ve taken on the role of Team Logistics, which includes goat roping, security coordination, cat wrangling, schedule conflict resolution, nose counting and the development of cab assignments. In the latter-est, I first ascertain who has local currency, and then place people into taxis. It’s not real hard, but (I swear) these engineers are idiots sometimes and can’t figure out how to enter a taxi without someone telling them to get into a taxi (sheesh).
Usually, I’m in the last cab, because I want to be sure that everyone is accommodated, but not this time. I quickly arranged for the others, gave seating and payment assignments and practically ran to this extraordinary machine.
As I ran my hand lightly over the highly polished quarter panel, I was drawn to the pristine white vinyl seat covers. The underbody had LED effects, as did the spoiler, with a LED ring around the end of the tailpipe. The wheel had stark white wheel covers and matching mud flaps. The rear door opened without a creak, and clicked shut solidly. It was tidy, it was clean, it had a battery operated closet light mounted on the headliner. It had dingleballs and a little stuffed cherub glued to the dash. With automatic transmission and four working cylinders, I was sure that this was it, the elusive Ten, and the Brandi he played had never been so loudly (or most distortedly) amplified.
Minutes later, we were back at our hotel and the ride had ended, with only the memory of his illuminated ornamental hood bird to sustain me.
Read More......
Labels:
Djibouti,
Transportation
2012-04-24
Ants Shufflin'
This has been one of those field trips where someone eventually says, “You know, working twelve hours shifts is still just putting in half a day”, and the mild humor is acknowledged and everyone gets back to task.
What a week is been. Well, more than a week, but the contract did say eight days, so twelve should just about do it. Once we fly, though, I’ll get home and then it’ll be fourteen more days of beating on other people to produce, so I get a break from the self flagellation, and my domestic team gets to feel the sharp sting of my performance enhancing doughnuts.
[Mmmmm, flagellating doughnuts.]
The work this time is sort of confidential, so I won’t dwell on the details. Needless to write, it does involve lots of fully automatic weapons, an evil plot to take over the world and a hollowed out volcano. But that’s all I’m saying about that.
Meanwhile, back at our temporary digs in the 12,000 square foot villa,…
No shit. It’s huge, with seven bedroom suites, nine bathrooms, servants quarters, and a kitchen that could feed 200. It’s a Company place located immediately adjacent to the office, which is in a villa exactly the same, but the mirror image, and the office villa is full of cubicals. The office still has the nine bathrooms and monster kitchen. In the office kitchen, by the way, the Egyptian nationals on our staff have to wait to cook their lunch until after the Indians have cooked theirs, otherwise, the spices clash too much for anyone’s taste.
In the residence, we use the microwave, if anything, and the kettle, but that’s about the extent, as we eat most all of our meals at the restaurants within walking distance. I’d like to use the pool but, for reasons unbeknownst, we only clean the office pool, and we don’t have keys to that building.
The local restaurants are nice, but they aren’t particularly local. Mostly, we go to the Traders Hotel just down the street, or one of the upscale places at the small shopping mall next to it. At each, we get to eat outside, which is a real plus while the weather is still relatively cool. My favorite meal, though, was at a local Lebanese place in downtown Abu Dhabi where, for 20 AED, maybe five bucks, I received a plate piled high with meat shawarma, fresh flatbread, tabouli, hummus, a plate of fresh vegetables, and a Fanta. Sadly, it’s a half hour or more to get there, parking is awful, and we really don’t have the time.
Mostly, we get up at 0600, go to the office, meet with the client mid morning for a couple of hours, return to the office, leave at 1900 for supper, work until 2200. Rinse, lather, repeat. We got to the site on the second day, about 90 minutes away and pretty much in the middle of the desert. We used the LTC’s Range Rovers to move about the site (as our Galant would have been bogged down in the first little bits of sand). I think he really enjoyed getting off road, as there was no valid project reason to blast over as many sand dunes as he did, or to chase that herd of camel.
We used our “free” weekend Friday to drive to Dubai to see the sights. The tourist activity, however, was continuously tempered by the need to view these sights in the context of the fake city we’re planning to build, so most of the day was work. We saw the Burj Khalifa up close, but didn’t spend the money to take the tour. It’s really, really tall, but that’s about it.
We examined the local elevated rail, which required an 8 station train ride, and a walk through two of the region’s largest shopping malls. One had an indoor ski slope which, next to war, is about the dumbest thing I have ever seen (and I’ve met my Congressman). By and large, they were really, really big, but that’s about it. The train was very modern.
Of course, everything in the UAE is modern, as it was entirely built since the mass extraction of crude began in the latter half of the last century. There’s a sometimes fine, and sometimes monstrously large line between modern and tasteful, and this line is a blur to the local architects. Their attitude seems to be that, if it doesn’t look good when it’s done, we’ll just tear it down and build a new one. Likewise with cars – if I get a scratch on my Rolls, I’ll just trade it in on a Bentley.
This is a place like no other. The amount of wealth is staggering. Fine cars. Fine hotels. Immense construction. Everything is shiny and new, yet there is no sense that any of it is productive. It’s a vastly more consumption based economy than the States although, in the Emiratis defense, they can afford it. I get the feeling, though, that once the oil gets used up, everything will dry up with it. The first president here recognized the fleeting nature of money and constructed infrastructure. He planted and irrigated tress, built highways, and spread the wealth around to the locals. The next generation constructed large buildings and edifices. Their children, only now starting to move up into positions of responsibility, don’t seem all that responsible. You can see them at the malls, strolling about, looking bored, largely purposeless.
Once the wells are all tapped out, I suppose they can get jobs herding goats again. Once the wells are all tapped out, there won’t be power plants or desalination stations. Once the wells are tapped out, this will all be a desert again, and all of my work here over the past decade will be buried in sand.
Cool.
Until then, work follows the money, so this won’t be my last trip to this end of the world.
Uncool.
Whatever. Cats gotta eat. Ants gotta shuffle.
Here’s the Draw Your Own Analogy section of the post:
The office villa and the residential villa are separated by a high concrete wall. The wall extends around the perimeter of each villa. To get from one location to the other requires three or four steps, manipulation of heavy iron gates, and a walk of about 30 meters. I’ve recently noticed that along the sidewalk, next to the wall, is a narrow strip, devoid of dust, and populated by a steady stream of ants moving in each direction, from the yard internal to one villa to the yard internal to the other.
Read More......
What a week is been. Well, more than a week, but the contract did say eight days, so twelve should just about do it. Once we fly, though, I’ll get home and then it’ll be fourteen more days of beating on other people to produce, so I get a break from the self flagellation, and my domestic team gets to feel the sharp sting of my performance enhancing doughnuts.
[Mmmmm, flagellating doughnuts.]
The work this time is sort of confidential, so I won’t dwell on the details. Needless to write, it does involve lots of fully automatic weapons, an evil plot to take over the world and a hollowed out volcano. But that’s all I’m saying about that.
Meanwhile, back at our temporary digs in the 12,000 square foot villa,…
No shit. It’s huge, with seven bedroom suites, nine bathrooms, servants quarters, and a kitchen that could feed 200. It’s a Company place located immediately adjacent to the office, which is in a villa exactly the same, but the mirror image, and the office villa is full of cubicals. The office still has the nine bathrooms and monster kitchen. In the office kitchen, by the way, the Egyptian nationals on our staff have to wait to cook their lunch until after the Indians have cooked theirs, otherwise, the spices clash too much for anyone’s taste.
In the residence, we use the microwave, if anything, and the kettle, but that’s about the extent, as we eat most all of our meals at the restaurants within walking distance. I’d like to use the pool but, for reasons unbeknownst, we only clean the office pool, and we don’t have keys to that building.
The local restaurants are nice, but they aren’t particularly local. Mostly, we go to the Traders Hotel just down the street, or one of the upscale places at the small shopping mall next to it. At each, we get to eat outside, which is a real plus while the weather is still relatively cool. My favorite meal, though, was at a local Lebanese place in downtown Abu Dhabi where, for 20 AED, maybe five bucks, I received a plate piled high with meat shawarma, fresh flatbread, tabouli, hummus, a plate of fresh vegetables, and a Fanta. Sadly, it’s a half hour or more to get there, parking is awful, and we really don’t have the time.
Mostly, we get up at 0600, go to the office, meet with the client mid morning for a couple of hours, return to the office, leave at 1900 for supper, work until 2200. Rinse, lather, repeat. We got to the site on the second day, about 90 minutes away and pretty much in the middle of the desert. We used the LTC’s Range Rovers to move about the site (as our Galant would have been bogged down in the first little bits of sand). I think he really enjoyed getting off road, as there was no valid project reason to blast over as many sand dunes as he did, or to chase that herd of camel.
We used our “free” weekend Friday to drive to Dubai to see the sights. The tourist activity, however, was continuously tempered by the need to view these sights in the context of the fake city we’re planning to build, so most of the day was work. We saw the Burj Khalifa up close, but didn’t spend the money to take the tour. It’s really, really tall, but that’s about it.
We examined the local elevated rail, which required an 8 station train ride, and a walk through two of the region’s largest shopping malls. One had an indoor ski slope which, next to war, is about the dumbest thing I have ever seen (and I’ve met my Congressman). By and large, they were really, really big, but that’s about it. The train was very modern.
Of course, everything in the UAE is modern, as it was entirely built since the mass extraction of crude began in the latter half of the last century. There’s a sometimes fine, and sometimes monstrously large line between modern and tasteful, and this line is a blur to the local architects. Their attitude seems to be that, if it doesn’t look good when it’s done, we’ll just tear it down and build a new one. Likewise with cars – if I get a scratch on my Rolls, I’ll just trade it in on a Bentley.
This is a place like no other. The amount of wealth is staggering. Fine cars. Fine hotels. Immense construction. Everything is shiny and new, yet there is no sense that any of it is productive. It’s a vastly more consumption based economy than the States although, in the Emiratis defense, they can afford it. I get the feeling, though, that once the oil gets used up, everything will dry up with it. The first president here recognized the fleeting nature of money and constructed infrastructure. He planted and irrigated tress, built highways, and spread the wealth around to the locals. The next generation constructed large buildings and edifices. Their children, only now starting to move up into positions of responsibility, don’t seem all that responsible. You can see them at the malls, strolling about, looking bored, largely purposeless.
Once the wells are all tapped out, I suppose they can get jobs herding goats again. Once the wells are all tapped out, there won’t be power plants or desalination stations. Once the wells are tapped out, this will all be a desert again, and all of my work here over the past decade will be buried in sand.
Cool.
Until then, work follows the money, so this won’t be my last trip to this end of the world.
Uncool.
Whatever. Cats gotta eat. Ants gotta shuffle.
Here’s the Draw Your Own Analogy section of the post:
The office villa and the residential villa are separated by a high concrete wall. The wall extends around the perimeter of each villa. To get from one location to the other requires three or four steps, manipulation of heavy iron gates, and a walk of about 30 meters. I’ve recently noticed that along the sidewalk, next to the wall, is a narrow strip, devoid of dust, and populated by a steady stream of ants moving in each direction, from the yard internal to one villa to the yard internal to the other.
Read More......
Labels:
Ants,
Emirates,
Middle East
2012-01-11
Precious Tina and the Prostitute
The Liberians have recently completed their second set of “free and fair” elections since the end of their civil war, reelecting Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to her Constitutionally last term as head of state. The inauguration ceremonies are Sunday, just days away. It was a somewhat disputed election, so I’m glad to be flying this evening, just in case the losers get uppity. I doubt that will be the case, as the mood of the people seems high and preparations are in full swing.
Our CEO will be here for the festivities, as well as our VP of International. Joining them will be dignitaries and VIPs from around the world (and perhaps a few VVIPs), and they are starting to fill every hotel in town, including ours. Every morning and evening, there are new folks here, the more recent ones better dressed than those who came before. Nicer cars fill the parking lots, and the drain on the power grid must be measureable, as we just had a brief outage.
Our Mainer, Brian, knows all numbers of people in Liberia from his work in the Peace Corps in the 1960’s and through multiple subsequent visits and sabbaticals. He’s on the phone talking with locals, or having us drop him off somewhere, or getting picked up at the hotel, so it was no surprise a well dressed young woman appeared at our usual veranda dinner table. My first thought was that she was the daughter of a friend, come to pick him up, and he was taking the opportunity to introduce her to potential American contacts. That seemed true, as she said that she knew Brian because he worked in her village while in the Peace Corps. Although that was fifty years ago, and she couldn’t have been more than twenty five today, I attributed it to my lack of understanding of the patois.
Being polite expatriates, we invited her to join us and bought beers for everyone. [The local brewery, Club, makes a very nice lager, and was one of the very few factories that weren’t damaged during the war.] Shortly thereafter, a couple more of Brian’s local friends showed up, and we were introduced, but what I thought for a moment would be a large group for dinner turned smaller, as Brian left with his friends, and left Precious Tina with us.
After we completed the construction of the dam in the 1960s, the Company hadn’t returned to
the project site until a year or two after the breech, in 1993. A few of our current team were there at the time and related a story about how one of the crew, an avowed teetotaler, fell off the wagon one night and, while trying to ditch a persistent local prostitute, fell down a set of unlit stairs and broke his ankle. Due to the political situation at the time, he had to be evacuated overland to the Ivory Coast and more intensive medical care.
The main floor of the power house is full of large and small holes, just right for eating ankles. Then there are the turbine pits in which you could fall thirty feet before getting sliced into very ugly parts by what wasn’t stolen of the turbine blades. There’re no rails at all along the perimeter of the powerhouse to keep you from dropping twenty feet on to jagged rocks and water. Examining the embankments and channels forces you to scramble up and down sharp, uneven, and sometimes unstable gneiss. The trails through the bush are full of snakes, there’s malaria and yellow fever, and the Liberians drive as bad as Jamaicans. Historically, however, the biggest threat to a consultant’s safety is escaping from hookers.
That’s why, when our small group had drifted off except for three of us and Tina, and she was joined by a more obvious working girl, we remaining three quick bade them good evening and, carefully minding the stairs, hightailed it to the safety of our rooms.
Why Brian introduced us to local prostitutes is still a mystery.
Read More......
Our CEO will be here for the festivities, as well as our VP of International. Joining them will be dignitaries and VIPs from around the world (and perhaps a few VVIPs), and they are starting to fill every hotel in town, including ours. Every morning and evening, there are new folks here, the more recent ones better dressed than those who came before. Nicer cars fill the parking lots, and the drain on the power grid must be measureable, as we just had a brief outage.
Our Mainer, Brian, knows all numbers of people in Liberia from his work in the Peace Corps in the 1960’s and through multiple subsequent visits and sabbaticals. He’s on the phone talking with locals, or having us drop him off somewhere, or getting picked up at the hotel, so it was no surprise a well dressed young woman appeared at our usual veranda dinner table. My first thought was that she was the daughter of a friend, come to pick him up, and he was taking the opportunity to introduce her to potential American contacts. That seemed true, as she said that she knew Brian because he worked in her village while in the Peace Corps. Although that was fifty years ago, and she couldn’t have been more than twenty five today, I attributed it to my lack of understanding of the patois.
Being polite expatriates, we invited her to join us and bought beers for everyone. [The local brewery, Club, makes a very nice lager, and was one of the very few factories that weren’t damaged during the war.] Shortly thereafter, a couple more of Brian’s local friends showed up, and we were introduced, but what I thought for a moment would be a large group for dinner turned smaller, as Brian left with his friends, and left Precious Tina with us.
After we completed the construction of the dam in the 1960s, the Company hadn’t returned to
the project site until a year or two after the breech, in 1993. A few of our current team were there at the time and related a story about how one of the crew, an avowed teetotaler, fell off the wagon one night and, while trying to ditch a persistent local prostitute, fell down a set of unlit stairs and broke his ankle. Due to the political situation at the time, he had to be evacuated overland to the Ivory Coast and more intensive medical care.
The main floor of the power house is full of large and small holes, just right for eating ankles. Then there are the turbine pits in which you could fall thirty feet before getting sliced into very ugly parts by what wasn’t stolen of the turbine blades. There’re no rails at all along the perimeter of the powerhouse to keep you from dropping twenty feet on to jagged rocks and water. Examining the embankments and channels forces you to scramble up and down sharp, uneven, and sometimes unstable gneiss. The trails through the bush are full of snakes, there’s malaria and yellow fever, and the Liberians drive as bad as Jamaicans. Historically, however, the biggest threat to a consultant’s safety is escaping from hookers.
That’s why, when our small group had drifted off except for three of us and Tina, and she was joined by a more obvious working girl, we remaining three quick bade them good evening and, carefully minding the stairs, hightailed it to the safety of our rooms.
Why Brian introduced us to local prostitutes is still a mystery.
Read More......
Labels:
Liberia
2012-01-09
Wet Work
Few things are as powerful as water. That’s one of the reasons I like working with it. Storm sewers surcharge, culverts overtop, levees fail, and foundations scour. Heck, I can design the heck out of most any facility, but always run up against the need to economize, so the cost of a larger facility is balanced by the risk of failure (damn). For dam design, we’ll look at historic and maximum probable flood events, but no one ever designs for political instability. The original design of the dam and facilities was sound, it just couldn’t hold up to political pressures.
As a result of the circumstances of the failure, we’re also concerned that the raging draining of the impoundment scoured the material around the powerhouse, potentially undermining the foundations. So to answer this question, someone needs to look at the interface between the powerhouse foundations and the surrounding earth. A simple task, unless the interface is deep into crocodile infested and parasite filled waters. When this situation occurs, the Company looks for that special someone who will jump into shitholes all over the world, and I guess that’s a small list, since I was the only one in the water yesterday morning.
The locals assured me that the crocodiles migrate downstream during the dry season, but agreed to keep watch for them, regardless. Apparently, the fishermen amongst our labor pool regularly catch 150 pound groupers in these waters, which means there are even larger ones lurking about, but I imagine they go after much smaller fry than me. My biggest concern (besides drowning in some freak accident) was the unseen beasts, microscopic bugs that would burrow deep into my pores, resulting in an embarrassing, Alien-like, lunch spoiling scene, where the foot long, drooling parasite bursts out of my chest in an explosion of organs and viscera. Embarrassing, indeed.
So far, so good, though. As soon as I got out, I took a sponge bath in a strong bleach solution, which should have killed most of the little beasties. As a brief aside, I might have been the first naked white man seen on that rocky shore in human history. So far, I think I’ll live, as will the powerhouse foundations. To the best of my poking and prodding ability in two foot visibility waters, it looks like the foundation sits keyed into bedrock, just like it’s supposed to be.
Today, Marty and I rented a hand hewn, dugout formed from a single cotton tree trunk to examine the tailrace channel for signs of degradation and/or deposition. The boat came with a ancient Liberian captain and his mate, one of our laborers, and they would take us down to the mouth of the channel, a couple of kilometers downstream. Meanwhile, we had an angler’s depthfinder and a GPS to record the actual channel depths as we moved along.
The canoe itself was less than 20 feet long, and listed heavily to starboard. The seats were adjustable, meaning the three sticks that spanned the bottom could be moved fore and aft, depending on the cargo and passengers. The captain had the only paddle, the shaft from a two inch round stick, and the blade shaped from a small portion of a white plastic water barrel. The mate was in charge of launching, landing, and bailing, because the boat had a fairly substantial leak (what do you expect from a carved wooden boat?). The bail bucket was what’s called a tapping pail, the likes of which we had seen the day prior attached to rubber trees on a plantation that we pass on the drive in.
Except for the constant leaning to port to keep the thing level, it was a very nice way to spend a couple of hours in a rainforest. The highlight was the mouth of the channel, where it joined with the main channel of the St. Paul River. There, the waters widened markedly, to many hundreds of meters. The flow got shallow as well, but was completely still before it babbled across the layer of rock and continued down to the ocean. Around us was absolutely no sign of civilization, except four humans in a dugout canoe.
Read More......
As a result of the circumstances of the failure, we’re also concerned that the raging draining of the impoundment scoured the material around the powerhouse, potentially undermining the foundations. So to answer this question, someone needs to look at the interface between the powerhouse foundations and the surrounding earth. A simple task, unless the interface is deep into crocodile infested and parasite filled waters. When this situation occurs, the Company looks for that special someone who will jump into shitholes all over the world, and I guess that’s a small list, since I was the only one in the water yesterday morning.
The locals assured me that the crocodiles migrate downstream during the dry season, but agreed to keep watch for them, regardless. Apparently, the fishermen amongst our labor pool regularly catch 150 pound groupers in these waters, which means there are even larger ones lurking about, but I imagine they go after much smaller fry than me. My biggest concern (besides drowning in some freak accident) was the unseen beasts, microscopic bugs that would burrow deep into my pores, resulting in an embarrassing, Alien-like, lunch spoiling scene, where the foot long, drooling parasite bursts out of my chest in an explosion of organs and viscera. Embarrassing, indeed.
So far, so good, though. As soon as I got out, I took a sponge bath in a strong bleach solution, which should have killed most of the little beasties. As a brief aside, I might have been the first naked white man seen on that rocky shore in human history. So far, I think I’ll live, as will the powerhouse foundations. To the best of my poking and prodding ability in two foot visibility waters, it looks like the foundation sits keyed into bedrock, just like it’s supposed to be.
Today, Marty and I rented a hand hewn, dugout formed from a single cotton tree trunk to examine the tailrace channel for signs of degradation and/or deposition. The boat came with a ancient Liberian captain and his mate, one of our laborers, and they would take us down to the mouth of the channel, a couple of kilometers downstream. Meanwhile, we had an angler’s depthfinder and a GPS to record the actual channel depths as we moved along.
The canoe itself was less than 20 feet long, and listed heavily to starboard. The seats were adjustable, meaning the three sticks that spanned the bottom could be moved fore and aft, depending on the cargo and passengers. The captain had the only paddle, the shaft from a two inch round stick, and the blade shaped from a small portion of a white plastic water barrel. The mate was in charge of launching, landing, and bailing, because the boat had a fairly substantial leak (what do you expect from a carved wooden boat?). The bail bucket was what’s called a tapping pail, the likes of which we had seen the day prior attached to rubber trees on a plantation that we pass on the drive in.
Except for the constant leaning to port to keep the thing level, it was a very nice way to spend a couple of hours in a rainforest. The highlight was the mouth of the channel, where it joined with the main channel of the St. Paul River. There, the waters widened markedly, to many hundreds of meters. The flow got shallow as well, but was completely still before it babbled across the layer of rock and continued down to the ocean. Around us was absolutely no sign of civilization, except four humans in a dugout canoe.
Read More......
Labels:
Liberia
Existing Conditions
Although the air quality in the city leaves something to be desired, conditions improve mightily in the bush. Daily temperatures have been topping out below 90 on most days, and the humidity is tolerable, provided you never get more than a few feet from a bottle of water. The real challenge is the vertical. Although we’re only 50 feet above sea level on the floor of the power house, we need to go down two and three levels to get to the locations we’re trying to measure, and then back up again, a score or more times in a day. From the floor of the power house to the top of the intakes is about 70 feet, and then down another 100 feet to the water, scrambling down course embankments and even courser rock… then back again… and again.
The other day, I accompanied our two dirt and rock guys to the main spillway to assess conditions on that side of the current rivercourse. We made multiple trips down to the embankment toe and back up again, looking for scour holes and other signs of erosion. Throughout the excursion, we were accompanied by anywhere from three to six local men, who may have been contracted to assist us, but could just as easily had nothing better to do than watch the white guys poke at rocks.
As we moved about, we conferred and consulted, and eventually walked down to the forebay canal to ascertain what might have happened when the impoundment drained through it all at once. There was even more severe scrambling there, as the flows had removed all of the smooth surfaces from the old channel, scouring it down to clumps of the hardest rock. It’s beautiful, really, from a post-disaster mindset, but required a huge amount of climbing, all with light packs full of tools and water, lots and lots of water.
Trying to find the forebay canal was a little confusing, as the only consultant in our little group was there only once nearly twenty years ago, and the bush tends to change the looks of trails and buildings in a short amount of time. Fortunately, Liberians are a very friendly and helpful people, and an elder from the tiny village where we were stymied immediately volunteered to show us the trail to the canal, the same trail used nearly twenty years ago. When we got to the bottom, I figured that he’d head back home, but was mistaken. He kept with us throughout our conferring and consulting, and then showed us the shortcut back to the main dam.
Ultimately, it was a shorter route, but first involved heading directly away from our destination, and further downstream along the rocky and broken shore of the canal. There, our tiny group, changed shape, as our earlier group of hangers on crossed the river at the shallows and went home, but we and our elder were joined by a few more returning to their village after doing their laundry on the rocks. One of these was a girl, still a teenager, with a three month old strapped to her back and a basket of clothes balanced on her head. She led us to the shore where we headed up an almost vertical trail to the top of the bank forty feet above, where a relatively flat trail led us back to the van.
Before, after, and simultaneous to this event, we’ve been working to measure the roundness and plumb of the turbine pits. This is one of our primary tasks, and one we’ve been working on since our arrival. You see (or perhaps you don’t, because you aren’t here), there is an apparent gap between the powerhouse structures of Unit Three and Unit Four, a gap that doesn’t appear at any of the other interfaces. If the gap was caused by the great flood event, and has somehow tilted the powerhouse and turbine pit, then retrofitting Unit Four will become exceedingly difficult. By taking the appropriate measurements, we can ascertain if the turbine pit is still a true vertical cylinder. We’re hoping so, but need to make sure.
To do so, we turned carpenter, turning a big pile of hand milled 2x8’s and 1x4’s into a working platform twenty feet below the powerhouse floor founded on what’s left of the wicket gate spindles and operators. Then we built a second platform ten feet below the first, balanced on the unsalvaged vanes at the bottom of the gates. A couple of feet below that is water. There’re large holes in the center of each platform so that we can run a 20 pound plumb bob to just above the water, suspended on thin piano wire from a simple bridge we use to span the upper rim of the turbine pit. To dampen the movement of the plumb bob, we’ve suspended it in a flimsy galvanized bucket full of motor oil, which is tied to a couple of points on the pit walls. It took a day and a half to build the first one, but we should get all four finished within the five days we have before our turbine guy bugs out.
Of course, we don’t do any of this by ourselves. Our typical powerhouse crew is close to a dozen, with two or three local carpenters mixed into the labor. Over 150 were used to clear the vegetation from the main dam embankment prior to inspection. There’re usually a few more accompanying the geo-scientists as they poke around the rocks nearby. And we have our drivers, of course, and Liberian Electricity Corporation security personnel. It’s quite the entourage.
The first day we were working on site, we were also visited by another hundred locals, who would move up to the hole in groups and watch and comment for a time. It’s obvious that we’re working in the powerhouse, but it’s not clear at all why we would be cutting and assembling all of this lumber in a dank concrete pit. I think it helps, though, for at least the labor to know what we’re trying to do, so in my best Pigeon English, I simplify.
Ultimately, when we’ve centered the plumb bob, it should run down the axis of a vertical cylinder (the turbine pit). Measurements from the wire to the walls at various elevations will let us know if the pit is still true and round. If not, adding a turbine to Unit Four will be more difficult.
But I’m okay with more difficult, as long as I can enjoy the view.
Read More......
The other day, I accompanied our two dirt and rock guys to the main spillway to assess conditions on that side of the current rivercourse. We made multiple trips down to the embankment toe and back up again, looking for scour holes and other signs of erosion. Throughout the excursion, we were accompanied by anywhere from three to six local men, who may have been contracted to assist us, but could just as easily had nothing better to do than watch the white guys poke at rocks.
As we moved about, we conferred and consulted, and eventually walked down to the forebay canal to ascertain what might have happened when the impoundment drained through it all at once. There was even more severe scrambling there, as the flows had removed all of the smooth surfaces from the old channel, scouring it down to clumps of the hardest rock. It’s beautiful, really, from a post-disaster mindset, but required a huge amount of climbing, all with light packs full of tools and water, lots and lots of water.
Trying to find the forebay canal was a little confusing, as the only consultant in our little group was there only once nearly twenty years ago, and the bush tends to change the looks of trails and buildings in a short amount of time. Fortunately, Liberians are a very friendly and helpful people, and an elder from the tiny village where we were stymied immediately volunteered to show us the trail to the canal, the same trail used nearly twenty years ago. When we got to the bottom, I figured that he’d head back home, but was mistaken. He kept with us throughout our conferring and consulting, and then showed us the shortcut back to the main dam.
Ultimately, it was a shorter route, but first involved heading directly away from our destination, and further downstream along the rocky and broken shore of the canal. There, our tiny group, changed shape, as our earlier group of hangers on crossed the river at the shallows and went home, but we and our elder were joined by a few more returning to their village after doing their laundry on the rocks. One of these was a girl, still a teenager, with a three month old strapped to her back and a basket of clothes balanced on her head. She led us to the shore where we headed up an almost vertical trail to the top of the bank forty feet above, where a relatively flat trail led us back to the van.
Before, after, and simultaneous to this event, we’ve been working to measure the roundness and plumb of the turbine pits. This is one of our primary tasks, and one we’ve been working on since our arrival. You see (or perhaps you don’t, because you aren’t here), there is an apparent gap between the powerhouse structures of Unit Three and Unit Four, a gap that doesn’t appear at any of the other interfaces. If the gap was caused by the great flood event, and has somehow tilted the powerhouse and turbine pit, then retrofitting Unit Four will become exceedingly difficult. By taking the appropriate measurements, we can ascertain if the turbine pit is still a true vertical cylinder. We’re hoping so, but need to make sure.
To do so, we turned carpenter, turning a big pile of hand milled 2x8’s and 1x4’s into a working platform twenty feet below the powerhouse floor founded on what’s left of the wicket gate spindles and operators. Then we built a second platform ten feet below the first, balanced on the unsalvaged vanes at the bottom of the gates. A couple of feet below that is water. There’re large holes in the center of each platform so that we can run a 20 pound plumb bob to just above the water, suspended on thin piano wire from a simple bridge we use to span the upper rim of the turbine pit. To dampen the movement of the plumb bob, we’ve suspended it in a flimsy galvanized bucket full of motor oil, which is tied to a couple of points on the pit walls. It took a day and a half to build the first one, but we should get all four finished within the five days we have before our turbine guy bugs out.
Of course, we don’t do any of this by ourselves. Our typical powerhouse crew is close to a dozen, with two or three local carpenters mixed into the labor. Over 150 were used to clear the vegetation from the main dam embankment prior to inspection. There’re usually a few more accompanying the geo-scientists as they poke around the rocks nearby. And we have our drivers, of course, and Liberian Electricity Corporation security personnel. It’s quite the entourage.
The first day we were working on site, we were also visited by another hundred locals, who would move up to the hole in groups and watch and comment for a time. It’s obvious that we’re working in the powerhouse, but it’s not clear at all why we would be cutting and assembling all of this lumber in a dank concrete pit. I think it helps, though, for at least the labor to know what we’re trying to do, so in my best Pigeon English, I simplify.
Ultimately, when we’ve centered the plumb bob, it should run down the axis of a vertical cylinder (the turbine pit). Measurements from the wire to the walls at various elevations will let us know if the pit is still true and round. If not, adding a turbine to Unit Four will be more difficult.
But I’m okay with more difficult, as long as I can enjoy the view.
Read More......
Labels:
Liberia
2012-01-08
Mount Coffee
In 1964, the Company performed construction management services on a dam we had designed upstream of Monrovia in Liberia at a site called Mount Coffee. We originally constructed a long main dam, a forebay dam, an interconnecting channel, tailrace, intakes, powerhouse and two hydroelectric turbines to harness part of the energy tumbling down the St. Paul River. Soon thereafter, a European outfit added two more turbines in an extended power house. With four turbines in operation, the facility produced a nominal 65 megawatts of power for the next thirty years, until…
Instability in Liberia took its toll on Liberian infrastructure. As the story goes, one day in October, 1991, the dam operators were prohibited from reporting to work by one of the various factions fighting for control of the country. They weren’t there at a critical time during the rainy season to open the large tainter gates on the main dam and let the swollen river pass through. Instead, the reservoir filled to overtopping, then overtopped the dam.
What happened next must have both frightened and thrilled anyone lucky enough to witness the breech of 400 meters of earthen dam, and the immediate draining of the 30 meters of water stored behind it. The flood changed the course of the river, but also changed the course of the country, because there was no replacement facility for the power that Mt. Coffee produced, and even now, the government capacity in Monrovia is a scant 15 megawatts, barely a fourth of what they had before the failure.
At that time, the only real damage was to the forebay dam, which could be repaired without too much delay. However, the situation of the civil war didn’t allow the safety or economic conditions that were needed to have been in place for reconstruction. Instead, insult was heaped upon injury, as a very organized group of looters worked their particular form of dark magic on the power plant.
They took everything except the concrete and the tainter gates on the main dam, and some embedded parts that would be too difficult to cut up and sell for scrap. They took wires and lights and siding. They took the control room hardware and cranes and turbines. They took the motors that used to open the tainter gates, and they took the towers and transmission lines that used to convey electricity to the coast. All that remains today is an empty concrete shell, and we are working to fit a new power plant inside it, one that will generate up to 100 megawatts of power, as turbine efficiency has improved over the past half century.
But first, we need to make sure that there was no significant damage to the pieces we want to reuse. During this field exercise, we are examining the damage caused by the escaping water along the floodpath, we are examining the dam embankments for subtle signs of failure, we are making sure that the turbine pits are still round and vertical, and we’re examining the submerged portions of the powerhouse to make sure that it wasn’t scoured by the flood.
It’s great fun.
Read More......
Instability in Liberia took its toll on Liberian infrastructure. As the story goes, one day in October, 1991, the dam operators were prohibited from reporting to work by one of the various factions fighting for control of the country. They weren’t there at a critical time during the rainy season to open the large tainter gates on the main dam and let the swollen river pass through. Instead, the reservoir filled to overtopping, then overtopped the dam.
What happened next must have both frightened and thrilled anyone lucky enough to witness the breech of 400 meters of earthen dam, and the immediate draining of the 30 meters of water stored behind it. The flood changed the course of the river, but also changed the course of the country, because there was no replacement facility for the power that Mt. Coffee produced, and even now, the government capacity in Monrovia is a scant 15 megawatts, barely a fourth of what they had before the failure.
At that time, the only real damage was to the forebay dam, which could be repaired without too much delay. However, the situation of the civil war didn’t allow the safety or economic conditions that were needed to have been in place for reconstruction. Instead, insult was heaped upon injury, as a very organized group of looters worked their particular form of dark magic on the power plant.
They took everything except the concrete and the tainter gates on the main dam, and some embedded parts that would be too difficult to cut up and sell for scrap. They took wires and lights and siding. They took the control room hardware and cranes and turbines. They took the motors that used to open the tainter gates, and they took the towers and transmission lines that used to convey electricity to the coast. All that remains today is an empty concrete shell, and we are working to fit a new power plant inside it, one that will generate up to 100 megawatts of power, as turbine efficiency has improved over the past half century.
But first, we need to make sure that there was no significant damage to the pieces we want to reuse. During this field exercise, we are examining the damage caused by the escaping water along the floodpath, we are examining the dam embankments for subtle signs of failure, we are making sure that the turbine pits are still round and vertical, and we’re examining the submerged portions of the powerhouse to make sure that it wasn’t scoured by the flood.
It’s great fun.
Read More......
Labels:
Liberia
2012-01-06
Robertsfield
I couldn’t see much of the ground during our approach to the Robertsfield airport outside of Monrovia. I suppose having the window blind closed made a difference, but even when it was opened, you can’t see much from the aisle. I did eventually open the blind and leaned into the empty seat beside me to catch the view, and saw mostly haze until about a thousand meters, when the dark, grey-blue ocean faded into sight, revealing a sliver of tan beach, backed by an increasingly verdant landscape beyond.
Closer to the airfield, I could start to spot open field and rough tracks cleared through the bush, leaving stark red soil in their wake. Not a village to be seen, though, nor even a road, as Robertsfield is pretty much far from everywhere, except the chaos which comes standard in the Third World.
Immigration was a jumbled mess, but paled to the baggage claim, where the luggage from a mostly full A-300 was dropped on a belt that would fit in my living room, making it about eight times too short. Almost immediately, the ground crew started dragging bags off of the belt and adding them to a dense pile in one corner of the densely populated room. I was lucky, and had pushed myself forward enough to see my two bags enter the room, then asked a couple of local passengers to make sure they both got around to my side of the space, so a couple of other local passengers could haul retrieve them. Twenty minutes after we hit the ground, the flight from Belgium would arrive. Perhaps their bags would stay on the plane until my flight was finished with the room, but I doubt it.
Bags in hand, I waited for the other six on this team; a Canadian geologist, Chinese turbine guy from Seattle, a Mechanical from Maine, and our Geotechnical, Civil (Hydro), and Project Manager (also a Civil (Hydro)) from Minnesota. We were met by our local element who had transportation, but also, and most importantly, had permission from the Ministry of Getting Things into Liberia to get us and our things into Liberia without having to deal with Customs, and we had a mess of stuff that would slow us down through Customs - weird tools, construction supplies, survey equipment, underwater stuff, to name a few. It was enough stuff to pack an extended Econoliner, leaving just enough room to shoehorn the humans into the remaining seats for the ninety minute drive into the capital.
Our first full day here might have been my best day at work in recent memory. Up with the sun to start, then a nice breakfast on the hotel veranda overlooking the mild Atlantic surf. We had a couple of hours before we introduced the team to the client, so we split into a few smaller teamettes and drove a couple of blocks to what serves as the local Home Depot, but was actually two blocks of small and mid-sized shops crammed into a street crowded with the types of people you’d find at a Home Depot in West Africa – builders, homeowners, contractors and consultants, and women selling road food out of hammered aluminum pans and from transparent containers balanced upon their heads. It was noisy and hectic, but still relatively cool, and the street had a feeling of industry and a sense of the day’s potential.
A few miles away, down increasingly crowded streets, through various market districts, honking continually, was the client, the Liberian Electricity Corporation, behind a chain link and concertina fence. The kickoff went well. The government expressed their commitment and desire for the project to be complete as soon as possible and the consultants expressed their commitment and desire that we take the time required to get it right the first time. The first twenty minutes were softly punctuated by the rovings of a colorfully dressed woman, who ultimately brought in two trays of coffee cups, one tray of instant coffees and adjuncts, a couple of jugs of hot water, a tray of cold sodas, a tray of glasses for the sodas, two boxes of tissues, and individual plates of snacks for the sixteen of us. It filled the conference room table. Why we don’t do this in the States is beyond me.
With assurances firmly stated, we started the hour and a half trek to the project site, a drive we’ll be performing twice a day until our field work is complete. The first third of the time is just a struggle to get through Monrovia, where traffic seems worse than Cairo, but slightly better than Baghdad during the occupation (the main difference being we probably weren’t going to get blowed up).
There are more motorcycles here per car than I’ve seen anywhere. Most of them are Chinese and Indian thumpers, probably no bigger than 125-150 cc’s. Most all of them are taxis, with fares oftentimes higher than the four wheeled versions, due to the fact that they can lane split and weave through the standstill. Rarely do I see one without a passenger. Some with two passengers, one with two passengers and a baby, one with a couple of stacked plastic hampers, one with a folder mattress on the passenger’s head. I wish we had an open car. Not only could I get better pictures, but I could better hear and smell the streets. Liberia is a poor, poor place, but there is rampant economic activity throughout the city. It’s exciting.
The second third is along a section of road running up the left bank of the St. Paul River. A section being reconstructed under contract with a Chinese firm. They seem to be making progress, but are obviously slowed by the need to maintain traffic and commerce along the road. This section goes by easily, especially when compared to the final third of the trek.
The last bit is along a road that, at best, makes our little lane at home seem like an immensely wide sheet of plate glass. It’s barely as wide as the Four Runners we’ve rented, and portions are so rocky and rutted that it’s a real work out to maintain hold of the Oh Jesus Strap. At one point, we cross a bridge with a deck barely two meters wide, although it seems much narrower as we cross it.
Over the final ridge and the project comes into view, a site of nothing but potential.
Read More......
Closer to the airfield, I could start to spot open field and rough tracks cleared through the bush, leaving stark red soil in their wake. Not a village to be seen, though, nor even a road, as Robertsfield is pretty much far from everywhere, except the chaos which comes standard in the Third World.
Immigration was a jumbled mess, but paled to the baggage claim, where the luggage from a mostly full A-300 was dropped on a belt that would fit in my living room, making it about eight times too short. Almost immediately, the ground crew started dragging bags off of the belt and adding them to a dense pile in one corner of the densely populated room. I was lucky, and had pushed myself forward enough to see my two bags enter the room, then asked a couple of local passengers to make sure they both got around to my side of the space, so a couple of other local passengers could haul retrieve them. Twenty minutes after we hit the ground, the flight from Belgium would arrive. Perhaps their bags would stay on the plane until my flight was finished with the room, but I doubt it.
Bags in hand, I waited for the other six on this team; a Canadian geologist, Chinese turbine guy from Seattle, a Mechanical from Maine, and our Geotechnical, Civil (Hydro), and Project Manager (also a Civil (Hydro)) from Minnesota. We were met by our local element who had transportation, but also, and most importantly, had permission from the Ministry of Getting Things into Liberia to get us and our things into Liberia without having to deal with Customs, and we had a mess of stuff that would slow us down through Customs - weird tools, construction supplies, survey equipment, underwater stuff, to name a few. It was enough stuff to pack an extended Econoliner, leaving just enough room to shoehorn the humans into the remaining seats for the ninety minute drive into the capital.
Our first full day here might have been my best day at work in recent memory. Up with the sun to start, then a nice breakfast on the hotel veranda overlooking the mild Atlantic surf. We had a couple of hours before we introduced the team to the client, so we split into a few smaller teamettes and drove a couple of blocks to what serves as the local Home Depot, but was actually two blocks of small and mid-sized shops crammed into a street crowded with the types of people you’d find at a Home Depot in West Africa – builders, homeowners, contractors and consultants, and women selling road food out of hammered aluminum pans and from transparent containers balanced upon their heads. It was noisy and hectic, but still relatively cool, and the street had a feeling of industry and a sense of the day’s potential.
A few miles away, down increasingly crowded streets, through various market districts, honking continually, was the client, the Liberian Electricity Corporation, behind a chain link and concertina fence. The kickoff went well. The government expressed their commitment and desire for the project to be complete as soon as possible and the consultants expressed their commitment and desire that we take the time required to get it right the first time. The first twenty minutes were softly punctuated by the rovings of a colorfully dressed woman, who ultimately brought in two trays of coffee cups, one tray of instant coffees and adjuncts, a couple of jugs of hot water, a tray of cold sodas, a tray of glasses for the sodas, two boxes of tissues, and individual plates of snacks for the sixteen of us. It filled the conference room table. Why we don’t do this in the States is beyond me.
With assurances firmly stated, we started the hour and a half trek to the project site, a drive we’ll be performing twice a day until our field work is complete. The first third of the time is just a struggle to get through Monrovia, where traffic seems worse than Cairo, but slightly better than Baghdad during the occupation (the main difference being we probably weren’t going to get blowed up).
There are more motorcycles here per car than I’ve seen anywhere. Most of them are Chinese and Indian thumpers, probably no bigger than 125-150 cc’s. Most all of them are taxis, with fares oftentimes higher than the four wheeled versions, due to the fact that they can lane split and weave through the standstill. Rarely do I see one without a passenger. Some with two passengers, one with two passengers and a baby, one with a couple of stacked plastic hampers, one with a folder mattress on the passenger’s head. I wish we had an open car. Not only could I get better pictures, but I could better hear and smell the streets. Liberia is a poor, poor place, but there is rampant economic activity throughout the city. It’s exciting.
The second third is along a section of road running up the left bank of the St. Paul River. A section being reconstructed under contract with a Chinese firm. They seem to be making progress, but are obviously slowed by the need to maintain traffic and commerce along the road. This section goes by easily, especially when compared to the final third of the trek.
The last bit is along a road that, at best, makes our little lane at home seem like an immensely wide sheet of plate glass. It’s barely as wide as the Four Runners we’ve rented, and portions are so rocky and rutted that it’s a real work out to maintain hold of the Oh Jesus Strap. At one point, we cross a bridge with a deck barely two meters wide, although it seems much narrower as we cross it.
Over the final ridge and the project comes into view, a site of nothing but potential.
Read More......
Labels:
Liberia
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