My Friends, My Family, and Peripherally Interested Strangers
Just when I was free to pursue real
friendships, play lawn darts, live life and date cute women, Kurdistan jumped
back on the radar like a recurrent cold sore.
The entire purpose of my last mission here, namely to train a
replacement, was for naught when the unfortunate individual was given his
marching orders recently. Oil being
cheaper than Croatian hookers isn’t good for business, it seems. I had less than a week’s notice to get
packed and get dirty for a month. But this is oil, and I am the game, I’m not “in it,” so away we go.
This morning the opposite of
writer’s block hit me square in the face, as so many folks reading this surely
would like to. Unfortunately, There’s no
action at the moment; The rig is at a
stand-still. My luggage hasn’t arrived so I can’t work. I’m rocking about
town with the same beloved salty oil trash I had the pleasure of meeting last
trip. But a recent Vegas excursion made
me realize that pontificating with a 60% bullshit cut is a necessary life skill
at times. Accordingly, I’d like to take this opportunity
to introduce my cast of characters for this adventure. I’m also planning another post about Kurdish
patriotism, day-partying, underwear preferences, and probably some other
mundane detail of being here that’s funny when you think about it. So without further ado, welcome to my life.
The Cast
I.
Introduction
To protect the guilty, and potentially keep me from
being fired, the names of characters who earned descriptions have been
changed. This place is unreasonably
global. Going around the table in our
morning meeting were (Not changed) Virgil, Augusto, Abderraheim, Neil Young
(not kidding), Mohammad, Alejandro, and Matt.
This is just a small sampling. At
the table across from me at this writing are two Australians, a Moroccan, a
Libyan and a miscellaneous gringo (likely Canadian). They are bitterly lamenting the price of drugs
and women in Thailand. They harken back
to “when times were better” with the same nostalgia I use for the original Star
Wars trilogy. This is a fully normal
conversation. HR here put its head in
the oven years ago. Things are better
this way.
II.
The Whiteneck
Redneck is a common concept in the American South. But when one hails from the Great White North
a new term is compulsory. We’ll call him
Ben for now. Ben, at 39, is the youngest
grandfather I know. His lovely Thai
girlfriend is 20, his lovely daughter 19.
He refuses to provide an honest assessment of which is hotter, but I
posit that it is his girlfriend. Kudos,
brother, if you’re reading this.
The Whiteneck owns a healthy assortment of weaponry
which he frequently references fondly, cementing his nickname’s veracity. He also proudly rocks dual tat sleeves depicting
his love of, and faith to, Jesus etc.
Ben possesses an uncanny ability to juxtapose his religious background
and beliefs with details of his Thailand-centered party lifestyle and downright
excessive use of the F-word. This
creates a consistently humorous environment, and his refusal to acknowledge the
comical nature of the situation contributes to it still more. He just doesn’t get why that’s funny.
Ben is a top-notch drinking partner who is as giving as
he is absurdly fit. He’s quick to educate,
to admit when he’s wrong, and has been nothing but generous. Thanks, Ben, for working with me. When you
read this, please don’t hurt me.
III.
Neil F*cking Young
Kindly disregard my earlier efforts to change
names. This one couldn’t be done. NFY’s actual name is Neil Young. I first met this gentleman via email, and
immediately wondered if a pun or an oblique “Old Man” reference were
appropriate. I was then frozen with fear
that he’d be musically inept, or a ripped black guy, or a Swedish woman, or any
other demographically awkward situation that’d make him similar to Michael
Bolton in Office Space.
Upon meeting the man, I’m thrilled to confirm my
initial suspicions of “totally embracing it” are spot-on. He’s a 50-odd year old Aussie who married a
hot Russian woman and now resides in Moscow.
He’s lived all over the world, is paid roughly $1500 per day to be here,
and hasn’t worn a shirt to work yet that didn’t feature the New Orleans Jazz
Festival in some way. His casual shoes
are Chucks. His ponytail is
Sampson-esque and his teeth appear to have been recycled from the “before”
pictures in Crest commercials. This man
is, in short, a total gem. We will
party. It will be good.
IV.
The Consultant
The Consultant, being a crazy dutch bastard, goes by the
moniker Von Hoodwink. Rarely have I met
a man so intent on talking me into his line of work, and rarely have I met a
man with more convincing arguments.
“I travel constantly. I work when
I want to. This year, I have made a
shitload of money. I’m not married but I
have a partner. I only leave work when
she insists on screwing me, or when my friends want to ride motorcycles in
Spain.”
Touche, Von Hoodwink.
He snores like an atomic chainsaw and laughs like he’s choking, which is
possible. He also helped me carry in
groceries and I have yet to produce a foul one-liner, chauvinistic comment or
clever derogatory pun which he hasn’t said himself before. He is, in a word, my hero. We talk.
V.
The King
We’ll call The King Sinbad. He’s from the North African former
pirate-haven of Tripoli and, like the rest of these clowns, has worked all over
the world.
Sinbad effortlessly maneuvers
conversations between socio-political analysis of the Middle East to our
corporate limitations to the price and quality of Hashish in various Spanish
cities. Barcelona, I’m told, is where
it’s at. His oilfield knowledge is
rivalled only by his capacity to drink like a fish with a drinking problem and
still perform the next day. All
waitstaff and bartenders at the local watering hole know his name, rank and
homeroom number. Sinbad’s first three
drinks are always free because his last ten always aren’t. Sinbad is my friend here, has taught me more
about well testing and life in general than most anyone else, and has made the
cut of “people I work with who I email funny shit to that isn’t work
related.” A trip to North Africa under
his supervision would come close to killing me, but in a productive manner. Sinbad is the man.
VI.
The cute, intelligent, technically savvy,
artistically inclined, somehow unmarried female who is also nice to animals
She works on the same shift as the Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause, and the central spiritual figure of one of the religions you, the reader, do not subscribe to. Back to reality.
VII.
Outroduction
These are obviously only a few of the gems I get to
associate with on this trip. While it’s impossible to select just a few people
here as a truly representative cross section, the effort to do so produces an
interesting common vein. That common
vein is this: stop being so damn linear.
Living in a big city chocked full of college grads with degrees and dreams makes you forget stuff. Namely, it makes you forget there are other
ways to make a living than the 8-5 MF grind that gives you two weeks off and a
lame Christmas party every year. There’s
more to life. Adventurous careers and
entrepreneurial actions are the lifeblood out here, and I drank deeply of
the nectar. These folks love
problem-solving, are team-oriented to the end, and between them have more
passport stamps than Madonna’s naughty bits. Many of them were dirt poor before they figured it out, and that desperation forged what we see today. Most importantly, the expats and consultants here in Kurdistan are, by and large, really,
really, sincerely happy with their lives.
And that’s worth more than a couple Croatian hookers.
Till next time,
Kurdy
