Posts
Even with the project stalled, stopped on the shoulder, transmission in park, headlights dimmed, emergency brake engaged, the one working indicator flashing, bonnet raised, white rag tied to the car pole, left front tire nothing but scattered steel belts since he drove the damn thing for the last seventeen kilometers on a flat, rim destroyed, no spare, out of washer fluid, driver leaning on the fender sucking his last Marlboro down to the filter, pissed off passengers sitting on the right-of-way fence having spent the last two hours unsuccessfully trying to flag down a ride while continually deriding the jerk of an operator who swore he had a good spare in the boot, twenty-three kilometers from the nearest town, sun is going down and everybody is tired and hungry,... we are still hosting weekly progress meetings with the Contractor.
Of course, after a couple of months of idleness, there is no progress on which to report. We go through the motions, though, and the meetings give us regular opportunities to admonish what is left of the Korean project staff.
They kept a few employees here, to tidy up particularly messy areas, and to perform some remedial work. I have noticed that one of the Mr. Lees (“Bridge Lee”) is starting to look particularly shaggy, so I imagine that one of the Koreans to leave the island for home was the man who doubled as the barber. Besides Lee, there are three Indians and one more Korean, two Jamaicans in the office, and two Jamaicans as domestic help. Hardly enough to construct a seventy-one kilometer roadway project.
Not even enough to explain why they have stopped work.
Through this period, we have been trying to keep our staff busy with what little work we can invent, so that we do not have to lay them off and rehire them later. As such, they do very little, never quite completing an assigned task. To complete your work could make you redundant, so the fear of losing one’s job actually slows down the output. This is so anti-Capitalist.
Meanwhile, the government refuses to terminate the contractor. Sure, such action would be an annoyance, even politically unpopular, but I see no way that the Koreans will complete the work, even if we succumb to their ludicrous demands. Their first offer was to complete one quarter of the project length for a sum equal to the contracted amount to complete the entire project. In addition, they want immediate payment for all claims (real and imagined, documented or not) against the project equal to five times what any reasonable person could justify. Plus, they want half of this before they will even come to the negotiating table. As a result, we have a frustration surplus here of ample quantity to supply the needs of the entire Caricom.
Solution? We spent Sunday at an all-inclusive in Negril, adding shots of dark rum to the children’s drink menu while relaxing at the swim-up bar. Try the Boo Boo Special - orange juice, pineapple juice, strawberry syrup. Then add rum and a lime. Yum. Actually, I was already making these at home. Who would have thought that the pickneys would be drinking them too, sans rum and lime?
Now that you are beveraged,...
Dave has been down here for a spell. He has decided to call Jamaica the “Land of the Unfinished Concrete Shell”. And why not?
As you drive around the island, you notice numerous houses apparently under construction. Typically, the site will have been cleared, and the shell of the building will be erected and roofed. The exterior and interior walls of these houses are made of concrete block, occasionally reinforced and filled with concrete, then plastered with a cement grout. Utility services and conduits, all of thin walled PVC, are cast into the blockwork, to be sheared by any future differential settlement to which the house may someday be subjected. Once a concrete roof is in place, construction stops. The unfinished concrete shell can remain in place for years, until such time as the owner saves enough money to complete the project.
Jamaica is a poor country. Plagued by massive unemployment of the unemployable and fiscally irresponsible leadership. Any money that is available to lend is sold at usurious interest rates. To secure a mortgage when the cost of money is high and little likelihood that you will be employed next year is foolish anywhere, so Jamaicans build what they can when they can. It appears to me that the commitment to finish the project, er,.. house will not be made until the homeowner has the funds in pocket to complete the work.
If he were to come back with money enough to install just the fixtures, they would be stolen. Maybe just the windows? They would be stolen. Iron bars? Stolen. To secure the building, the homeowner must install fixtures, windows, iron bars, and whatever else is required to make the place livable, so that he can move in and guard his castle from the inside. I suppose he could hire someone to guard fixtures, windows, and iron bars, but what is to stop the guard from going halvsies with the t’iefs?
These half completed houses are everywhere. Combine them with the shells of structures abandoned after Gilbert hit in ‘88, and Dave may have stumbled across this month’s analogy. Let us beat on this dead horse and see who salutes. M’kay?
Lessee. The houses are the roadway, right? The houses are not done, and the road is not done either. In the end, nobody will care. Was it Dick Van Patton or Robert Fripp who said, “In the way that that it is that way that it is the way that it is.” Probably Fripp. This is Jamaica. Everyt’ing is everyt’ing. Analogy complete.
The glass half empty side of me agrees that nobody will care. Nobody will act.
There will be much talk, high level meetings, maybe some public demonstrations, but little direct action. To complete the project with the current contractor requires a contractor who wants to complete the project. We do not have that. They are bankrupt. Everybody knows that they are bankrupt, yet talks continue as if, somehow, the Contractor will find the capital to continue with the works. Ain’t gonna happen. At least, not that simply.
Option two - retender. This would involve finding someone else to complete the work. This would involve funding someone else to complete the work. This island will never see The Contractor’s low low crazy Earl prices again, nor can they extend their Japanese loan forever. Hence, the Jamaicans would need another boatload of cash. Ain’t gonna happen. At least, not that easily.
This road could be another unfinished concrete shell.
The glass half full guy knows that this will all change tomorrow.
Read More......
2000-06-07
2000-05-25
Entrance
ENTRANCE INSTRUCTIONS (Clip and Save)
The airport authority dudes are trying to do some work at the Sangster International Airport, so the following could change without notice. A former employee of ours, who never mastered the need to develop project documentation, is now a consultant to this work. We wish them all the best. As a further disclaimer, I do not perform this actual procedure very often, so the text below is written based upon an increasingly distant memory.
Your plane will make a sweeping left turn as it approaches the north side of the island. Along the coast, you may see the scar to the landscape which is the North Coast Highway. This is why we are here, and how you get to visit at such reduced rates. You will see the road up close during the next week or so. Be on the lookout for the project camp site where I spend my days, with its jumble of buildings, trailers, materials stockpiles and concrete plants. Wave to the cows, who spend their days obstructing traffic.
Just prior to landing, you will pass over Montego Bay. There is a large hook shaped peninsula in its midst. There may even be a cruise ship docked at the pier there. At the end of the peninsula, there are twin, ten story, concrete towers. This is Sunset Beach, one of the overabundance of all-inclusive (all-exclusive) resorts, our neighbor and, for the purposes of this treatise, just a landmark. On the other side of the road, and at the end of the street, is the complex where we live, a group of five, two and three story apartments, with shake roofs, green awnings, and a couple of swimming pools. Do not bother waving, as we will already be at the airport.
During the final approach, you will pass the Hip Strip, boasting the town’s tourist restaurants and primary beaches, and fly directly over the reef where we often dive. Look for a white, ten meter craft with a blue canvas top, and wave to Rastafari Captain Wilbert, who takes us out to the dive sites.
Twenty seconds later (give or take a few), you will be on the ground. The terminal will be to your right (as are all the sites, so get seats on that side of the plane if you can) and the sea to your left. We will probably be up in the “Waving Gallery”, atop the main terminal, sucking down a morning Red Stripe, munching on a meat patty and taking in the sites and vistas. Once we see your plane, we will mosey down to the arrival area for our next wait, and probably another beer.
A short taxi later and you should be at the terminal itself. Eventually, the airport will have a half dozen sky bridges, to connect the planes to the terminal at the same elevation, but for now, a set of steps will be wheeled up to your plane and you can make your departure in the style of the politician, waving (or tripping, if President Ford was your mental image) your way down to the tarmac. This is one of those uniquely Third World experiences, so enjoy yourself. Try not to dawdle, or stop to take pictures from here, as the people behind you are in a hurry to get to where you should be going to in a hurry as well.
Lugging your carry-on, you will follow the crowd (make cattle sounds, just for fun) to a door leading into the terminal proper. In you go, then up a set of stairs, lugging your carry-on. As you walk down the corridor, you may be serenaded by some colorfully dressed “native” singers. They are generally under appreciated, especially since you and your fellow travelers spied the beach on the approach, and are probably in a hurry to get out of the airport and get baked, by both the rum and the sun.
First stop - the Immigration Hall. HALL (hol) n. [OE. heall] 3. A large room for gatherings, exhibits, etc. And gather you will, with everyone from your plane as well as every passenger from three or four other planes which seem to have arrived at the very same time as your flight.
This I cannot understand, as much as I rack my tiny brain. At most, there is a score of international flights into Montego Bay each day, yet they all seem to land during two or three small blocks of time. The result is almost interminable delays in processing the passengers. Well, that is your problem now, and something you can ponder as you wait with the others. You can also reflect on why baggage is called luggage, interchangeably.
Hopefully, you will not share a line with the drunks or worse, the forgetful or worst, those who did not fill out their forms while on the plane. My advice is to fill them out as soon as they are distributed by the sky waitress, then store them with your other travel documents for ease in retrieval. Be honest with the immigration forms, cheat a little on the customs forms.
As you approach the official, watch the other successful travelers, and do what they do. Wait behind the yellow line until it is your turn, then smile and greet him as you present your papers. Wait patiently and answer all of his questions until such time as you get a rubber stamp with its associated flourishes, signifying the end to this official transaction. Nothing is official in Jamaica without a rubber stamp, applied with all due authority.
Welcome to Jamaica.
With traveling companions in tow, head down the steps to the baggage retrieval carrousels and find your luggage. Do not bother with a cart, as the airport is about as large as Palwaukee. Next, head to the Customs booths to the left as you face them, the ones marked “Nothing to Declare”, and wait a wee bit more with the rest of the tourists. Once you get to the front of the line, approach, smile, present, and greet the official as before. Do not joke with this woman, however, as she can delay your entry, make your life miserable, and ultimately cause you to pay exorbitant duties on everything that you have been so kind as to mule into the country for us.
She will want a completed form, including the address of where you will be staying. If she asks, “What is in the bags”, tell her, “Clothing, toiletries, and personal items”. If she persists, offer “a few small gifts for our hosts”.
The worst that can happen is that you will have to change lines and pay the appropriate duties on the new stuff (or you could spend the night in a Jamaican prison, but it is one OR the other). For this reason, pack your bags in such a way that anything for us looks used. Not to say you need to beat up the Oatmeal Cream Pies (Jah forbid!), but excess packaging should be removed from whatever is on our list. If they question the food, it might be for certain “dietary restrictions” you have. There must be someone out there who needs large cans of green chiles to survive a vacation. Why not you?
Assuming the worst (the good worst, not that Jamaican prison worst), you can pay the fines, duties, and taxes with your Visa card. Under no circumstances should you pay this fee in local currency, for to do so would require that you visit the airport cambio, or currency exchange. They give rates sometimes 10-15% lower than what you can receive on the street. The best plan for the acquisition of spending cash is to use your Visa at one of the convenient Ugly Tellers (ABM/ATM’s) or to buy local cash from me, as I can usually get a very favorable rate through a money laundering scheme that I frequent.
Once through Customs, head for the double doors to the left. When you are through them, head to the double doors to the right which lead outside. Tell anyone who asks that you have already arranged for transportation. Most tourists turn left instead after the first set of doors and to the fleets of resort busses which park in a separate area adjacent to the terminal.
Scamper out the doors to the out-of-doors. Turn to the left. We will be the white people behind the red gate.
“How was the flight? Irie?”
“To Hi Lites, then, for beer.” Read More......
The airport authority dudes are trying to do some work at the Sangster International Airport, so the following could change without notice. A former employee of ours, who never mastered the need to develop project documentation, is now a consultant to this work. We wish them all the best. As a further disclaimer, I do not perform this actual procedure very often, so the text below is written based upon an increasingly distant memory.
Your plane will make a sweeping left turn as it approaches the north side of the island. Along the coast, you may see the scar to the landscape which is the North Coast Highway. This is why we are here, and how you get to visit at such reduced rates. You will see the road up close during the next week or so. Be on the lookout for the project camp site where I spend my days, with its jumble of buildings, trailers, materials stockpiles and concrete plants. Wave to the cows, who spend their days obstructing traffic.
Just prior to landing, you will pass over Montego Bay. There is a large hook shaped peninsula in its midst. There may even be a cruise ship docked at the pier there. At the end of the peninsula, there are twin, ten story, concrete towers. This is Sunset Beach, one of the overabundance of all-inclusive (all-exclusive) resorts, our neighbor and, for the purposes of this treatise, just a landmark. On the other side of the road, and at the end of the street, is the complex where we live, a group of five, two and three story apartments, with shake roofs, green awnings, and a couple of swimming pools. Do not bother waving, as we will already be at the airport.
During the final approach, you will pass the Hip Strip, boasting the town’s tourist restaurants and primary beaches, and fly directly over the reef where we often dive. Look for a white, ten meter craft with a blue canvas top, and wave to Rastafari Captain Wilbert, who takes us out to the dive sites.
Twenty seconds later (give or take a few), you will be on the ground. The terminal will be to your right (as are all the sites, so get seats on that side of the plane if you can) and the sea to your left. We will probably be up in the “Waving Gallery”, atop the main terminal, sucking down a morning Red Stripe, munching on a meat patty and taking in the sites and vistas. Once we see your plane, we will mosey down to the arrival area for our next wait, and probably another beer.
A short taxi later and you should be at the terminal itself. Eventually, the airport will have a half dozen sky bridges, to connect the planes to the terminal at the same elevation, but for now, a set of steps will be wheeled up to your plane and you can make your departure in the style of the politician, waving (or tripping, if President Ford was your mental image) your way down to the tarmac. This is one of those uniquely Third World experiences, so enjoy yourself. Try not to dawdle, or stop to take pictures from here, as the people behind you are in a hurry to get to where you should be going to in a hurry as well.
Lugging your carry-on, you will follow the crowd (make cattle sounds, just for fun) to a door leading into the terminal proper. In you go, then up a set of stairs, lugging your carry-on. As you walk down the corridor, you may be serenaded by some colorfully dressed “native” singers. They are generally under appreciated, especially since you and your fellow travelers spied the beach on the approach, and are probably in a hurry to get out of the airport and get baked, by both the rum and the sun.
First stop - the Immigration Hall. HALL (hol) n. [OE. heall] 3. A large room for gatherings, exhibits, etc. And gather you will, with everyone from your plane as well as every passenger from three or four other planes which seem to have arrived at the very same time as your flight.
This I cannot understand, as much as I rack my tiny brain. At most, there is a score of international flights into Montego Bay each day, yet they all seem to land during two or three small blocks of time. The result is almost interminable delays in processing the passengers. Well, that is your problem now, and something you can ponder as you wait with the others. You can also reflect on why baggage is called luggage, interchangeably.
Hopefully, you will not share a line with the drunks or worse, the forgetful or worst, those who did not fill out their forms while on the plane. My advice is to fill them out as soon as they are distributed by the sky waitress, then store them with your other travel documents for ease in retrieval. Be honest with the immigration forms, cheat a little on the customs forms.
As you approach the official, watch the other successful travelers, and do what they do. Wait behind the yellow line until it is your turn, then smile and greet him as you present your papers. Wait patiently and answer all of his questions until such time as you get a rubber stamp with its associated flourishes, signifying the end to this official transaction. Nothing is official in Jamaica without a rubber stamp, applied with all due authority.
Welcome to Jamaica.
With traveling companions in tow, head down the steps to the baggage retrieval carrousels and find your luggage. Do not bother with a cart, as the airport is about as large as Palwaukee. Next, head to the Customs booths to the left as you face them, the ones marked “Nothing to Declare”, and wait a wee bit more with the rest of the tourists. Once you get to the front of the line, approach, smile, present, and greet the official as before. Do not joke with this woman, however, as she can delay your entry, make your life miserable, and ultimately cause you to pay exorbitant duties on everything that you have been so kind as to mule into the country for us.
She will want a completed form, including the address of where you will be staying. If she asks, “What is in the bags”, tell her, “Clothing, toiletries, and personal items”. If she persists, offer “a few small gifts for our hosts”.
The worst that can happen is that you will have to change lines and pay the appropriate duties on the new stuff (or you could spend the night in a Jamaican prison, but it is one OR the other). For this reason, pack your bags in such a way that anything for us looks used. Not to say you need to beat up the Oatmeal Cream Pies (Jah forbid!), but excess packaging should be removed from whatever is on our list. If they question the food, it might be for certain “dietary restrictions” you have. There must be someone out there who needs large cans of green chiles to survive a vacation. Why not you?
Assuming the worst (the good worst, not that Jamaican prison worst), you can pay the fines, duties, and taxes with your Visa card. Under no circumstances should you pay this fee in local currency, for to do so would require that you visit the airport cambio, or currency exchange. They give rates sometimes 10-15% lower than what you can receive on the street. The best plan for the acquisition of spending cash is to use your Visa at one of the convenient Ugly Tellers (ABM/ATM’s) or to buy local cash from me, as I can usually get a very favorable rate through a money laundering scheme that I frequent.
Once through Customs, head for the double doors to the left. When you are through them, head to the double doors to the right which lead outside. Tell anyone who asks that you have already arranged for transportation. Most tourists turn left instead after the first set of doors and to the fleets of resort busses which park in a separate area adjacent to the terminal.
Scamper out the doors to the out-of-doors. Turn to the left. We will be the white people behind the red gate.
“How was the flight? Irie?”
“To Hi Lites, then, for beer.” Read More......
2000-05-19
Longines
07:18 on a Tuesday.
Most of the traffic took the B8 up Long Hill Road to Anchovy and to the citrus plantations and Savannah La Mar beyond. The road is mostly empty now, and it opens up past Reading, and Don Topping starts another “Doo Wop Shopping” show on Radio Two (“your music and sports lifestyle station”). For the balance of the commute, as the tinny sounds of my underpowered radio blare the best of the Doo Woppers from decades past, I find it too easy to imagine that the music comes to me as new releases.
And the Dell-Vikings continue with their “...dum bee doo bee dum, wah wah wah waah”.
In the country, there is little to remind you of the year. Most rural buildings are of a typical zinc roofed construct, as they have been forever. Building materials have been recycled so much, I doubt if anyone really knows when that rusted roof or pitted wooden siding was first used. I suppose after the hurricane hits, you just rebuild with whatever has been blown onto your yard. Paint runs JA $250 a liter, so you do not see much of it being used. There are still a number of buildings with damage left over from Gilbert, the last hurricane. Unoccupied, they are like relics in a ghost town, or a town soon to be ghosted.
The people that I pass along the roadside, waiting for a lift or just waiting, are without period. A khaki schoolboy uniform (standard white blouse and school colored skirt for the girls) looks as modern today as it did in 1930. Even the working folks seem to be dressed out of time. The style is not quite now or then. The vendor’s pushcart has not seen a redesign in seventy years. Rasta hair is Rasta hair, whenever – dreads be dreads (or, more locally, “locks be locks”).
The road is still empty on Thursday morning, as it opens up again past Reading, and Don Topping starts another “Strike Up the Band” show on Radio Two (still “your music and sports lifestyle station”).
The Dogwagon spews thick, black, diesel fumes as it churns up the grade from Great River, and the view back across and towards Montego Bay looks exactly as it did when Ellington wrote the tune that is playing right now. From this distance, I cannot make out the individual buildings. I can only see a mass of structures trying their best to hold onto the steep slopes of the hills above town.
The road is without time. Generally constructed prior to the departure of the British and inadequately maintained, it reflects a standard long ago deemed inappropriate in the United States. No doubt, the time of construction was before the advent of excessive liability settlements, when you really did not need to have substantial clear zones, appropriate stopping sight distances, adequate guardrail, pavement marking or signage.
I share the road with the Ladas. Singularly, a car out of time. They are as abundant as the goats. Developed shortly after the development of the box, a design which appears unchanged over eons, Ladas somehow keep on going, despite the ravages of time and this highway. Old cars, old trucks, old bicycles are all cobbled together, and their owners try to get one more day out of them. Anything that looks new is an anomaly.
On this road, there is no regulatory information in the way of road furniture, and no traffic enforcement either. As such, there is a level of indiscipline and lawlessness on the highway that is reminiscent of some of the old biker flicks.
And it is not just the biker flicks, I suppose, but the total feel of this drive is like most any road film made in the fifties or sixties, and probably lots of war movies set in the Asian and Pacific theatres. With the right background music, Jamaica is a land without time. Sometimes, the high levels of dust during this current drought make the place look like it was filmed in black and white, or perhaps the Technicolor has just faded.
And I continue my commute, and try to tweak a little more thunder out of the Woody Herman tune.
A few weeks ago, I borrowed a friend's copy of the first 007 movie, Dr. No. The major part of it was filmed on the island in 19-long ago, as were many of the early Bonds. It seems that it could have been filmed here yesterday; so much looks and feels the same.
Jamaica has only been independent since 1962, and there is a strong colonial influence which remains here. As the wealthy foreigners, we are easily isolated from the daily life and scrapping existence of everyday Jamaicans. We spend our money at places too posh for the vast majority of the people who live here, and then we lock ourselves into our gated compounds at night, secure in the fact that the guards at the gate will keep the undesirables at bay..... just like it has always been.
Saturday morning, and Radio Two plays a mix of Motown and Disco. I can tell that today is going to be one of those get down boogie fever kind of days.
We play tennis on most weekends now, in a round robin format that, reduced of competition, is much more civilized. An ideal sport for the expatriate crowd. Tennis whites, gin and tonics, huzzahs all around, sophisticated humours with the embassy crowd. Well, not quite, but there is that air about the activity. Expatriates have been playing tennis here forever.
Despite the civility, it is still tennis in the Tropics, and the final game stalled on deuce for a quarter hour it seems, and I am hot and tired and leave a trail of sweat all the way home, where I crank the most recent Filter, brought back from the States the last time I was there.
And I look at my watch in that brief instance when the second hand is between ticks, and time has stopped altogether. Read More......
Most of the traffic took the B8 up Long Hill Road to Anchovy and to the citrus plantations and Savannah La Mar beyond. The road is mostly empty now, and it opens up past Reading, and Don Topping starts another “Doo Wop Shopping” show on Radio Two (“your music and sports lifestyle station”). For the balance of the commute, as the tinny sounds of my underpowered radio blare the best of the Doo Woppers from decades past, I find it too easy to imagine that the music comes to me as new releases.
And the Dell-Vikings continue with their “...dum bee doo bee dum, wah wah wah waah”.
In the country, there is little to remind you of the year. Most rural buildings are of a typical zinc roofed construct, as they have been forever. Building materials have been recycled so much, I doubt if anyone really knows when that rusted roof or pitted wooden siding was first used. I suppose after the hurricane hits, you just rebuild with whatever has been blown onto your yard. Paint runs JA $250 a liter, so you do not see much of it being used. There are still a number of buildings with damage left over from Gilbert, the last hurricane. Unoccupied, they are like relics in a ghost town, or a town soon to be ghosted.
The people that I pass along the roadside, waiting for a lift or just waiting, are without period. A khaki schoolboy uniform (standard white blouse and school colored skirt for the girls) looks as modern today as it did in 1930. Even the working folks seem to be dressed out of time. The style is not quite now or then. The vendor’s pushcart has not seen a redesign in seventy years. Rasta hair is Rasta hair, whenever – dreads be dreads (or, more locally, “locks be locks”).
The road is still empty on Thursday morning, as it opens up again past Reading, and Don Topping starts another “Strike Up the Band” show on Radio Two (still “your music and sports lifestyle station”).
The Dogwagon spews thick, black, diesel fumes as it churns up the grade from Great River, and the view back across and towards Montego Bay looks exactly as it did when Ellington wrote the tune that is playing right now. From this distance, I cannot make out the individual buildings. I can only see a mass of structures trying their best to hold onto the steep slopes of the hills above town.
The road is without time. Generally constructed prior to the departure of the British and inadequately maintained, it reflects a standard long ago deemed inappropriate in the United States. No doubt, the time of construction was before the advent of excessive liability settlements, when you really did not need to have substantial clear zones, appropriate stopping sight distances, adequate guardrail, pavement marking or signage.
I share the road with the Ladas. Singularly, a car out of time. They are as abundant as the goats. Developed shortly after the development of the box, a design which appears unchanged over eons, Ladas somehow keep on going, despite the ravages of time and this highway. Old cars, old trucks, old bicycles are all cobbled together, and their owners try to get one more day out of them. Anything that looks new is an anomaly.
On this road, there is no regulatory information in the way of road furniture, and no traffic enforcement either. As such, there is a level of indiscipline and lawlessness on the highway that is reminiscent of some of the old biker flicks.
And it is not just the biker flicks, I suppose, but the total feel of this drive is like most any road film made in the fifties or sixties, and probably lots of war movies set in the Asian and Pacific theatres. With the right background music, Jamaica is a land without time. Sometimes, the high levels of dust during this current drought make the place look like it was filmed in black and white, or perhaps the Technicolor has just faded.
And I continue my commute, and try to tweak a little more thunder out of the Woody Herman tune.
A few weeks ago, I borrowed a friend's copy of the first 007 movie, Dr. No. The major part of it was filmed on the island in 19-long ago, as were many of the early Bonds. It seems that it could have been filmed here yesterday; so much looks and feels the same.
Jamaica has only been independent since 1962, and there is a strong colonial influence which remains here. As the wealthy foreigners, we are easily isolated from the daily life and scrapping existence of everyday Jamaicans. We spend our money at places too posh for the vast majority of the people who live here, and then we lock ourselves into our gated compounds at night, secure in the fact that the guards at the gate will keep the undesirables at bay..... just like it has always been.
Saturday morning, and Radio Two plays a mix of Motown and Disco. I can tell that today is going to be one of those get down boogie fever kind of days.
We play tennis on most weekends now, in a round robin format that, reduced of competition, is much more civilized. An ideal sport for the expatriate crowd. Tennis whites, gin and tonics, huzzahs all around, sophisticated humours with the embassy crowd. Well, not quite, but there is that air about the activity. Expatriates have been playing tennis here forever.
Despite the civility, it is still tennis in the Tropics, and the final game stalled on deuce for a quarter hour it seems, and I am hot and tired and leave a trail of sweat all the way home, where I crank the most recent Filter, brought back from the States the last time I was there.
And I look at my watch in that brief instance when the second hand is between ticks, and time has stopped altogether. Read More......
2000-04-27
Bun and Cheese
“Don miss mi a bun an cheese”, was the reminder from the woman who sells me a newspaper each morning.
With a nod and a wave and a Gleaner, I eased the Dogwagon back into my own lane and continued the drive to work, adding this new task to the scores of others that fill my to-do spreadsheet. This was a short week and I had enough on my plate as it is.
Easter weekend was fast approaching, and you could sense that special something in the air, that special kind of chocolate rabbit, plastic egg, stale peeps, and bun and cheese something. It moved towards me like a sheet of chocolate glaze on a frosting line in a doughnut factory. Unavoidable, saturating, sugar coated and made with real lard.
The Jamaicans love this holiday.
The Jamaicans love the religious aspect, although the predominantly Christian population never appears more than dutifully pious. There are more churches per capita here than anywhere else on the planet. If I was out in the church districts that Sunday morning, I may have seen them packed to overflowing with believers, anxious to renew their faith on their holiest of days.
I was instead worshiping the gods of fish and coral, rejoicing in the miracle of the sponge. I was witnessing the annual rebirth of the tens of thousands of thimble jellyfish which cover the reef this time of year as I contemplated another Earth Day past.
The Jamaicans love Carnival, which begins on Easter. This is an annual festival liberated from the Trinidadians. It is one big Socapalooza, with parades and bands, skimpy costumes and wriggling dancers, steel drums and lawlessness for an entire week. We do not see much of Carnival on the north side of the island, as most of the celebrations are in the urban areas around Kingston, where it provides a week of release from the dictates and traditions of Lent.
The Jamaicans love the fact that Easter is a four day weekend, with Good Friday and Easter Monday designated National Holidays. It also heralds the start of spring break for the schoolchildren, who will spend the next week doing what school kids always do when given time off from school – they forget everything they were to have retained since the term began.
And, for reasons unexplained, Jamaicans love the bun and cheese, the national Easter dish.
Bun is the Jamaican equivalent of fruitcake. It is a quick bread, barely leaven with either baking powder or baking soda, made with flour and fruits, flavored with allspice, molasses and sugar. This time of year, the Easter Bun appears in the bakery aisle, augmenting the everyday styles of bun that usually reside there. The Easter variety bun usually has more fruit, but otherwise tastes exactly the same as the pedestrian bun.
At other times of the year, bun and cheese is a poor man’s lunch. At about the same cost as a meat patty, you can get a little protein and some carbohydrates at any bakery and at many of the snack vendors. The wealthy Jamaicans never eat bun and cheese for lunch though, as it is a poor man’s food, not suitable for the working man fully able to afford the noontime purchase of curried goat, chicken foot soup, ox tail, or cow skin.
Of course, this changes at Easter, when everyone will eat the bun and the cheese. Mostly because it is free, provided by your employer by tradition. On Wednesday evening, my grateful and generous boss provided me with the largest of the Easter buns, weighing in at some kilo and a half, having the density of wet laundry. With the bun came a quarter wheel of mystery cheese. “Now, what am I to do with a kilo of cheese and a lead brick of a bun”, I said to no one in particular.
Then I heard a voice in my head. “Don miss mi a bun an cheese”, it said. Was it a memory of the newspaper woman, or was it just a convenient and well timed literary vehicle? Regardless, I gave my bun and cheese to the newspaper woman at first light the next day. Not unlike how I may treat a gifted fruitcake, should I ever be so fortunate as to receive one.
Working in my own space later in the day, I missed the day-before-the-holiday bun and cheese spectacular in the Contractor’s office. Apparently, they had for distribution ample buns and cheeses for each of their two hundred fifty staff and employees, packaged with their glad tidings, good will and redundancy payments.
For those with little time spent in the Commonwealth, you get redundancy payments when you are made redundant, and being made redundant is the British equivalent of being laid off,... all two hundred fifty of them,... effective immediately. Have a happy Easter.
The weekend was exceptionally quiet. Driving to work on Tuesday was unbelievably quiet, with none of the Contractor’s vehicles on the road, and none of the usual throngs of children standing on the verge, waiting for rides or for school to start. I had the feeling that, when the Contractor had abandoned the project, they sucked all life out of the project limits. I could already see the cobwebs collect on their materials and machinery. Failure appeared across the wide expanses of uncompleted highway.
“Anywhere but Muscatine”, I wailed to no one in particular.
There is never much snow here, as Jamaica is an island in the Tropics, yet there were flurries on Tuesday. Flurries of phone calls, a flurry or two of activity, and flurries of mood swings amongst the local staff. The Ministry needed answers, as did the press. We listened to the Ministry. We ignored the press, barring their entrance to the camp. We tried to be supportively non-committal to our local staff, who each saw their jobs going the way of the Contractor. We found some finalization tasks to keep them working for a week or two, but then our staff may be unavoidably unemployed.
Redundant.
There is a possibility that the Contractor will be able to successfully renegotiate the balance of the work on the project, in an effort to not lose any more money and to stay on the job, but this possibility is slim. A more likely possibility is that what remains of the contract will be retendered, in which case our expatriate staff will need to process the new and revised Contract Documents and ultimately manage the new Contract. This could stretch into months or years of work. Another possibility is that the entire project will be abandoned in place, and we will all be sent packing. The next few weeks will be a challenge.
In the early 1980's, there did exist a somewhat entertaining Midwestern punk band. With Joey Destroi on guitar, Bif Blammo on bass, Retch Gurgle on throat, and some character named Joel as the percussionist. I believe that their name was No Future For Me. I was just thinking about them, humming a few of the old tunes, wondering why they never recorded anything called “Effigy Jello Head”. Anyway,...
Pops once told me that international work was never assured until you actually stepped off of the plane and onto the tarmac at your destination.
Hmm. Almost. Only change is assured.
BA often tells me that challenge equals opportunity.
Yeah, mon. Read More......
With a nod and a wave and a Gleaner, I eased the Dogwagon back into my own lane and continued the drive to work, adding this new task to the scores of others that fill my to-do spreadsheet. This was a short week and I had enough on my plate as it is.
Easter weekend was fast approaching, and you could sense that special something in the air, that special kind of chocolate rabbit, plastic egg, stale peeps, and bun and cheese something. It moved towards me like a sheet of chocolate glaze on a frosting line in a doughnut factory. Unavoidable, saturating, sugar coated and made with real lard.
The Jamaicans love this holiday.
The Jamaicans love the religious aspect, although the predominantly Christian population never appears more than dutifully pious. There are more churches per capita here than anywhere else on the planet. If I was out in the church districts that Sunday morning, I may have seen them packed to overflowing with believers, anxious to renew their faith on their holiest of days.
I was instead worshiping the gods of fish and coral, rejoicing in the miracle of the sponge. I was witnessing the annual rebirth of the tens of thousands of thimble jellyfish which cover the reef this time of year as I contemplated another Earth Day past.
The Jamaicans love Carnival, which begins on Easter. This is an annual festival liberated from the Trinidadians. It is one big Socapalooza, with parades and bands, skimpy costumes and wriggling dancers, steel drums and lawlessness for an entire week. We do not see much of Carnival on the north side of the island, as most of the celebrations are in the urban areas around Kingston, where it provides a week of release from the dictates and traditions of Lent.
The Jamaicans love the fact that Easter is a four day weekend, with Good Friday and Easter Monday designated National Holidays. It also heralds the start of spring break for the schoolchildren, who will spend the next week doing what school kids always do when given time off from school – they forget everything they were to have retained since the term began.
And, for reasons unexplained, Jamaicans love the bun and cheese, the national Easter dish.
Bun is the Jamaican equivalent of fruitcake. It is a quick bread, barely leaven with either baking powder or baking soda, made with flour and fruits, flavored with allspice, molasses and sugar. This time of year, the Easter Bun appears in the bakery aisle, augmenting the everyday styles of bun that usually reside there. The Easter variety bun usually has more fruit, but otherwise tastes exactly the same as the pedestrian bun.
At other times of the year, bun and cheese is a poor man’s lunch. At about the same cost as a meat patty, you can get a little protein and some carbohydrates at any bakery and at many of the snack vendors. The wealthy Jamaicans never eat bun and cheese for lunch though, as it is a poor man’s food, not suitable for the working man fully able to afford the noontime purchase of curried goat, chicken foot soup, ox tail, or cow skin.
Of course, this changes at Easter, when everyone will eat the bun and the cheese. Mostly because it is free, provided by your employer by tradition. On Wednesday evening, my grateful and generous boss provided me with the largest of the Easter buns, weighing in at some kilo and a half, having the density of wet laundry. With the bun came a quarter wheel of mystery cheese. “Now, what am I to do with a kilo of cheese and a lead brick of a bun”, I said to no one in particular.
Then I heard a voice in my head. “Don miss mi a bun an cheese”, it said. Was it a memory of the newspaper woman, or was it just a convenient and well timed literary vehicle? Regardless, I gave my bun and cheese to the newspaper woman at first light the next day. Not unlike how I may treat a gifted fruitcake, should I ever be so fortunate as to receive one.
Working in my own space later in the day, I missed the day-before-the-holiday bun and cheese spectacular in the Contractor’s office. Apparently, they had for distribution ample buns and cheeses for each of their two hundred fifty staff and employees, packaged with their glad tidings, good will and redundancy payments.
For those with little time spent in the Commonwealth, you get redundancy payments when you are made redundant, and being made redundant is the British equivalent of being laid off,... all two hundred fifty of them,... effective immediately. Have a happy Easter.
The weekend was exceptionally quiet. Driving to work on Tuesday was unbelievably quiet, with none of the Contractor’s vehicles on the road, and none of the usual throngs of children standing on the verge, waiting for rides or for school to start. I had the feeling that, when the Contractor had abandoned the project, they sucked all life out of the project limits. I could already see the cobwebs collect on their materials and machinery. Failure appeared across the wide expanses of uncompleted highway.
“Anywhere but Muscatine”, I wailed to no one in particular.
There is never much snow here, as Jamaica is an island in the Tropics, yet there were flurries on Tuesday. Flurries of phone calls, a flurry or two of activity, and flurries of mood swings amongst the local staff. The Ministry needed answers, as did the press. We listened to the Ministry. We ignored the press, barring their entrance to the camp. We tried to be supportively non-committal to our local staff, who each saw their jobs going the way of the Contractor. We found some finalization tasks to keep them working for a week or two, but then our staff may be unavoidably unemployed.
Redundant.
There is a possibility that the Contractor will be able to successfully renegotiate the balance of the work on the project, in an effort to not lose any more money and to stay on the job, but this possibility is slim. A more likely possibility is that what remains of the contract will be retendered, in which case our expatriate staff will need to process the new and revised Contract Documents and ultimately manage the new Contract. This could stretch into months or years of work. Another possibility is that the entire project will be abandoned in place, and we will all be sent packing. The next few weeks will be a challenge.
In the early 1980's, there did exist a somewhat entertaining Midwestern punk band. With Joey Destroi on guitar, Bif Blammo on bass, Retch Gurgle on throat, and some character named Joel as the percussionist. I believe that their name was No Future For Me. I was just thinking about them, humming a few of the old tunes, wondering why they never recorded anything called “Effigy Jello Head”. Anyway,...
Pops once told me that international work was never assured until you actually stepped off of the plane and onto the tarmac at your destination.
Hmm. Almost. Only change is assured.
BA often tells me that challenge equals opportunity.
Yeah, mon. Read More......
2000-04-09
Face
The arguable fact that our Contractor is the worst contractor in the world is a mixed blessing. Had they been any good, this project would have been completed at the end of the original contract period, and I would not have had the opportunity to bear witness to their dismal performances. Nor would you, gentle reader, have had the opportunity to be amused, bemused, confused, or simply annoyed by these occasional reports.
I know little of The Contractor as a Korean corporation, except that they had intentions of charging their way into the Caribbean construction market in 1996/1997, only to be decimated by the Asian financial crises in 1997/1998. Unfortunately, by the time the fiscal crisis hit, the Contract was signed. There would be much looking back, but no going back.
The engineer’s estimate for this project, as it went to tender late in 1996, was for a total construction cost of a bit over forty million dollars. Improvements of like ilk in the States could cost 50-100% more, in large part due to the almost incredibly low labor cost in the Third World.
A unionized laborer on this project is currently rewarded with the princely sum of JA $450.51 per eight hour day. Add to this JA $30.00 per day as a laundry allowance and the basic laborer earns about US $1.43 an hour. Once Income Tax (25%), National Insurance (5%), National Housing Trust Contribution (2%), and Education Tax (2%) are deducted, our laborer takes home less than a dollar an hour (of which he is expected to pay an additional 15% General Consumption Tax on whatever he buys in an honest retail store). By comparison, the most highly compensated worker, the Crane Operator, brings home about US $1.85 an hour. Of course, there are additional monies for overtime, height, depth, in water, over water, away from home or at night, yada, yada, yada, but these emoluments are paid in similarly low quantities.
In disbelief, you may now be asking, “Who in their right mind would labor for less than one Yankee dollar each hour?” With a little bit more than a trace of sarcasm, I would reply, “No one on this project. At least, not the 250 local workers currently employed here.”
I believe that the reason for this is directly related to the fact that there is a great supply of marginally skilled labor on the island, but there is little in the way of demand for marginally skilled labor. As a result, jobs are scarce and wages are low. To secure their jobs, the labor tends towards the slack side of the production scale. As hourly wage slaves with few to zero future employment prospects, it is in labors best interest to stretch this project out for as long as possible. This is the real skill, probably imported and imparted by vacationing Department of Transportation employees.
Gary calls Jamaica a “worker’s paradise”.
Opposite the labor is a score of field supervisors. Typically, this man is a Korean national, between thirty and thirty-five, college educated, detail oriented, a day and a half from home, without family, frustrated at the lack of measurable progress, and unable to communicate effectively in the English language.
These factors, combined with a tragic lack of people skills, leads to a clash of cultures not unlike the slow motion part of the film right before the train wreck - you know it is going to be loud and destructive, but there is nothing you can do about it except watch in horror,... or anticipation.
Over the last couple of years, some of the field supervisors have developed a workable rapport with the locals, (more often than not) communicating through grunts, whistles, and hand signals. If it were not so sad, it would be more amusing.
To augment the Korean staff, the Contractor has imported a dozen Indian nationals. Generally, these are the surveyors, skilled operators, maintenance dudes, and lab guys. Their English skills are superior to that of the Koreans, and they seem dedicated, as they should be. Why, many of them earn almost US $1,200 a month (plus room and board) so, after a two year (or longer) stint here, they can return to their homeland as wealthy men.
Unfortunately, there is little support for an expatriate Indian at the camp. They live in the same trailers as the Koreans, and eat the same Korean food prepared by the Jamaican cooks. Not at all surprising is that there are no Indian women, or Indian radio stations and theaters, or Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim temples nearby (I suppose the Christian, agnostic, and atheist elements are served well enough). There is a large Indian population maintaining their historic presence on the island, as shopkeepers and business people mostly, but I think societal factors keep them from fraternizing with the Contractors personnel.
The final member of the Contractor’s dysfunctional family is their planning and office staff. This is another group of a dozen or so lonely engineers, who profess to specialize in project management, scheduling, procurement, claims, payments, accounting, and the various and sundry administrative tasks associated with the project. They are supported by a small team of Jamaican women as accountants, clerks and secretaries.
Some of the Koreans are probably not so lonely, as a select few of them have been privileged to bring their families along. This privilege is currently granted to only the project manager, planning manager, and procurement manager. These families live at the camp with the rest of the personnel, only they get to live in super-deluxe metal roofed, concrete block “homes”, located no more than ten meters from my office window. Their children commute into Montego Bay to attend one of the private schools. I have no idea what the wives do all day. Perhaps they pine for their homeland as they watch the sea in the distance through the dust kicked up by the equipment running through the camp. I rarely see them.
Of course, and just like in the States, no field office would be complete without a mess of goats, a couple of cows, a bunch of chickens, and a cat or two to liven things up. I think the chickens and maybe the cats are intentional, but the balance of the livestock wanders through the always open east gate and proceeds to browse amongst the buildings, offices, and sheds which make up the camp, crapping everywhere.
The camp site is located on a steepening hill, rising up from the highway, and provides a good view of the sea (except from my office, which faces the other way). At the top are the water storage tanks, residences and dormitories, the latter of which are constructed of large shipping containers with a few windows and doors added. Next down the hill are the kitchen, the mess hall, and the recreation rooms (table tennis, television, and a weight room). Below that, the block office of The Contractor adjacent to the triple-sized mobile home which is our office. Further below, the asphalt and Portland cement concrete plants, the precast yard, septic tanks, stockpiles, equipment yard, storeroom, steel bending yards, vehicle shop, parts warehouse, generator shack, materials lab, and guardhouse. This dense collection of structures and such is located on a fenced parcel of some twenty to thirty hectares.
The site gets fairly busy at times, but fair just do not cut it.
As above, the project was estimated to cost over forty million dollars. The Contractor’s bid was twenty five. He loses money on every thing he does. This would have been fine, and was actually the plan, back when he had the funds and the desire to construct a project at a deficit in order to establish a foothold in this region of the world. There is no more money, though. The corporate gods in Seoul appear to have left this project to fend for itself, a task to which it is ill suited.
Every month, there are a few less Jamaicans on the payroll, and a little less gets accomplished. It appears as if the Contractor feels he can cut his losses by doing less money-losing work. What he fails to include in his calculations is his US $10,000 daily overhead costs required to maintain his people and site plus the US $5,000 daily liquidated damages, accumulating since the original completion date last September.
It is obvious that the Contractor is in serious trouble, and rumor and speculation runs rampant. The latest is that the Contractor has drafted a letter whereby he quits the project, loses face, and returns to his own peninsula, never to work internationally again. Should that occur, there would still be months of study and documentation on our part to determine final payments, plus someone would need to stick around to either re-tender the project, or to coordinate the completion of the portions of the work that are close to completion.
My money is on the need for the Contractor to save face. If he sticks it out, and maintains his current rate of progress, he will be working at this project and accumulating losses for another three years. He just needs to squeeze the operating funds out of the corporate turnip.
The saving face scenario is best for me too, as a project of long duration means more time to live in Jamaica, and enjoy its sun, sand, and Red Stripes. Read More......
I know little of The Contractor as a Korean corporation, except that they had intentions of charging their way into the Caribbean construction market in 1996/1997, only to be decimated by the Asian financial crises in 1997/1998. Unfortunately, by the time the fiscal crisis hit, the Contract was signed. There would be much looking back, but no going back.
The engineer’s estimate for this project, as it went to tender late in 1996, was for a total construction cost of a bit over forty million dollars. Improvements of like ilk in the States could cost 50-100% more, in large part due to the almost incredibly low labor cost in the Third World.
A unionized laborer on this project is currently rewarded with the princely sum of JA $450.51 per eight hour day. Add to this JA $30.00 per day as a laundry allowance and the basic laborer earns about US $1.43 an hour. Once Income Tax (25%), National Insurance (5%), National Housing Trust Contribution (2%), and Education Tax (2%) are deducted, our laborer takes home less than a dollar an hour (of which he is expected to pay an additional 15% General Consumption Tax on whatever he buys in an honest retail store). By comparison, the most highly compensated worker, the Crane Operator, brings home about US $1.85 an hour. Of course, there are additional monies for overtime, height, depth, in water, over water, away from home or at night, yada, yada, yada, but these emoluments are paid in similarly low quantities.
In disbelief, you may now be asking, “Who in their right mind would labor for less than one Yankee dollar each hour?” With a little bit more than a trace of sarcasm, I would reply, “No one on this project. At least, not the 250 local workers currently employed here.”
I believe that the reason for this is directly related to the fact that there is a great supply of marginally skilled labor on the island, but there is little in the way of demand for marginally skilled labor. As a result, jobs are scarce and wages are low. To secure their jobs, the labor tends towards the slack side of the production scale. As hourly wage slaves with few to zero future employment prospects, it is in labors best interest to stretch this project out for as long as possible. This is the real skill, probably imported and imparted by vacationing Department of Transportation employees.
Gary calls Jamaica a “worker’s paradise”.
Opposite the labor is a score of field supervisors. Typically, this man is a Korean national, between thirty and thirty-five, college educated, detail oriented, a day and a half from home, without family, frustrated at the lack of measurable progress, and unable to communicate effectively in the English language.
These factors, combined with a tragic lack of people skills, leads to a clash of cultures not unlike the slow motion part of the film right before the train wreck - you know it is going to be loud and destructive, but there is nothing you can do about it except watch in horror,... or anticipation.
Over the last couple of years, some of the field supervisors have developed a workable rapport with the locals, (more often than not) communicating through grunts, whistles, and hand signals. If it were not so sad, it would be more amusing.
To augment the Korean staff, the Contractor has imported a dozen Indian nationals. Generally, these are the surveyors, skilled operators, maintenance dudes, and lab guys. Their English skills are superior to that of the Koreans, and they seem dedicated, as they should be. Why, many of them earn almost US $1,200 a month (plus room and board) so, after a two year (or longer) stint here, they can return to their homeland as wealthy men.
Unfortunately, there is little support for an expatriate Indian at the camp. They live in the same trailers as the Koreans, and eat the same Korean food prepared by the Jamaican cooks. Not at all surprising is that there are no Indian women, or Indian radio stations and theaters, or Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim temples nearby (I suppose the Christian, agnostic, and atheist elements are served well enough). There is a large Indian population maintaining their historic presence on the island, as shopkeepers and business people mostly, but I think societal factors keep them from fraternizing with the Contractors personnel.
The final member of the Contractor’s dysfunctional family is their planning and office staff. This is another group of a dozen or so lonely engineers, who profess to specialize in project management, scheduling, procurement, claims, payments, accounting, and the various and sundry administrative tasks associated with the project. They are supported by a small team of Jamaican women as accountants, clerks and secretaries.
Some of the Koreans are probably not so lonely, as a select few of them have been privileged to bring their families along. This privilege is currently granted to only the project manager, planning manager, and procurement manager. These families live at the camp with the rest of the personnel, only they get to live in super-deluxe metal roofed, concrete block “homes”, located no more than ten meters from my office window. Their children commute into Montego Bay to attend one of the private schools. I have no idea what the wives do all day. Perhaps they pine for their homeland as they watch the sea in the distance through the dust kicked up by the equipment running through the camp. I rarely see them.
Of course, and just like in the States, no field office would be complete without a mess of goats, a couple of cows, a bunch of chickens, and a cat or two to liven things up. I think the chickens and maybe the cats are intentional, but the balance of the livestock wanders through the always open east gate and proceeds to browse amongst the buildings, offices, and sheds which make up the camp, crapping everywhere.
The camp site is located on a steepening hill, rising up from the highway, and provides a good view of the sea (except from my office, which faces the other way). At the top are the water storage tanks, residences and dormitories, the latter of which are constructed of large shipping containers with a few windows and doors added. Next down the hill are the kitchen, the mess hall, and the recreation rooms (table tennis, television, and a weight room). Below that, the block office of The Contractor adjacent to the triple-sized mobile home which is our office. Further below, the asphalt and Portland cement concrete plants, the precast yard, septic tanks, stockpiles, equipment yard, storeroom, steel bending yards, vehicle shop, parts warehouse, generator shack, materials lab, and guardhouse. This dense collection of structures and such is located on a fenced parcel of some twenty to thirty hectares.
The site gets fairly busy at times, but fair just do not cut it.
As above, the project was estimated to cost over forty million dollars. The Contractor’s bid was twenty five. He loses money on every thing he does. This would have been fine, and was actually the plan, back when he had the funds and the desire to construct a project at a deficit in order to establish a foothold in this region of the world. There is no more money, though. The corporate gods in Seoul appear to have left this project to fend for itself, a task to which it is ill suited.
Every month, there are a few less Jamaicans on the payroll, and a little less gets accomplished. It appears as if the Contractor feels he can cut his losses by doing less money-losing work. What he fails to include in his calculations is his US $10,000 daily overhead costs required to maintain his people and site plus the US $5,000 daily liquidated damages, accumulating since the original completion date last September.
It is obvious that the Contractor is in serious trouble, and rumor and speculation runs rampant. The latest is that the Contractor has drafted a letter whereby he quits the project, loses face, and returns to his own peninsula, never to work internationally again. Should that occur, there would still be months of study and documentation on our part to determine final payments, plus someone would need to stick around to either re-tender the project, or to coordinate the completion of the portions of the work that are close to completion.
My money is on the need for the Contractor to save face. If he sticks it out, and maintains his current rate of progress, he will be working at this project and accumulating losses for another three years. He just needs to squeeze the operating funds out of the corporate turnip.
The saving face scenario is best for me too, as a project of long duration means more time to live in Jamaica, and enjoy its sun, sand, and Red Stripes. Read More......
2000-02-08
Fishy Fishy Fishy Fish
Occasionally, we will interact with the tourists. Most often, this is because the tourists end up going to a place that we are already at. This is tough to avoid, as the nice restaurants are frequented by both visitor and local alike. The same is true with the beaches. Negril has a beach of fine sand twelve kilometers long, lined with restaurants, beer shacks, and resorts. It is very popular with both sets, and we cannot help but be inundated by folks on holiday.
We were in Negril over the weekend, mostly behaving like tourists. From my limited experience, it appears that diving is not a sport popular with young, hip Jamaicans. As such, we have no choice but to act as tourists. Anyway, we were looking for a different dive location, so we packed up the gear and headed west. It was raining as we left the compound but, typically, the rain was a very localized event, and we were dry again before we got as far as Reading. It was sure to be another beautiful day in the Tropics.
When we got to Negril (shaken, not stirred), we had yet to decide where to go to dive. On Kris’s advice, we went to one of the huge bars and asked the random attendees for the location of a good dive shop. Based upon the answer to this query, we headed a couple of chains down the road to the Negril Beach Club, where we negotiated for tanks and passage to the reef.
As simple as this may seem, it was more complicated than my normal dive routine. Usually, I will call Peter in Montego Bay, and tell him that I want to dive. I will drive across town to Jack Tar, leave my van with Whiskey, the parking lot attendant, and greet Wilbert, the Rastafari Captain, as I hop on the boat. The simple, stable routine is nice, as it tends to unclutter the mind, and frees it for the underwater experience.
The boat usually is nowhere near capacity. Two weeks ago, I dove with just Dive Master Dwayne and some Brit, who tries to dive on his yearly holiday, and whose last dives were off of Sri Lanka. We dove what they call Sergeant Major Reef, half a klick offshore in 10-15 meters of water. The reef is named after the abundance of sergeant major fish which reside thereabouts.
Some 15-20 centimeter long, the bright yellow and black striped fish have little fear of man here, as they are rarely the targets of fishermen, and usually are the target of tourists trying to feed them. When the dive master located the school, he produced a small package of water crackers, which he proceeded to feed to the fish. They are relatively tame, and will eat out of your hand.
When one comes to feed, though, the rest follow. Within moments, the entire school was on top of us, hoping to snag a bit of a snack. The swarm was intense. For minutes, I was completely encompassed by the fish. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands of them, swimming within centimeters. Nibbling on my outstretched fingers. I could not see through the mass of fish in any direction, and was enveloped by the shadow of the school, as they blocked the light of the sun. It was like nothing else.
I went diving the next day.
Drove across town, left the van with Whiskey, greeted the Rasta captain as I got on board, and was joined this time by Dive Master David, an experienced German, and a couple of cheeseheads. The cheeseheads had little experience, but worse was the fact that they had not been in the water for over a year. The mouthpiece fell off of his regulator as he hit the water. Mis-weighted, he had buoyancy troubles the entire time we were down. She had a panic attack on the surface, which delayed our decent, then another towards the end of the dive, which accelerated our accent.
Despite that, we spent some 33 minutes on the Arches portion of the Airport Reef. Here, the reef is a wall, a vertical reef extending from a plateau at 15 meters, to another flat area some 40 meters below. While on this wall, you cannot see the sea floor, so I hold the impression that, should something go terribly wrong, the body will just sink slowly and forever, giving the fish plenty of time to consume it prior to it reaching the bottom of the Cayman Trench.
Of course, that did not happen. Things went wrong for the Wisconsonians, but not terribly wrong. As is the norm, everyone made it back to the boat alive.
I went diving the next week, too.
This time with just Hank and Rita and Dive Master David, who suffers from an intense chill even in the 27 degree water. We dove the Widowmaker Wall portion of the reef. Rita had a new camera, so she took some pictures, including a few of a large green Moray eel, with large gnashing teeth. We all gave her a wide berth (the fish with the teeth, not Rita). There was a strong current once we got to the wall, which tended to simultaneously push us into the wall and up towards the surface. We all needed quite a bit of effort to control our relative positions, both to the wall and to each other.
The second to last thing you want to do while diving is to damage the reef. Damage comes easily, through something as simple as light touch with a flipper or any other part of a wayward diver, knocking off coral that took years to construct. Of course, the last thing you want to do while diving is fail to surface. With the strong current, we were working hard to maintain separation, but I still took a couple of flippers in the face which, had I not been aware, could have knocked loose my mask or regulator. Again, nothing terribly wrong.
In Negril, conditions were a little different. As expected, there were few participants (the captain, his mermaid, we, the Dive Master, and a university employee from Chicago’s South Side). Since there was a beach instead of a pier, we had to wade out to the boat with our equipment. Once on board, we motored a couple of kilometers out to sea to the dive site du jour. The waves were barely lapping the beach when we left, but were rolling at a height close to two meters once we were at sea, which rocked the seven meter craft to the point where it’s propeller would leave the water and breakfast considered jumping ship.
Once tied to the buoy, we performed my favorite, the back roll entry, and floated 20 meters to the sea floor. I love the decent. Like a slow motion free fall, I drop spread eagle, watching the fish and the reef approach.
The particular section of reef was called Tugboat, as there is a tugboat (duh) sunk in 30 meters of water. It is not quite a pirate ship, but it is a start. I never was told the history of the boat, but it could have been down there twenty years, maybe fifty years, maybe a hundred. My skill in recognizing growth rates of the various corals is limited.
An optional part of the adventure was to swim through the boat, in through a hole in the stern deck, and out through another at the bow. The wife took this option, but I opted instead to examine the hull and perimeter. As I was rounding the bow of the tug, I found myself nose to nose, not four meters distant, with a Cubera snapper, almost two meters long. I immediately let a few expletives make their way out the exhaust ports of my regulator.
This huge grey fish had a mouth into which my head would have easily fit. I stopped quite rapidly, remaining motionless and making some adjustments to my breathing while the fish slowly swam away. I might be tempted to describe the sight as breathtaking but, when you are sucking air out of a tank strapped to your back in order to live, the entire sport is breathtaking.
The wife missed the fish entirely. The others just saw its departure. I saw the beast size me up.
Once we were back on land, there were many Red Stripes to be consumed. We spent the rest of the day on the beach in Negril, sunning our way from beer shack to beer shack, speculating as to why the Jamaican Constabulary has no laws regulating the abuse of thong bikinis. Read More......
We were in Negril over the weekend, mostly behaving like tourists. From my limited experience, it appears that diving is not a sport popular with young, hip Jamaicans. As such, we have no choice but to act as tourists. Anyway, we were looking for a different dive location, so we packed up the gear and headed west. It was raining as we left the compound but, typically, the rain was a very localized event, and we were dry again before we got as far as Reading. It was sure to be another beautiful day in the Tropics.
When we got to Negril (shaken, not stirred), we had yet to decide where to go to dive. On Kris’s advice, we went to one of the huge bars and asked the random attendees for the location of a good dive shop. Based upon the answer to this query, we headed a couple of chains down the road to the Negril Beach Club, where we negotiated for tanks and passage to the reef.
As simple as this may seem, it was more complicated than my normal dive routine. Usually, I will call Peter in Montego Bay, and tell him that I want to dive. I will drive across town to Jack Tar, leave my van with Whiskey, the parking lot attendant, and greet Wilbert, the Rastafari Captain, as I hop on the boat. The simple, stable routine is nice, as it tends to unclutter the mind, and frees it for the underwater experience.
The boat usually is nowhere near capacity. Two weeks ago, I dove with just Dive Master Dwayne and some Brit, who tries to dive on his yearly holiday, and whose last dives were off of Sri Lanka. We dove what they call Sergeant Major Reef, half a klick offshore in 10-15 meters of water. The reef is named after the abundance of sergeant major fish which reside thereabouts.
Some 15-20 centimeter long, the bright yellow and black striped fish have little fear of man here, as they are rarely the targets of fishermen, and usually are the target of tourists trying to feed them. When the dive master located the school, he produced a small package of water crackers, which he proceeded to feed to the fish. They are relatively tame, and will eat out of your hand.
When one comes to feed, though, the rest follow. Within moments, the entire school was on top of us, hoping to snag a bit of a snack. The swarm was intense. For minutes, I was completely encompassed by the fish. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands of them, swimming within centimeters. Nibbling on my outstretched fingers. I could not see through the mass of fish in any direction, and was enveloped by the shadow of the school, as they blocked the light of the sun. It was like nothing else.
I went diving the next day.
Drove across town, left the van with Whiskey, greeted the Rasta captain as I got on board, and was joined this time by Dive Master David, an experienced German, and a couple of cheeseheads. The cheeseheads had little experience, but worse was the fact that they had not been in the water for over a year. The mouthpiece fell off of his regulator as he hit the water. Mis-weighted, he had buoyancy troubles the entire time we were down. She had a panic attack on the surface, which delayed our decent, then another towards the end of the dive, which accelerated our accent.
Despite that, we spent some 33 minutes on the Arches portion of the Airport Reef. Here, the reef is a wall, a vertical reef extending from a plateau at 15 meters, to another flat area some 40 meters below. While on this wall, you cannot see the sea floor, so I hold the impression that, should something go terribly wrong, the body will just sink slowly and forever, giving the fish plenty of time to consume it prior to it reaching the bottom of the Cayman Trench.
Of course, that did not happen. Things went wrong for the Wisconsonians, but not terribly wrong. As is the norm, everyone made it back to the boat alive.
I went diving the next week, too.
This time with just Hank and Rita and Dive Master David, who suffers from an intense chill even in the 27 degree water. We dove the Widowmaker Wall portion of the reef. Rita had a new camera, so she took some pictures, including a few of a large green Moray eel, with large gnashing teeth. We all gave her a wide berth (the fish with the teeth, not Rita). There was a strong current once we got to the wall, which tended to simultaneously push us into the wall and up towards the surface. We all needed quite a bit of effort to control our relative positions, both to the wall and to each other.
The second to last thing you want to do while diving is to damage the reef. Damage comes easily, through something as simple as light touch with a flipper or any other part of a wayward diver, knocking off coral that took years to construct. Of course, the last thing you want to do while diving is fail to surface. With the strong current, we were working hard to maintain separation, but I still took a couple of flippers in the face which, had I not been aware, could have knocked loose my mask or regulator. Again, nothing terribly wrong.
In Negril, conditions were a little different. As expected, there were few participants (the captain, his mermaid, we, the Dive Master, and a university employee from Chicago’s South Side). Since there was a beach instead of a pier, we had to wade out to the boat with our equipment. Once on board, we motored a couple of kilometers out to sea to the dive site du jour. The waves were barely lapping the beach when we left, but were rolling at a height close to two meters once we were at sea, which rocked the seven meter craft to the point where it’s propeller would leave the water and breakfast considered jumping ship.
Once tied to the buoy, we performed my favorite, the back roll entry, and floated 20 meters to the sea floor. I love the decent. Like a slow motion free fall, I drop spread eagle, watching the fish and the reef approach.
The particular section of reef was called Tugboat, as there is a tugboat (duh) sunk in 30 meters of water. It is not quite a pirate ship, but it is a start. I never was told the history of the boat, but it could have been down there twenty years, maybe fifty years, maybe a hundred. My skill in recognizing growth rates of the various corals is limited.
An optional part of the adventure was to swim through the boat, in through a hole in the stern deck, and out through another at the bow. The wife took this option, but I opted instead to examine the hull and perimeter. As I was rounding the bow of the tug, I found myself nose to nose, not four meters distant, with a Cubera snapper, almost two meters long. I immediately let a few expletives make their way out the exhaust ports of my regulator.
This huge grey fish had a mouth into which my head would have easily fit. I stopped quite rapidly, remaining motionless and making some adjustments to my breathing while the fish slowly swam away. I might be tempted to describe the sight as breathtaking but, when you are sucking air out of a tank strapped to your back in order to live, the entire sport is breathtaking.
The wife missed the fish entirely. The others just saw its departure. I saw the beast size me up.
Once we were back on land, there were many Red Stripes to be consumed. We spent the rest of the day on the beach in Negril, sunning our way from beer shack to beer shack, speculating as to why the Jamaican Constabulary has no laws regulating the abuse of thong bikinis. Read More......
2000-01-19
Miss Liberty
===============================
WARNING - Beware the champagne flights on Air Jamaica.
===============================
We are all tourists.
Who is not from somewhere else? We share a space for a time, as we move from locale to locale. We may set for quite a spell at one particular location, but are we really a resident? Really a native? What makes us so?
I left “The Rock” for the holidays, anticipating a few weeks of Italian Beef and Doctor Jeremiah Weed. Tastes I know and love (at least the beef) from another time zone - a place not the same as when I left it months ago. Presumably, I was going home.
But what makes Chicagoland any more our home than Montego Freeport? What draws us to either place? Is it the food? Perhaps that, and the other comfortable surroundings which help us to paint the picture of a place, so that we can look back upon it with a sense of longing. It is the feeling that makes us glad to be home in the evening, happy to be surrounded by familiar stuff, faces, sounds, smells and tastes.
Montego Bay is fast becoming that place for me,... the smell of jerk as I drive hither and yon,... the look of the sunrise across the harbor in the morning, as Ra appears above the hills of town.
I watched him arrive the morning we departed, chasing the clouds over the horizon. Later we went to the beach, where our newly coded response to the smell and taste of the veg patties drew us to the stand where we always get our veg patties. When we left, traffic was as sucky as normal, yet beckoned me to join the fray. There was nowhere to park at the grocery, and they had not the food item which I was sure they would have. It was all so typical, so expected, so comforting.
A few hours later and I was in Chicagoland. Home of the cheesy beef and sausage combo, with fries and a large Coke (“you wanna tamale wit dat?”). Home to a different style of traffic snarl. Home to our folks and many friends. The place where I became aware. In a few days we would trek north to the cabin, or Taj Mahal, if you will, where we would consume Leinienkugels to excess, and sing songs of drunken mice around the wood burning stove. “Have a pull on the Weed”, Two-J will yell,... and we will be home yet again.
Home is where I am, it seems. It is a mobile home.
Is this just a facet of life overseas, a calling to numerous locations, each with their own familiar faces and familiar confines? I suppose that these comfortable and familiar surroundings do not become that way all at once, nor do they come to everyone, expatriates or not. There are those I have met who never acclimate to new surroundings. Their home must be a tiny place.
I wander, but I am not a wanderer. My desire to travel is a need to get somewhere else, to discover some new destination, to position myself in it and make the most it. To arrive however, I need to be going. I am going now, while writing the draft for this missive, sitting in a plane over who knows where, flying back and forth between homes.
Later, in Chicagoland, I read a familiar plaque in my ma’s kitchen, “No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they like my kitchen best”. Sure, “Home is where the hearth is”.
There is another which reads, “The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here.” This is a fine sentiment, unless you are about to broadside a wayward bovine.
Enter the third,... “Some people come into our lives - leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same”. Ouch! Wish I had not read that one.
Perhaps the next treatise will be on the quality and variations in locally available cane based sweeteners, instead of this campy, misty-eyed, happy post-holiday variety.
Peace and Love. Read More......
WARNING - Beware the champagne flights on Air Jamaica.
===============================
We are all tourists.
Who is not from somewhere else? We share a space for a time, as we move from locale to locale. We may set for quite a spell at one particular location, but are we really a resident? Really a native? What makes us so?
I left “The Rock” for the holidays, anticipating a few weeks of Italian Beef and Doctor Jeremiah Weed. Tastes I know and love (at least the beef) from another time zone - a place not the same as when I left it months ago. Presumably, I was going home.
But what makes Chicagoland any more our home than Montego Freeport? What draws us to either place? Is it the food? Perhaps that, and the other comfortable surroundings which help us to paint the picture of a place, so that we can look back upon it with a sense of longing. It is the feeling that makes us glad to be home in the evening, happy to be surrounded by familiar stuff, faces, sounds, smells and tastes.
Montego Bay is fast becoming that place for me,... the smell of jerk as I drive hither and yon,... the look of the sunrise across the harbor in the morning, as Ra appears above the hills of town.
I watched him arrive the morning we departed, chasing the clouds over the horizon. Later we went to the beach, where our newly coded response to the smell and taste of the veg patties drew us to the stand where we always get our veg patties. When we left, traffic was as sucky as normal, yet beckoned me to join the fray. There was nowhere to park at the grocery, and they had not the food item which I was sure they would have. It was all so typical, so expected, so comforting.
A few hours later and I was in Chicagoland. Home of the cheesy beef and sausage combo, with fries and a large Coke (“you wanna tamale wit dat?”). Home to a different style of traffic snarl. Home to our folks and many friends. The place where I became aware. In a few days we would trek north to the cabin, or Taj Mahal, if you will, where we would consume Leinienkugels to excess, and sing songs of drunken mice around the wood burning stove. “Have a pull on the Weed”, Two-J will yell,... and we will be home yet again.
Home is where I am, it seems. It is a mobile home.
Is this just a facet of life overseas, a calling to numerous locations, each with their own familiar faces and familiar confines? I suppose that these comfortable and familiar surroundings do not become that way all at once, nor do they come to everyone, expatriates or not. There are those I have met who never acclimate to new surroundings. Their home must be a tiny place.
I wander, but I am not a wanderer. My desire to travel is a need to get somewhere else, to discover some new destination, to position myself in it and make the most it. To arrive however, I need to be going. I am going now, while writing the draft for this missive, sitting in a plane over who knows where, flying back and forth between homes.
Later, in Chicagoland, I read a familiar plaque in my ma’s kitchen, “No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they like my kitchen best”. Sure, “Home is where the hearth is”.
There is another which reads, “The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here.” This is a fine sentiment, unless you are about to broadside a wayward bovine.
Enter the third,... “Some people come into our lives - leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same”. Ouch! Wish I had not read that one.
Perhaps the next treatise will be on the quality and variations in locally available cane based sweeteners, instead of this campy, misty-eyed, happy post-holiday variety.
Peace and Love. Read More......
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
