...and I still can't figure out if they are passing fast or slow. On Monday, it's gonna be two months since I came here. A lot has happened, but nothing crucial...
After a trip to Bata, days were according to the routine - work, reading, football, rest... The next interesting day was a "short" Saturday when we went to play the tournament at camp 4. Before that, one guy took me to see the Cathedral, then it was still in the process of final preparations. It is magnificent. It's huge. It's so white on the hill. The plateau in front of the Cathedral is the size of two football fields, at least. Along the sides of the plateau, 100 big lamp are hanging from the ceiling. They told me that the icons inside are also breathtaking. I can't wait to go there again after the grand opening.
One guy told me that the life here is all in fazes and I think he had a point. The fazes applies to you free time. First I had a faze of watching Los Serranos, that lasted the first month. I watched them every day, one ore two episodes. Than it was the faze with video game "Football Manager", which I played 2-3h a day. Now I entered in the reading faze, and all the time I'm at home I spend reading. Wonder what's the next one...
Due to the heavy rain and some referendum, we had three "short" Saturdays in a row. Don't know if I wrote about the rain here, but it's something, so okay if I write it again. It rains every day, that is certain. Most of the days you don't know when it's gonna rain - the day is sunny, very hot than all of a sudden - clouds, and in 10 minutes it's flood. It rains hard for half an hour - hour, rarely longer and when it stops within 15-20 minutes everything is dry. Amazing. All the people told me that it's not healthy to be in the rain here, you must change to dry clothes immediately or you could catch a cold, then you immune system is weak and the next thing you know - here comes malaria and you're stuck in bed for three days with high temperature, fever and body pain, can't sleep or eat. And there are no universal method of how to prevent it. Some guys had 2 others 12 malaria in three years. But they all say that it's important to eat well, have plenty of rest and avoid stress as much as you can. Oh, I wandered off from "short" Saturdays to rain to malaria...
The thing I wanted to say is that drinking is bad, and drinking 'n' driving is even worse. And here is the example why. We were supposed to go to the tournament on camp 1 but couldn't cos the local government imposed restriction of movement outside the camps for all vehicles. People stayed in and a lot of them decided to drink the day away - OK, their choice. One smart guy thought it would be wise to go to Mongomo on a dirt, service road alongside the highway we're building, to pick up some chicks. He was wasted. At 9pm my phone's ringing and they told me he had an accident and was taken to the hospital. He slammed in a pile of rocks, dirt, flipped on the roof hit other car and landed on the wheels again. The van looked as if the press went over it - everything was smashed but the doors that were standing there like nothing happened. Fortunately, he didn't fasten his seat belt and is skinny, so he fell out of the van - otherwise he'd die for sure. He didn't have any serious injuries, one wound on his thigh and a couple of bruises and scars. He was incredibly lucky. The outcome of the story is: he was fired, returned home and have to pay 5000 euros of damage. And all for a few beers and a whiskey...
I said it before, people here drink a lot. Not just Serbians - everybody. The beer is the most popular, cos it's the cheapest. The most favorite ones are Cody's and San Miguel. You can also find Heineken, Carlsberg, Mahou and Guinness. There is no Guinean beer or any other African. Whiskey is also popular, if you like something stronger. And alcohol is cheap; beer is from 350 CFC a can, which is around 60 euro-cents, so 24-pack is from 11 euros; a bottle of whiskey, for example Four Roses, is 12 euros and Jack Daniels is less than 20e.
Payday for Africans is every other Saturday and you can expect that 20% of workers are not gonna show up on Monday, maybe even Tuesday. Locals start drinking in the morning, they drink during a break, often I see some of them with bloody-red eyes from booze during the work hours. As this is company owned by the state, you can't fire a worker so easy. First you give them two warnings and then you let them go - that is if the administration didn't "lose" their warnings. You have to protect yourself all the time, save the copy of every document, make the people sign whatever you give them. People here are very awkward. You can't trust anyone. And I've been said that the Serbians are the worst - you know what you can expect from the locals (they are going to try to scam you for money, but in such an obvious way that it makes you laugh - example, adding a 1 in front of an existing 8h of work) but from most of the Serbians you don't know what to expect. They gonna talk behind your back, make up stories, kiss your ass and than stab you in the back, exploit you as much as they can and blame every mistake on you. That is especially the case if someone new arrives, one who is generally good, somewhat trust people and think that if you mean and do good - people will do the same to you as well. O, how I was wrong...
Trust no one - that's the new motto.
After a trip to Bata, days were according to the routine - work, reading, football, rest... The next interesting day was a "short" Saturday when we went to play the tournament at camp 4. Before that, one guy took me to see the Cathedral, then it was still in the process of final preparations. It is magnificent. It's huge. It's so white on the hill. The plateau in front of the Cathedral is the size of two football fields, at least. Along the sides of the plateau, 100 big lamp are hanging from the ceiling. They told me that the icons inside are also breathtaking. I can't wait to go there again after the grand opening.
Due to the heavy rain and some referendum, we had three "short" Saturdays in a row. Don't know if I wrote about the rain here, but it's something, so okay if I write it again. It rains every day, that is certain. Most of the days you don't know when it's gonna rain - the day is sunny, very hot than all of a sudden - clouds, and in 10 minutes it's flood. It rains hard for half an hour - hour, rarely longer and when it stops within 15-20 minutes everything is dry. Amazing. All the people told me that it's not healthy to be in the rain here, you must change to dry clothes immediately or you could catch a cold, then you immune system is weak and the next thing you know - here comes malaria and you're stuck in bed for three days with high temperature, fever and body pain, can't sleep or eat. And there are no universal method of how to prevent it. Some guys had 2 others 12 malaria in three years. But they all say that it's important to eat well, have plenty of rest and avoid stress as much as you can. Oh, I wandered off from "short" Saturdays to rain to malaria...
The thing I wanted to say is that drinking is bad, and drinking 'n' driving is even worse. And here is the example why. We were supposed to go to the tournament on camp 1 but couldn't cos the local government imposed restriction of movement outside the camps for all vehicles. People stayed in and a lot of them decided to drink the day away - OK, their choice. One smart guy thought it would be wise to go to Mongomo on a dirt, service road alongside the highway we're building, to pick up some chicks. He was wasted. At 9pm my phone's ringing and they told me he had an accident and was taken to the hospital. He slammed in a pile of rocks, dirt, flipped on the roof hit other car and landed on the wheels again. The van looked as if the press went over it - everything was smashed but the doors that were standing there like nothing happened. Fortunately, he didn't fasten his seat belt and is skinny, so he fell out of the van - otherwise he'd die for sure. He didn't have any serious injuries, one wound on his thigh and a couple of bruises and scars. He was incredibly lucky. The outcome of the story is: he was fired, returned home and have to pay 5000 euros of damage. And all for a few beers and a whiskey...
I said it before, people here drink a lot. Not just Serbians - everybody. The beer is the most popular, cos it's the cheapest. The most favorite ones are Cody's and San Miguel. You can also find Heineken, Carlsberg, Mahou and Guinness. There is no Guinean beer or any other African. Whiskey is also popular, if you like something stronger. And alcohol is cheap; beer is from 350 CFC a can, which is around 60 euro-cents, so 24-pack is from 11 euros; a bottle of whiskey, for example Four Roses, is 12 euros and Jack Daniels is less than 20e.
Payday for Africans is every other Saturday and you can expect that 20% of workers are not gonna show up on Monday, maybe even Tuesday. Locals start drinking in the morning, they drink during a break, often I see some of them with bloody-red eyes from booze during the work hours. As this is company owned by the state, you can't fire a worker so easy. First you give them two warnings and then you let them go - that is if the administration didn't "lose" their warnings. You have to protect yourself all the time, save the copy of every document, make the people sign whatever you give them. People here are very awkward. You can't trust anyone. And I've been said that the Serbians are the worst - you know what you can expect from the locals (they are going to try to scam you for money, but in such an obvious way that it makes you laugh - example, adding a 1 in front of an existing 8h of work) but from most of the Serbians you don't know what to expect. They gonna talk behind your back, make up stories, kiss your ass and than stab you in the back, exploit you as much as they can and blame every mistake on you. That is especially the case if someone new arrives, one who is generally good, somewhat trust people and think that if you mean and do good - people will do the same to you as well. O, how I was wrong...
Trust no one - that's the new motto.
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