Sudan

They've got land rigs scattered across the country so you move from one site to the next a lot. No, I won't be in Darfour where the trouble is. The rigs are mostly in the northeast where there's relative calm and peace to do your job, get the money, and take the next flight out home as fast you can. First thing that came to mind before signing the papers was, are the women pretty there?

Depends. The longer you are out on the field with harsh weather and foul-mouthed all-male crew, the prettier the women get when you think of them. It's the same no matter what country you are in. But you've gotta keep saying to yourself, this ain't no ordinary country, mate!

They do things different here. Of course they've got satellite phone but I know better not to expect things offshore roughnecks take for granted like adult movies, nice food coming out the galley, great time with the boys on a town spending all the money on Dolly Molly Or Polly, drinking gin singing along with the band off key. This isn't that kinda country. Do that and you might end up being flogged in public without so much as a wafer thin t-shirt on your back. Don't you know that secular is fast becoming out of fashion and everyone in town is talking about going back to basics. Going back, going back. I wonder where that is or how far back they've gotta go before everyone is happy and the radio station can start playing western music again. That, my friend, isn't going to happen.

It's not a bad deal. For a night on a town with the boys there's always Cairo. I know for sure women are always pretty in Cairo no matter what time of day or night it is, or how much money you've got in the bank. It's a great city if you don't mind the girls from inner city Manila doing the bellydance. What is the world coming to, Asian women doing the bellydance when they should be home putting together a circuit board or something like that.

Don't hope for a deal in Tehran. It's gonna be a long time coming before you get to fly in thinking and hoping of meeting that girl again. She's married with kids, no doubt about it but it's nice to think of someone pretty as Spring Blossom smelling all so nice of jasmine. She's somewhere in Tehran no doubt about it, mate. But like I've said, the contract for Tehran is going to be a long time coming so you'd better forget about it and make the best of Sudan as long as you don't fall in love with the white women from the UN you see going about doing their voluntary work looking so nice and pretty in their clothes and desert boots.

I love this job.