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| Basel smoking the hookah |
Basel, my roommate and Senior Operator flew in from Jordan. We got acquainted and got to visit a little bit. He lives in a city in northern Jordan, not far from the Syrian border but works as a slickline supervisor for al-Mansoori (which is a huge engineering firm in the middle east) in Abu Dhabi. He works a 35 day on/35 day off schedule and was coming in on his days off to give Napesco a hand. The United Arab Emirates is a coalition of seven emirates, or kingdoms that banded together when the British cut them loose in 1971. The two largest and richest emirates are Abu Dhabi and Dubai. And that's a little confusing because they are not only provinces in the U.A.E., but capitol cities as well. And Abu Dhabi is also the capitol of the Emirates as well. Because of their oil deposits, the Emirates are one of the richest places on earth and Basel runs a slickline crew out in the desert of Abu Dhabi.
In the oilfield in Canada and probably in the U.S. as well, we have this hurry-up, get-it-done attitude. The job is paramount and we don't let anything get in the way. Rick, my first boss in the 'patch used to call me up part way through a job and say, "Hurry, you're late!" How can I be late? I haven't finished this job yet! "It doesn't matter, I told the rig you had already left." I used to cuss him out something fierce in my head. Stop doing that! What if something goes wrong on this job. It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings. Then tell me I've got another job.
Things in the middle east operate on a completely different time scale. Maybe it's the heat. You can't push people or machinery too hard in those kind of temperatures and not expect some breakdowns. However, I think the big difference is in the culture. Over there what the Quran says is everything. And according to the Quran, you don't get after people, don't embarrass them or push them. I'm not sure of the scripture, but from what I was told, how folks deal with each other is laid down pretty strict. Consequently, things are pretty laid back.
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| Starbucks on the beach |
Dan, Basel and I were ready to see the big Kahunas at the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) first thing Sunday morning (As Saturday is the sabbath, Sunday is the first business day of the week). But for whatever reason, we got the brushoff for two days before we finally got into KOC. We would have an appointment to see a Mr. al Holi at 9 AM, but get pushed off until afternoon or the next day.
So we would either go back to Dan's office or to the Starbucks on the beach, sit on the patio outside in the sun and drink coffee (and me and my hot chocolate). Yeah, I know. It seems a little insane to be sitting in the sun on a deck in 46 degree C weather (115 deg F). But they've got these cool three-foot-wide fans (literally cool) that have a mister in them, so you have this cool mist spraying on you as you sit in the sun. It had to be the most strangely enjoyable sensation I've ever felt. Drinking a hot beverage, sitting in the sun and being so completely cool at the same time. In the words of Will Smith in the movie Independence Day, "I have got to get me one of these!" They are awesome!
The boys at KOC sure took their sweet time getting around to things. They blew us off for two-and-a-half days before we finally got in to see them. Finally, Tuesday afternoon, we were able to arrange an interview with Mr. al Holi, who I think was the head of production, Mr. Bohanna their in-house slickline guru and another big-wig who I'm not sure who he was (but he had the hardest-to-answer questions). I was peppered for about an hour with difficult questions about how I would attend to this or that problem in the field. I then had to write a written test and was graded my Mr. Bohanna and finally told that I passed. I was told that I could pick up my field pass in the morning.
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| Basel and Dan entering Napesco's head office |
Basel went through a similar interview process, but was finally told that because he was from Jordan, he would not be given permission to go to the field. I had high hopes that he would eventually be working with us as we had some high-level Kuwaitis involved in his behalf, but after another day or two of negotiations, he was eventually denied access and Napesco flew him home the next day. The whole thing was a bit dumb because Napesco and other service companies have Jordanians on staff, but because Jordan is/was friendly to the Palestinians, any Jordanians have to go through an intensive screening process with the police to determine that they are not a threat and it takes several weeks for the screening, so he wouldn't get his field pass until after we were finished. The Kuwaiti people have a long memory and the fact that the Palestinians sided with Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War and Jordan is or was friendly with them meant that we weren't able to utilize Basel's skillset.
Monday we went to GDMC's yard to check out the truck that we would be using. It was a Canadian-built slickline truck built by Dyna-Winch in Calgary with .108" slickline and 7/32" braided swab line on a split-drum and a four-speed hydraulic system. Other than the two huge air conditioners on the roof instead on a little Coleman, it was virtually identical to what I've run in the past. Michel, the Slickline Manager at GDMC who was supplying the truck and equipment says they usually start at 5 AM to beat the heat and KOC won't let them work past noon.
There are some cool customs over there. Most places you go, as soon as the plane takes off, when you arrive at the front desk of your hotel or at a restaurant, they offer you warm, moist towels to wash your hands, face and neck. And you need it. Walking around in 45 degree heat, I was sticky and it is was unbelievably refreshing to wipe all that sweat and grime off of you.
Everywhere we went, every office has "tea boys". They are grown men, some of them in their 60s and their job is to bring you tea, coffee or water and that's all they do. The old tea boy in Dan's office would watch out the window and see us pull up in the parking lot and have a hot coffee on Dan's desk and a cold glass of water for me by my chair before we even got up to Dan's office.
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| Om Ali |
I sampled the most amazing dessert I have ever had while in Kuwait. It's an Egyptian dessert called Om Ali. It's like a bread pudding but so much better. It's made with puff pastry or phyllo dough, cooked in a custard with almond slices, pecans, pistachios, tiny green sultana raisins and flaked coconut. Holy cow, it's the most amazing thing I have ever tasted! There are two legends associated with the dessert. One has it that Om Ali was the first wife of the Sultan Ezz El Din Aybek. When the sultan died, his second wife had a dispute with Om Ali, resulting in the second wife's death. To celebrate, Om Ali made this dessert and distributed it among the people of the land. There's nothing like a dessert-to-die-for to celebrate murdering your political rival!
The second story is that the Sultan of Egypt was out touring his land and was suddenly famished. He stopped at the nearest village and demanded some nourishment. The people of the village turned to their best cook, Um Ali (literally translated as the mother of Ali) and she took what she had on hand. Which turned out to be some stale bread, some milk, sugar and some nuts and raisins. She made a custard and soaked the bread in it and added nuts and sultanas and cooked it in the village oven. The sultan was so delighted with it, he asked for it every time he was in the area.
I was so enamored with the recipe, I had it nearly every night I was in Kuwait. As soon as I arrived back home in Canada, I looked it up and bought the ingredients. On the second Sunday of every month, all of our family in Edmonton gets together for a giant potluck dinner and we all sit around for hours visiting. I got back just in time for July's potluck, and Om Ali was the belle of the ball.
Ingredients
1 500g (17.5 oz.) package frozen phyllo dough, thawed
2/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chopped pistachios
1/2 cup sultana raisins (golden)
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1-1/4 cups white sugar, divided
6 cups whole milk (I used goat milk, but homogenized is fine)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of Cardamom
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
500mL (pint) whipping cream
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Butter a 9x13 baking dish.
2. Melt the 2/3 cup of butter in the microwave. Unroll the phyllo dough and cut the dough into smaller pieces. With a pastry brush, paint each side of the sheets of phyllo dough with butter and drop onto a cookie sheet like wet rags.
3. Place the cookie sheets in the oven and bake at 350 degrees until the pastry turns a nice golden brown, about 20 minutes.
4. While the buttered dough is cooking, combine the milk, 3/4 cup of the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamon in a large pot and heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture comes to a boil.
5. While the milk is heating, in a mixing bowl, combine the almonds, pecans, pistachios, raisins and coconut together.
6. Whip the whipping cream and 1/2 cup of sugar together until they form stiff peaks.
7. While the milk is heating, crumble some of the baked phyllo sheets into the baking dish. Once the bottom of the dish is covered with crumbled pastry, cover the pastry with a layer of nut mix. Cover that with another layer of crumbled phyllo, then another layer of nut mix until all the ingredients have been used.
8. Once the milk has come to a boil, add the vanilla extract. Then slowly pour the milk over the layered ingredients.
9. Preheat the oven up to 500 degree F.
10. Top the mixture with a layer of whipping cream. Sprinkle with nutmeg
11. Bake at 500 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes until the top turns a deep golden brown.
12. Serve hot.
Note: This is the fixed version of the recipe. The version we had in July didn't have enough milk, so I added more. We had several people attending who were allergic to the pecans and pistachios, so we nixed them from the recipe for that gathering. And the original recipe had us using only half of the pint of whip cream and it definitely needed more. The phyllo dough wasn't quite right either. So I did some research, and I think this set of instructions will make it come out closer to what I experienced overseas. When you've tasted perfection, it's hard to tolerate anything else.
The funniest nut in the whole world is, of course, the kukui nut. The state tree of Hawaii produces a nut also referred to as a candlenut as you can burn it like a candle. The kukui not only sounds funny, but ingested, is the world's most powerful natural laxative. They have a saying in Hawaii. You eat one kukui nut: you walk. Two kukui nuts: you run. And three: Alooooha!
Oh yes. You weren't wrong when you said it was a dessert to die for!!!
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