D534-Mumbai-D534-Kakinad

I came back from the rig only to arrive mumbai for my boss to call me early the following morning not to come to work. I was bewildered. How badly did I mess up for him to give me a personal call not to come to work when I haven’t even brushed my mouth so early in the morning? He then went on to mention that there had been reported cases of violence in Mumbai and all foreigners were advised to stay at home. Man! I was so elated! Just imagine.. free day off?? All because of why? Some politician named Raj Thackery had been mongering hate amongst the locals asking them to chase immigrants out of Maharastra state (for those who don’t know, Mumbai is a city and it is in Maharastra state as well as some other big cities like Pune) Tcheiw, come as see these jobless people burning toll booths and taxis early morning news. They can hardly feed themselves and come and see them throwing stones and being destructive. Anyways, me I no send anyone.. I took the day off and went to my local beauty parlor. I had a full body massage. It was total heaven. I even went comatose while the masseuse was doing her magic. It was the sound of me snoring that woke me up.. hehehe.. yea.. I hear myself snore.

Fast forward to the weekend. On Saturday I went to check out a new dentist. Did I mention that the last dentist I was with was starting to experiment with my mouth? I just generally had a bad feeling about this guy. So I took the train from Thane to a place called Dardar (yess o.. I am now bonafide Mumbai babe). Some chick on some Bombay expat group had recommended her dentist so I decided to go check him out. First thing Mr.Fancy New Dentist asked me for were the X-rays taken by the last dentist. Me I was like “err.. sorry Mr. Fancy.. I don’t have no X-rays” Mr. Fancy could not believe that the past dentist did not take x-rays before sticking braces in my mouth. I left his office feeling as though I was lucky to still have my teeth attached to my gums. Hehehe.. really.. this is not a funny matter o. I have now officially switched to Mr. Fancy. I will be commencing treatment in the next month or so.

Before I could say “Tolantino is back in Mumbai” My boss had sent me on another mission to Discoverer-534. I was working with Iti again and some other cool Indian guy. Really, I did have fun. The job was very short. I was there for six days and I probably only slept on 4 occasions for no more than 6hrs. It was work work work.. cool thing is that the guys working on the rig were also still very cool people. Very fun. They even used to pass me and Iti candies every now and again.. hehehe..The joys of being a woman on a testosterone filled offshore rig! I love D534 and I wanna go again!

Here you can see the rig floor in the background. This is where the drilling operations take place :-)

Last day on D534.. bone deep tired but still manage a smile :-D

I love this pic. (You can see fishermen from local villages who swamp our ship every evening in search of big fishes. there was a night we counted ab0ut 50 of them. The client then hired a small patrol boat to chase these fishermen from fishing close to the ship and disrupting operations.. you can see them advancing from the horizon. Make me feel as though we are being invaded!)

As soon as the job was done, we were already on a chopper back to Rajamundry. My boss sent us straight to Kakinada! Yikes.. You all know how much love I got for Kakinada. I came here with great trepidation/dread. From my own experiences, they only send you to kakinada when they wanna screw you over! I’ve been here twice in the past and they all had stories/experiences attached with them. I have blogged all about it.

So, on reaching Kakinada two days ago, I was put up in one of the company staff houses. Great thing about this place is that there are maids who wait on your 24/7 needs. Always at your beck and call.. hehehe and my room has mosquito nets so I am very well protected. This time around, I can actually say that I have been having fun in Kakinada. It is mighty strange though but seems like the angels are on my side this time around (not that they weren’t in the past) My second night here we went to Kakinada beach.

Lovely KKD Beach

Lovely KKD Sunset

It was so blue and non polluted. I really loved it. One of the managers here was being transferred to Turkmenistan so we all went to his place in the evening and had drinks over masala snacks.. my tongue was so numb from the alcohol that I did not feel the spiciness of the situation..hehehe.. it was really good fun hanging out with this guys.. seems like the kakinada folks are more friendly than the Mumbai office people. Nothing spoil sha. All this was last night. I didn’t even know I was intoxicated until I got up to leave and my head did like 20 back flips in 10 seconds.. hehehe.. I had totally arrived..

The guys in the KKD base had put up a volley ball net in front of our office so they invited me to come play. Your girl has never stood on a volley ball court ever but I am never one to turn down a challenge. It was us against drivers and security guards and technicians.. everyone was on on the Volley ball court. What was weird was that the guys were teaching me how to serve and they were going like “mam.. this is how to hold the ball..” I thought that was hilarious. Here is me, playing volley ball with the driver who will drive me home and he’s also teaching me how to make a volley! I totally loved it.

Armature volley ball player

RUN Tola.. RUN!!

So just before I went home, I bumped into this Gabonese guy whom I had seen in the Mumbai office. He works in KKD and has his wife and kid with him. He has invited me to come to meet his family on Sunday so I am looking forward to it. I pray my boss is not going to come up with some messed up job for me to do on Sunday o! Make una help me pray abeg!

So many many things have happened to me since my last post. One of my blog readers Engr. Nemo was going to be moving to India for work. She arrived and since we got chatting, we realized that we both live on the same road in FESTAC town. My lil brother used to roll with her older brother back in the days and there was a time I went to borrow movies from her in her house. If you don’t believe that we live in a small world.. this is proof. I cant wait to return to Mumabi and meet her

And my word OBAMA won the elections. I am not one to meddle with American politics but this is history in my time. The first black man to rule America…. I am glad I witnessed it. Though I must say that there was no way the guy wasn’t going to win after all the numbers that turned out to vote for him His African supporters who were not eligible to vote must have done their respective voodoo in his favo.Poor senator Mccain didn’t stand a chance..hehehe.. just kidding.
This is it my people. My blog is now up to date with the major events. I hope to catch up again very soon.. xoxo..

Tolantino…

A Lot can happen in 3 weeks (part 1)

Rule number one of blogger.. “Never ever procrastinate updating your blog” This is the number one blogger sin because it will surely come back to bite you in the back side. See me as example, the last time I wrote on this blog, I promised you guys an update and three weeks later, its 00:49am, I am jet lagged, I have to be up for 6am, and I am forcing myself to update my blog.

You will not believe the number of things that can happen in three weeks my people.

To continue from where I left off on the last post, My boss let me off the hook Well.. I am assuming that he has done so since he has not mentioned anything to me till date. I went on to the rig. This rig was a massive drill ship sitting in water depth of about 1350m. My people that is some deep water I tell you. I was there for 10 days and being the only “lady” on board, they spoilt me to my own room. It was actually a two sleeper room with two satellites TV’s and wireless internet connection. I did not even miss land at all. For all I cared, I could have stayed on that rig for 60days and counting. But it was hard work, I was climbing no less that 1000 steps a day and I was starting to feel some muscles in my buttocks which I never knew existed. Make no mistakes; this was not a life of luxury. It was a life of hard work, heavy lifting, working ungodly hours and I barely had time to use the luxury of the internet and the cable in the room. The only thing I had time for when I wasn’t working was Eat and Sleep. Full stop

The Drill Ship

Tired and Haggard

After 10 days, I was sent back to land. I went to the office, met up with my Brazillian-Ghanaian friend (Dee) Dee lived in Nigeria for a long time and she totally understands the Nigerian way. She be my naija sister from another country. That weekend was really nice. I went to her place on Friday evening after work. We went to some Latino party (it was crap I must say) and then we went to some market called Colaba. This place is amazing for cheap ass bags (fake) bootleg DVD’s and like my friend Dee said.. “enough oyibo’s wey come discover dem souls for India” I laughed my head off. Anyways.. we bought bootleg Sex and the City (the movie) DVD only to get home and find that its some sicko horror movie that’s been burnt to the CD. Incredible India I tell you…During the day out.. my boss even called to to pack my bags for Kakinada (again) I was already calculating how I will make my way back to my apartment from Colaba when my boss called back to say that I will not be going anymore. I can tell you in those 15mins, I was already dreaming of all the Kakinada sqitoes that would have feasted on my very Janded blood.

Watch out for part two..