Last week and this week

Moi! Alles goud? Lekker guhsloap'n...? I had a guest over last week. From Winsum, Groningen, of all places. He was here for a week to built a new sort of Portacabin that one of our sister companies is developing. Basically the concept is a regular Portacabin stucture, but the walls and ceiling are made of EPS; Styrofoam oftewel, piepschuim. More energy efficient because of high the isolation value. Anyway, Romke was here and he stayed in my appartment since I have a two bedroom appartment. It was very interesting to have a Dutch guy over in the house for a week. Very different from me; it was good to have some companionship. His remarks on things like burka's and arranged marriage here were very interesting. Personally I can easily accept those things here because it is not my country and not my culture. Although in my own life I would not approve of it I guess. I mean, not that I am going to run around in a Burka, but you know, if that would happen in my family ... Anyway Romke, he couldn't accept it which led to interesting situations. He for instance was really shocked when he saw a lady in a totally covered burka, the ones that veil the fase entirely so also the eyes. “dat is toch niet normoal! Dat ken toch neit!” Also he learned that it is hard to work with Indian laborers. No intrinsic motivation, only work when there is a supervisor. They did not even start building the framework needed for his work. It gave a three day delay. And that while he was only here for a week. Anyhow, we visited some sites in the area here and last Friday he went back to Holland.

Speaking of Holland, today I missed Holland. I wanted just to go there and spend time with my beloved friends and familiy. Visit Wicher in Rotterdam, Roel Henk Jelmer en David in Groningen and of course my family in Overrijssel. Ik mis jullie om me heen. On the other hand. I am happy that I am here. The weather is gorgeous now. Like 28 degrees celcius and a nice breeze. Perfect beach weather. My apartment is nice. And I am well taken care off.

And of course, which you probably don't know, it is Eid holiday here. A week off! Hooray. No work. This is the second eid after the ramadan and starts about 70 days after the end of the ramadan. The first eid, Eir al Fitr, is directly after the ramadan. This eid is called Eid ul-Adha and is the Festival of Sacrifice. I believe the origin of the name is related to Ibrahim in the Quran (Abraham in the Holy Bibe) who was willing to sacrifice his son. In the Quran version of this story it is not Isaac btw, but Ismael that fulfills this role. On this eid muslims traditionally slaughter a goat I believe it is, and eat it with the family. I don't exactly know though.

So during eid, actually this Saturday, I will go with my colleague Naseem and his family to visit Abdullah, who lives like 3 hours from here and have lunch with him and his family. And on Sunday I will be going to Sur, you know that place where I was treated as a royal guest before, to stay a couple of days at Mr. Khalids family house. No idea what is going to happen, but I bet it is going to be a good time. And then after there I will go to Badar. He comes from a Bedouin family and I will spend some days there. In the middle of nowhere. A big adventure also. And then probably the week will be about over after that and work will start again.

Ow and of course my plans for around new years eve I will be in the States to celebrate the reunion with my friends from GMS. I am so pumped about this and cannot wait for this to happen. I am lucky that they gave me off at work. So I can stay there for about 10 days.

So after eid I will definitely post some pictures and have great lenghty stories to tell.

Ma-salaam!

De Woestijn

Boven de woestijngrond wevelt 't zand.
Opgejaagd.
Door dorre droge lucht.

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Hier en daar een bosje
met een enkel blaadje misschien.
Het smeekt om water.
Volgend jaar misschien.
Of niet.

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Zand zover ik kijken kan
Zand overal.
Zoveel nakomelingen?

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Ik zie een meer.
Dat zeggen mijn ogen.
De lucht trilt boven het zand.
Mijn ogen liegen.
Ze zijn bedrogen

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Vonnis: Schuldig bevonden voor het staan op sigarettenpakjes.
Straf: levenslang in de zandbak

Guess what I did today?

Guess what I did today?

Feeling good

Last week I was feeling stressed and drained. I felt pressure from work as some problems with a client presented themselves. I felt overly responsible and didn't really know how to deal with the pressure. But since yesterday the sun is shining again. Again I went swimming in the afternoon. In the evening went to a wonderful bible studies. I feel like I have energy again. That feels good. I feel blessed. Just now, this afternoon during my lunch time (remember that we have a 2 hours break from 1-3) I went to "Mandi" to eat Yemeni food. Biryani rice, with chicken and mutton. Really good. And after that we went to a coffee bar to have turkish coffee with seeshah (hookah/waterpipe). It was relaxing. Now I feel like sleeping. But there is a lot of work waiting for me and the HSE team. Plans for tonight. Go to the mall and go to bed early.
I'll try to post some more pictures too soon.

And by the way the Hanze Hoogeschool asked me to write something about my experiences. So pick up a HanzeMag if you are in Groningen on the Hanze next month.

Love you all! Gods bless to you all!

Business cards

Finally I recieved my business cards. It took some time but know I got them. Yeah!
I also had a meeting with a senior HSE officer of Galfar, one of our clients, today. Working together with people from all these different organisations and companies gives me energy. I like it.

For the rest. I am still trying listen to myself and also relax; that is not easy cause I learned that in a formal environment I find it hard to doing so, I often feel confined by it. It is good to know this about myself. But dealing with it is alway a second, and harder, step to take.

Leuke link

Mijn lieve moeder stuurde me een interessante link:

Http://www.nieuwekerk.nl/nl/index.htm

In de nieuwe kerk in Amsterdam gaan ze namelijk binnenkort over tot prediking van het in Oman gepractiseerde Ibadisme nadat voorganger zich na een bezoek in Oman zich daartoe heeft bekeerd. Uiteraard is dat maar een grapje van mijn kant. Maar er is wel een expositie over Oman. Misschien leuk om naar toe te gaan. De site geeft een uitgbreide beschrijving van Oman, de cultuur, historie etcetera.

Comments

Okay, now I changed settings on my blog so everyone should be able to post comments. I heard that many people had problems doing so.

Wadi Mussallem

I spent three days in one of the kitchens that I think I wrote about earlier. With two Philippino colleagues (Sam and Salvador) I went to Wadi Mussallem, the name of the camp. I felt honestly bad for the supervisor there. The kitchen was just a mess and was so dirty. The stoves for instance were creating big black fumes. Terrible. Rajesh, the supervisor, was pretty desperate about it.

Anyway, after taking rest for one night we started working in the morning with the observation phase. Having collected the data we analyzed the most urgent problems and drew up an approach plan. This we discussed with Rajesh. He was happy we were there.

And in the afternoon the fun part started. We sat together with the entire crew and explained the program for the next couple of days. Since I don't speak Hindi very well and they only speak "shuee shuee" English, Rajesh was translating. But there is this big language problem so communication goes slow. Funny also. Then after the meeting Sam did a basic training on personal hygiene and food training. We introduced basic things like the "clean as you go" cleaning concept. In the evening at 9.30 we started to do a deep cleaning of the kitchen. This took to 2.15 am. And not even halve of it was done. But it was a good start that helped to clean the kitchen and reorder it. They day after we focused more on hygiene practices in the kitchen and training the supervisor. I enjoyed it very much. I took on the attitude of being strict and patient at the same time. It worked very well, I hope... It was for me a great experience. It is harder to instill change in people's behavior. I tried to give Rajesh some good tools to work with for the future. I just hope he succeeds. That will make me happy to :-) So that might give you some idea of what I am working on here in Oman. I'll post some pictures of my work soon too.

Ow. A nice thing. This weekend I am getting new furniture for my apartment. I am looking forward to sitting on my sofa with a good cup of coffee...