Renovations

I'm planning a general spruce up of the property this year. Keeping up with the Wayans, Mades, Nyomans, Ketuts and the like. There has been  a something of a building boom  in the neighborhood lately and I'm feeling left behind. Its also a chance to fix up some of the more glaring problems of the old house. Anyways I've clipped a first draft of the reno. Trying to think of a name for the place. Ideas gratefully entertained...

The Crocodile Farm

I remember going to a crocodile farm once. The guide showed us a small pool with a tall heavy mesh fence around it. "Watch this" he said and carefully inserted a long bamboo shaft through the mesh and tickled the edge of the pool. There was an immediate splash and the biggest crocodile that I would ever care to meet came lunging out towards us. We were all properly shocked and frightened, much to the amusement of our guide. I don't think I ever went back to that crocodile farm again.

This memory surfaced when I was reading about the recent riots in Tanjung Priok. Sometimes the crocodiles only need a little prodding to come charging out of their pools. I'm not sure who was carrying the pole this time. The incident requires credible investigation before blame, and ultimately punishment, can be apportioned. The police arrived ready for the trouble and an armed mob was waiting for them. Somebody tickled the pond and the crocodiles reacted predictably.

Now that the fires are out the blame game has started. There have been calls for the police to be disbanded, the mayor to be fired, the governor to be fired, and the vigilante group that imposed itself on the situation to be banned. Everyone is getting in on it. The Minister of Information has stupidly called for images of the riot to be banned as they would be bad for the nation. Someone forgot to tell him that there is a free press in Indonesia not to mention that the photos have already made it to the international agencies. The  Jakarta Governor has gone to visit the families of the bereaved, promised compensation, and pledged to convert the tomb of Mbah Priok to a historical site. Too bad he didn't think to communicate to the residents before the incident-lives may have been saved. And in probably the best instance of bad timing Home Affairs minister has trotted out his latest absurdity: that of the moral elegibility of  entertainers as elected officials. He's got it mixed up. They are already lots of politicians playing at governing  - they should be more concerned with being seen as actors such rather than actors being seen as politicians. Whats needed are leaders to calm the waters and and keep the crocodiles in their pools. Better yet if they can drain the ponds. Instead the guys with sticks seem to be in charge.

Photo clipped from the BBC

Moves

I'm not big on moving. I sort of have the opinion that sometimes you are better off with the devil you know then the devil you  about to meet. But one must move with the times I suppose so here we go...

A few weeks ago our crew was forced to moved from our old house in Vila Alica to a new facility a little bit closer to the office. The old house had its problems: Hot water was scarce, the roof leaked, and the generator was constantly breaking down. The swimming pool looked more like a giant culture sample than a place to cool off in. The house happenned to be situated next to a park which meant that every weekend we were bombarded with Kizomba music till 6 AM from speakers the size of trucks brought in especially for the occasion. On the positive side the house had that comfortable feel to it that only comes from people living there a long time and gradually making improvements. Our kitchen/bar was one of those places- a natural hangout after work. Another was our common rooms with big screen TV, a library, and a DVD collection. We normally did barbeques on Saturdays with our (barbeque) technicians leaving a little early to get the meat started.  Overall is was the next best thing to being home - not the ritz but lots of little personal touches. We are at work after all.

Like most good things the staff house has come to an end. Presumably to save costs the company went into the process of building a hotel to replace all of the division staff houses. On paper this is probably a good idea. If only the planners had some idea of practicalities. For instance our total bedspace of all the staffhouses was 60-70 beds. This was replaced by a hotel with a bedspace of 50 beds. I can't really see how its going to work. Its hard to expand the business when there is no room to expand. The other litttle problem is the internet. We are basically in a situation now where we are service twice the number of people with half the bandwidth - what were they thinking eh?

The new building itself has some amusing quirks. The elevator must have been built for somebody else's building because the numbers on the elevator don't match the floors. For example pushing the button for the third floor will land you on the forth??! I thought I was losing my mind the first time I got off the elevator onto the wrong floor. Did the builders have drawings?  There are several other little issues too tedious to mention which I am going to attribute to the break-in process but if this were a hotel it would be the kind of hotel that you would only visit once. The room themselves are quite nice and the catering has improved. It just feels impersonal. There is just no common area to watch the game with your mates or curl up to enjoy a good book. And the price! This building cost us in the neighborhood of 35 million. Now our staff houses were costing us 1-2 million/year (its expensive here in Angola) but for 35 million - up front mind you - we get the new place for only 5 years. After that the lease expires and we are out on the street until the next super expensive accomodation comes along. Someone must have seen us coming.

Only time will tell if the move was a good thing or not. I am already missing the library.

Playing With Pros

What were you doing last week? If you had had any sense at all you would down in Pecatu, Bali for the first Indonesian Ladies Open Golf Tournament. I was. The event lasted 4 days and had particicipants from all over Asia and Europe. Here is how it went.

Day 1 was the PRO/AM tournament. For a modest fee you can pair up with a pro and play best ball. Its a nice chance to meet the players in an informal setting. My partner was a girl from France who, (along with her mother) was enjoying her first trip to Bali. It was a bit amusing as she spoke minimal Engish and my French is pretty rusty (years of inactivity). She did most of her talking with her 3-wood. That girl can hit. Unfortunately we did not come close to winning the pro/am but the consolation was that I picked up some colorful expressions as to what to say en francais when you hit your ball into the rough. The pro/am was followed up by a party at the kelapa klub  which was another opportunity to mix with the organisers, players and other members of the golf establishment here in Indonesia.

Days 2 and 3 were the qualifying rounds of the tournament proper. As a volunteer I had to be there at 6 AM for no apparent reason as things did not really begin happenning before 7. My job was stand out on the teebox with a little sign that says "Quiet Please" whenever the players are about to make their shot. This would have been fun except that there were no spectators where I was positioned way out on the 8th hole. The things I do for a free lunch and a golf shirt! My other job was to try to keep water in in the giant cooler boxes that were scattered throughout the course. This involved texting the F&B people and telling them to get their ass out to number 7 with 2 cases of water and 10 kilos of ice. On the upside being out in the hinterland  allowed me to get some photos though which I am happy to share with all of you today.

Second Shot on 1

Approach on 7. A scenic and difficult hole.

Letting it rip!

Finishing off on 1.

The third and final day involved about half the field being cut. Today I got a new job which was to to carry a signboard around the course displaying the scores of the top three players. Except that the board was not ready at tee time so I had to follow the players around and manualy keep score with a pen and paper. The scoreboard finally showed up about the 4th or 5th hole and so we got to pack around a large heavy metal and wood sign up and down hills for 7 kilos - talk about having crosses to bear - its hot out here! They also forgot to print us any 8's  so were were constantly concerned that the girl at plus 6 would double bogey and we would be be forced to take her score off the board for a lack of numbers. Luck prevailed and my little team were able to get through the round with all our numbers intact.

The tournament was won by a Korean gal by name of Solar Lee. She was living proof that this game is all about finesse and not about power. All in all it went off rather well for a first time thing. The course was in great shape and they was a lot of support from local players, sponsers and volunteers. The only thing missing was the spectators - well their loss I suppose.

PS - it wouldn't be an Indonesian tournament without at least one odd translation so here it is. In case you can't read the small print it goes  like "BE THE FIRST TO WATCH FARIES BATTLES ON THE ISLAND OF THE GODS". I'm tempted to offer a prize for the best reverse engineering - I'm would love to know what they were trying to say here.

Caipirinha Time!

I am sitting around in Luanda with the boys drinking homemade caipirinhas waiting for supper to arrive. For the heathen amongst you capirinhas is a mixture of limes, sugar and cachaca (a lethal sugar cane extract). It tastes quite refreshing actually so long as it’s cold enough. We are celebrating here. After months of preparation, endless invoices, equipment checks and commissioning we were finally able to deploy our equipment, get it working, do our job, and get back to the beach, all without losing anything or killing someone.

It didn't come easy. We had issues with air conditioners freezing up at inopportune moments. In 100 degree heat can you imagine being in a sealed metal box without ac? For a week? The heat played with our computers causing them to cycle on and off repeatedly. The hydraulic generator that we were using also had issues which caused frequent power cuts to the unit. But these little hang-ups were not enough to overly affect the final result which was a successful well intervention and the acquisition of good data to the client. We also had a good opportunity to test our modelling software and make some adjustments for the next intervention which will occur in about a month. I’ll be travelling to Bali in the next day or two but in the meantime it’s back to the caipirinhas!