Anne's blog travel 06-07

Friday November 24th- 7 days to go.
This is a picture from the Corniche. On the far right is the structure of the Sheraton, a pyramidal shaped hotel which marks the start of the Corniche. The many tall buildings have crane on top of them and at night or in the early morning darkness they are all lit up to inform pilots of the many low flying planes.

It's such a lovely place to run in the morning.

I haven't seen my volunteers rosters yet but have argued with staffing when some of them wanted more shifts or to change their shifts. Now I'm really interested to know who's on what shift as we go 24 hours today and I won't be here 24 hours per day. It's really important I have at least some very good volunteers amongst the rest and I can see that tonight will be a problem. Staffing has taken so long to address that I'm always requesting something which hasn't been done yet. Like:" Who have I got on tomorrow?" In some way I which I could schedule my guys on myself which would save me lot's of hassles.

Last night, a nice Young Sri Lankan Hotel staff chases the TV maintenance guys so that they come to fix my TV at night. I have just reported it not working hoping they would come while I'm away. Two Turkish guys come to look at the system and Sahan the bell boy tells me many rooms have that problem. He tells me the Turkish men don't speak English and are paid quite good money. 2000 Riyals he said (which is a monthly salary) which is US$550 (or US$6600 per year). For Australian Dollars it's AUD$709/month or AUD$8500 per year and in Canadian Dollars it's CA$626/month or CA$7500 per year.
If this is good money I want to know how much he is paid. He has come to work for 2 months and is working from 7pm to 7am. I suspect he has a day off per week if that. He is housed and fed once per day for diner. He tells me he is paid 800 Riyals per month which is about US$220 ( or US$2600 per year). But, he adds, he must pay half of it to the agency in Sri lanka which got him the job...

On another note, Jamal was telling me the other day that when an Arab man marries he promises to take care of all his wife's financial needs. And from here it does seem like they love to shop, buy make up, jewelry and nice clothes. Even if the wife works, she doesn't have to contribute this money. She can if she wants but the husband will never ask for this. Also Arab men are very protective and if they feel that their wife or loved ones are in trouble, they will quickly take defensive stance to assertain the situation. If however they are reassured there is no danger, they will just as quickly back off and become very polite. Jamal is always so funny. We may be talking like this and something comes up and I suddenly feel I must go and deal with it. Jamal will always say: "We have not finished this conversation however." And it seems perhaps that conversation may be more important than other things which in some way can be frustrating but in others also quite refreshing.

Ok, that's all for now.