20-Oct-05 onwards - Fahud, the land of hot gritty dust

I really had no idea what to expect when I got to Fahud. It turned out to be an oil industry settlement full of different "camps" for each of the companies operating here. No families live here, it's not a town or anything like that. The people in Fahud are only here for work. There are a couple of shops, each of which sells a cross-section of just about everything from men's jocks (no lady's) to rotten tomatoes. There's even one restaurant and I know you'd never have guessed - it's Indian! Although the word "restaurant" is in itself a very generous description for this establishment. It's a dimly lit room with three tables and plastic chairs. After each person leaves they scrape off the table with one of those rubber lined window cleaners like you get in the bucket at the service station, then it's ready for the next taker. I haven't actually pulled my finger out and taken any photos of Fahud yet, but I will soon.

As far as work goes, I'm based in a workshop with a group of very fun guys.




The majority of the guys are African Omanis that speak Arabic and Swahili, but there are also some Indians, a UAE national (that's Ali), an Indonesian, some Egyptians, a Pakistani, an Englishman and a couple of Scotts. The job that I'm actually training for is to supervise the installation of stuff called "completion equipment" into oil wells in the field. When I'm not at a well, I'm usually at the workshop in Fahud. Here's me standing next to a "Christmas tree" that I've just assembled. This is basically the set of valves that sits on top of an oil well to control the flow.


And here's me actually assembling the Christmas tree.




One day in the workshop the boys found a beautiful little nightjar which was pretty sick and couldn't fly, so I took him home to my room to take care of him.










Nightjars are carnivores, so I fed him on fresh meat from the kitchen. He spent a couple of days in my room and was improving fast. He would fly around all over the place, but one day the cleaner (Noor) accidentally let him out and I haven't seen him since. Unfortunately this place is literally filled with feral cats, so I have grave fears for my little friend.