Durrah Beach Resort, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Monday, 1998-03-23 22:40 local (Z+3)
Oh, boy, where to start. I don't feel like starting, but start I shall.
It has, thus far, been a thoroughly miserable trip. But it has been interesting, and I need to start getting things down before they're lost to my memory. I talked to C.J. a while ago, and she asked me if I had written anything. The answer was, “No, all I've done is sleep,” and having to say that forced my guilt level up enough to at least cause me to start.
So, what I'm going to do is number these things to enable sorting them out when they all arrive at once in your email.
Why will they all arrive at once? Well, that's part of why I feel so lousy. Just before I left home—ages ago it seems, but it was only Friday the 13th, just ten days ago—I downloaded and installed an updated version of Quarterdeck's CleanSweep. I then ran it to see if it really did do, as advertised, a better job of cleaning up my laptop. It didn't find anything the previous version hadn't found, but it did, somehow, mess up Windows 95. I started checking applications and found that many of them froze. The reasonable thing to do seemed to be to reload Windows 95 over itself, something I've had to do, and done successfully a number of times on both our desktop machine and my laptop. The reload gave me a runnable system with all applications working that had been freezing. However, time was running short, and I didn't check Microsoft's Dial-Up Networking to see if it had survived the reload. It wasn't one of the apps the CleanSweep installation had driven down.
Saturday the 14th at JFK, I found I couldn't log on to the Internet. I spent about eight hours making a dozen calls to IBM.net and half as many to Gateway trying to clear the problem, finally narrowing it down to Dial-Up Networking. However, neither IBM.net or Gateway could solve the problem. Both finally suggested a total removal and then replacement of Windows 95. That, of course, would mean having to reload all of my applications software, and the necessary CD-ROMs and diskettes for doing that were at home. So, I'm out here without the ability to communicate, and that just about drives me around the bend. Plus, having my computers working as I want them to work is an obsession with me, and when I can't satisfy that obsession, I find it difficult to focus on anything else. My primary goal in life right now is to get home and get this laptop working as it should work.
The first thing, though, that I will do when I arrive home is transfer all accumulated outgoing messages to our desktop computer and send them—that's why you'll receive a mass of messages. Then I'll get down to fixing the laptop.
That explains the first two irritants: (1) can't email, (2) laptop computer is messed up. Keep track, now, more, much more are coming. <g>
Irritant number (3): I'm on the wrong side of the Hadj. The line I bid for and was awarded was for the Indonesian Hadj, not the Saudi Hadj. Now the Hadj is the annual—based on the Hijrah calendar, not the Gregorian calendar—pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca, for which Jeddah is the nearest airport, so everybody comes here. There difference is where you're based. Tower's contract with Garuda, the Indonesian state airline, has the pilots based out of Jakarta. They only layover in Jeddah. The contract with Saudia, Saudi Arabia's state airline, has the pilots based in Jeddah. You only layover at other places, and usually not even that. We get the shit work, the trips that are out and back in one day.
So how did I wind up based in Jeddah rather than Jakarta, and what does that all mean. Lots, actually.
It means I'm spending my time in a very restrictive police state in stead of a very tolerant police state.
It means I'm buying my meals in an expensive hotel rather than in an economy where you now rent the best of cabs for a dollar an hour, where good quality polo shirts are now $2 a piece, where a meal in the best of restaurants is $6. Last year the exchange rate was 2300 Rupiyah per dollar. This year it's over 10,000.
It means there will be no members of the opposite sex at the pool...not that I look any more, you understand. <g> But whether I look or not should be my decision, not a mutawah's. And likewise, it should be the girl's decision as to whether she wants to be on view.
It means I can't use the fitness center until after 17:00; 09:00 to 17:00 is reserved for women, and Allah forbids in Saudi that you mix men and women in such an activity. Actually, the hours for women are an improvement. At least the gals are now allowed access to fitness centers, though that's not yet true in all hotels.
I won't depress myself further by continuing the list; you get the idea.
How did I wind up here rather than Jakarta? Basically because at the last minute, Tower put three airplanes in Jakarta and four in Jeddah instead of the originally planned four in Jakarta and three in Jeddah. Those of us scheduled for Jakarta and with days off during the start of the Hadj were reassigned to Jeddah when we came to work.
I could have insisted that they pull somebody junior to me out of Jakarta and send them to Jeddah to make room in Jakarta for me. I didn't for a number of reasons, but now I wish I had. It seemed like the correct decision at the time, but it wasn't. More on that later if I think I can stand beating myself up further.
Okay, so I've at least started, even if the start was only to vent some of my frustration.
It's now time to sleep in case they call me for an early flight tomorrow.
Terry