Anne's blog travel 06-07

Friday, December 8th 2006
These photos are from this strange sport I've never seen before called Sepaktakraw which originates from South East Asia. A mix of Volleyball and Soccer in which you can't use your arms or hands and I must say the athletism required is amazing as these photos will demonstrate. So at least if you ever hear of this sport you will know a little about it.

It rained most of the day yesterday. The day started out good for me as the settlement on my unit came through and I officially knew my place in Fremantle, Australia had sold.

But a few things dampened my spirit. By 10:06am there was an accident at Equestrian in the cross country and a 47 year old South Korean rider died instantly when he fell off his horse and broke his neck. The conditions at Equestrian looked quite nasty when I looked at a few of my TVs in the morning. I thought it was bad enough having to walk 20km in the rain but the muddy conditions made the dangerous sport of cross country even more so. The horse fell over the jump and partially on the rider and I believe the horse was also put to sleep. So, a few emergency Press conferences were called and we had to swiftly inform all the press in the venue of this so they could attend the press conference and do their job of reporting. The Korean Chefs of Mission were obviously choked up and one lady could hardly speak. It was very sad indeed.

Then, I had trouble with two Qataris women (Ala and Maryam) who deal with some of the staffing issues. They had the day before come in to tell me I had two new volunteers the next day (yesterday) and that two of my trusted staff were going to be rostered off. I strongly objected saying that there was no way anyone was taking Younes or Nayef off their shifts and that I didn't want any new volunteers. After talking the Gerry (who does the night shift ) this morning she assured me that none of my volunteers would be scheduled off and if we needed to have new volunteers we may try to assign them somewhere else. The volunteer program was not thought out properly. There are all these Qataris who have release letters from work who now want to start working when it's too late to learn the job. After lunch, Abdulqader and Saad inform me that Ala and Maryam have told them at lunch that they have been removed from the roster the next day (today) and not to show up. They are upset because they want to work and by now I'm starting to be angry. So I storm into their office (Ala and Maryam) and tell them in no uncertain terms never to talk to my volunteers without talking to me first and that none of my volunteers were going to be scheduled off. Any new volunteers could be scheduled at night from 11pm to 7am as I need them then. And I left slamming the door behind me especially when they tried to tell me that they were just helping Gerry out who had instructed them to do this. I knew this was a total lie.

Lorraine laughs when I tell her the story. She knows me to always be as cool as a cucumber and that it takes much to see me raise my voice. But I feel this is a continual issue and I can't afford to go along with this stupidity. By the time Gerry gets in at 7pm she has words with Maryam and promisses to talk to Ala in the morning as this was the contrary to what they were told to do. But there is also Soud the Venue manager who is Qatari and has his own ideas and I believe they try to accommodate him at our expense. But such is life and we'll deal with this how we can.

The rain has gone this morning. It's still humid but the grounds will dry out now. And the Games go on.