Since I’ll be living here for two months, I will try and document my experience of daily life on this project.
We are living in a nice, but remote villa in the Janzour neighborhood. It’s on a wide and busy road, but the compound is separated from the bustle by a large gate and long dirt driveway. It feels a little like the countryside, surrounded by an orchard, with a flock of chickens that crow inexplicably in the middle of the night. There is a nice looking pool, but the weather is too cold to make much use of it. The lounge chairs have come in handy to warm up on sunny days. The concrete construction and tile floors make the interior of the house feel more cold and damp than the outside. The kitchen floor floods when it rains, despite our forcing towels into the door jamb. The flannel sheets Ruth sent at least make sleeping on my giant flopping mattress that much more comfortable.
Camel head
There’s not much in the immediate neighborhood except a gas station, a butcher with fresh daily camel heads, and a Turkish restaurant called Zen-Baba, apparently here since 1972. We have become semi-regulars there, in our constant quest to eat anything more diverse than shwarma. The friendly men know our standard orders of cheesy bread, chicken pizza, beef kebabs and coca cola.
Traffic Jam
We have two drivers, both named Mohammed, so we often refer to them by their respective companies: Hertz and Sixt. Both are sharp dressers, their suits and pointed shoes putting my safari pants and adidas to shame. Driving to work is probably the most dangerous part of any day. Lanes are marked, but the lines are treated as suggestions. Speed limits are enforced only by speed bumps. Sidewalks are extra parking spaces. Right of way appears to be non-existant, and four way intersections quickly deteriorate into “salad” if there isn’t a police officer to indicate whose turn it is. This causes major traffic backups, with everyone jostling for position and honking when someone is cut off.
Burned Gas Station
Gasoline is a subject of much speculation. The price is heavily subsidized, and while there is a lot of oil production, there’s is not much capacity at domestic refineries. A blockade has been recently set up at an import terminal, and a buyers panic ensued. Gas lines stretch for kilometers, and there have been a few instances of fighting at stations. One near the commission headquarters had a pump burned at night, and the pump hoses were severed at another. It appears that several underrepresented groups are trying to gain attention to their cause with blockades, but the end effect is just distrust of the government’s ability to maintain order.
New Army Flower Power
The militias that had been the primary armed force in the city have been asked to leave by the Prime Minister, and were replaced overnight by a well equipped national army. Their new trucks and uniforms create the appearance of competence, but the depth of their training is unclear. We receive weekly sitation reports and more frequent updates from our security consultants, but the environment is fluid, and we need to be adaptable to changes as they come.
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