Lunar Depression

Eight days in Shaybah - tiring. Ten hours of sleep in the last four days, food eaten out of a paper plate in the middle of a million dirty tools, a rig floor covered in drilling mud. My clothes still smell a little like hydraulic oil. At least now I'm back at the airport and waiting for a flight back to town. Mujeeb and I are talking about the peace we're hoping to have over the next couple of days - "They're having Eid holidays in town man - peaceful. No waking up at 6 am, no sleepy morning meetings, no job preparations. Office opens only on Sunday." That's three days away.

On the taxi back home I have pleasant thoughts - wake up really late, a visit to town, a little pending shopping, cooking the next evening. Office - well, maybe for a couple of hours in between.

Life's different at 7 am the next morning. I wake up red-eyed to a ringing cell phone. Ali H. I curse loudly. I'm pretty sure I know why I've been woken up so early. And sure enough - another job, and leaving in a couple of hours. I'm PISSED. All in caps. Pissed through getting ready, through the short trip to office, through the three hour taxi ride to the heliport, through the half hour chopper ride offshore.

But then it ends there. Going down after checking in at the radio room, I join Thamer and Hussain who got there four days ago - guys who've been fasting almost fourteen hours a day, every day for the past one month, in preparation of their biggest festival of the year. Fasting - without food or water - when back in town, when at office, or when working on the rig floor in the middle of summer. And at the end the only thing they really want is to celebrate Eid with their families. They're not complaining though.

I don't prepare a tenth as much for Christmas. And yet I never learn to shut up. :)