highs and lows

I having been working over the past few weeks on a community outreach program with a school that Chevron established in Cabinda, and this week I got to see it all come to fruition! Initially, my project had come up with the idea to purchase computers for the school, but after a taking a trip to meet the principal we found out that one of the other volunteers networks had donated 10 brand new computers to the school last year - and the computers had never been used. They were still sitting in the packaging. It's pretty unbelievable to imagine that the teachers and principal of the school hadn't set up the computers yet, but it was clear that no one had throught through whether or not the school staff knew how to operate the machines. Long story short, we developed a program to take a trip once a week to the school and give the teachers computer lessons during the recess period. We arrived with several volunteers and one soccer ball and the kids were SO thrilled. All of our volunteers were inspiried as well, and we have purchased 10 soccer balls to donate on next week's trip. We played, boys against girls, for about an hour - which is all that us volunteers could handle, we were exhausted. Here are a few photos from the trip...

these cuties ran circles around me!

I woke up on Thursday to a missed call from my friend Rachel from Bakersfield. I talk to Rachel on an almost daily basis on our company communicator, so it was kind of strange that she had called my cell phone. After a game of phone tag, we finally got in touch and she let me know that one of the operations supervisors that I had worked very closely with in Bakersfield had passed away on Wednesday from a heart attack. It took all day for the news to really sink in, and it just broke my heart. Rachel and a few of the other folks that worked with Dave decided to put together a book with notes and photos of all our favorite memories of him to share with his family. When you work 10-14 hours a day with someone, you have no other choice to develop close relationships and most of the time you learn all about the person and their families without ever meeting any family members. I can't imagine a greater gift for Dave's family than a book of memories from people that you've never met reiterating how great of a man Dave was and the positive impact he had on so many lives. I was so upset that I won't be able to attend Dave's funeral services, but selfishly being able to write down my thoughts, taking the time to remember Dave and to share my favorite memory of him helped tremendously....

Dave Brantley was hands down the smartest, most patient man I've ever known. With that said, he never made ANYTHING easy... Being a woman in a field full of men, it's always difficult starting a job in a new area because you have to "prove" yourself before any of the operations folks will listen to anything you say. In October of 2011, moving to McKittrick was no exception to this rule. Luckily, I had worked with a few of the thermal folks in a previous position, so I knew Mike Bryan and Dave Matthews, but Mr. Brantley was new to me.

I will never forget the time I spent with Dave in December 2011. December in the office is always pretty quiet. As a new(ish) employee, I has already used up my 2 weeks of vacation so I was on holiday duty. One of my co-workers had left me some work to start up a water line following a repair, and since I had zero knowledge of where the line even was I called up Dave to get some background info. As we were driving out to the pumps, he started asking me questions about the start up procedure that I had written and given to him for review. Simple questions, like what is the operating presure of the line. I immediately started to have my doubts about him and began asking probing questions about how long he had been working in McKittrick and what his Chevron career had been. It was completely obvious that he was more than qualified to be the approver of my start up procedure, but I couldn't figure out why he was asking such simple questions like what kind of pump was on the line. Long story short, we spent 3-days together trying to get that line started up (and many more in the following years), and Dave was constantly asking me quesitons along the way. Not because he wanted to know the answer, but because he wanted me to be 100% aware of what I was doing and how each little component of the system affected this job. In fact, I'm not sure that he ever asked a question he didn't at least partially know the answer to...

By the end of my time in McKittrick, I looked to Dave as a father-figure, but more importantly a confidant - someone I could really trust and had so much confidence in. Dave had the unique ability to exert authority and command respect while maintaining this almost calming effect on any situation. There could be fire balls coming out of the sky, and he would still slowly walk into our office with a smile and some snarky comment about how Rachel needed to get started building a new flare system (which is a whole other story...).

Dave's job description didn't include teacher, it didn't require him to be a mentor, and it definitely didn't hold him accountable for developing young engineer's technical competency, but he did all of that and more. I know that I am one of hundreds of people that Dave has had an impact on, and my time spent with him is time that will never be forgotten. I feel so blessed to have had him in my life, and wanted to thank YOU for sharing him with our McKittrick family.

Needless to say, this week has been full of highs and lows but it's come to a closing on a high. I woke up to an email from Chad saying he and his friend, Andrew, made it safely to BRAZIL! I already knew they had made it because I watched the entire 11 hour flight on flightaware.com...yes, I am a creep. I wanted to be the first to know if that Korean Air flight went off the radar and you better believe I would have led the charge looking for those pings :)

Sunday breakfast...have I mentioned that I have the best guys over here??

I cannot believe that it's already time for me to get gone, but there's no doubt about the fact that I am SO excited to be headed home on Tuesday. I'm landing on Wednesday and taking off Thursday morning for a joint birthday celebration for my big bro and sister from another mister (Alanna) in CABO SAN LUCAS! I cannot wait to be reunited with some of my favorite people for a real vacation of nothing but sun, surf, and drinks with umbrellas :):)

33 days down, 2 more to go! xoxo...

daddy's girl

My African internet is going to make this blog short and sweet - we've had 2 power outages already today...

It's been another insanely busy week with lots of visitors, site walks, and of course the first world cup games. I spent the majority of my time spent this week in the field "fire-fighting" as my construction rep likes to call it. We had a visit from our project manager, which was a great success. It's so nice to have a visit from someone who hasn't been around for a few months. Fresh eyes always help point out the progress that we fail to see on a daily basis. And who doesn't like an atta-girl every once in a while!

Today is Father's Day back home and all I can say is that I am one lucky lady to have such amazing men in my life. My dad is the smartest, most patient man I have ever known, and I could only hope that the father of my future children is half the father that he has been to my brothers and me. On top of my Daddy, I am beyond blessed to have had BOTH of my grandfathers and three sweet uncles play such a critical part in my life. I know for a FACT that I wouldn't be where I am today without them...mostly because everytime I see any of them I am presented with some bogus, hypothetical (or real-life) engineering question that I have to answer. Let's just say that my on-the-spot presentation skills (which may or may not be 100% accurate) are a direct result of dealing with all those goobers ;)

I'm almost done with my "one-mores" which is when you get down to only one more Monday, Tuesday, etc. The only thing better than the one-mores is the no-mores...hurry up Tuesday!

26 days down, 9 to go! xoxo...

the usual

Well, my Malongo diet is officially blown - Phil is back in camp. He got in on Thursday, and since then we have had curry chicken, roasted chicken, white beans and rice, bacon and egg omelets, and fried plantains. So much for getting my bod bikini ready...

I'm not really sure where this week went. Not much has been going on, just the usual 5AM wake up call, freakishly large bugs (and bug accommodations), and my sweet boys making dinner. They keep asking when I am going to cook and my response every time is that I am a very bad cook. That concept is so foreign to them that they are convinced that I'm joking to get out of doing any work in the kitchen. Then they make some snarky comment about how I am never going to get a husband...wommp wooommpp...

see foot for size reference

go big or go home, or go to your big home?

I came out of my Thursday afternoon meeting to this set up...

I realized today that I've never shared any photos of my room, office, or what I actually do on a daily basis (serious work, obviously). So today is your lucky day...a little glimpse into my Malongo life.

panoramic of my digs, please excuse the mess

office shot courtesy of my office mate, Jose...suuuuper excited about my stand up desk

Spot the odd (wo)man out...

I get to break out of camp this afternoon! There is a little restaurant/bar, Frutila, just outside of the main gate that most groups use as a venue for celebrations. I've never been there, BUT today I got invited to not one but TWO parties at Frutila. Well, I guess I actually only got invited to one because I'm kind of hosting the other...my team is celebrating 300 days without incident (wooohooo!) and a friend in camp is leaving Malongo for China. Sooo instead of my usual Sunday afternoon nap followed by my walk/run around camp, I'll be doing a lot of eating and drinking followed by an exceptionally early bedtime...again, so much for my bikini bod.

19 days down, 16 to go! xoxo…

Refresher

'Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.'
Romans: 12:2...Courtsey of my Nana :)

Something AWESOME happened yesterday morning during our morning safety meeting in one of the construction areas. First, let me give some background information. We have 4 different construction areas and each has a morning Toolbox Talk (TBT) to discuss each activity for the day and the associated hazards with each task, which is normal practice with any construction site. We are having some serious challenges here around overall communication because now we have Angolans workers, Thai welders and scaffolders, Indian welders, and Italian/Portuguese work team leaders. Very few of which speak much English beyond conversational greetings. So the TBTs are held in Portuguese with side conversations for any translators.

The problem is that as an observer of the morning meetings it looks to me like we have 2 or 3 people, usually the HES lead and work team leader, talking and the actual workforce appears to be daydreaming of what they are going to eat for lunch. So we’ve challenged all our folks to try to engage the workforce to speak up during the meetings – in whatever their native tongue may be. The Angolans that I have working directly with me have explained that it’s hard because the people are nervous to talk because they can’t speak English, so I continuously re-iterate that speaking in Portuguese/Italian/Thai is fine, just as long as we are having the conversation.

This morning I was at one of our meetings with our civil sub-contractor and they asked the workforce if there were any questions or concerns. One Angolan man, our excavator operator, stepped into the middle of the circle and started asking, in Portuguese, for his peers to be sure and wear dust masks around any excavation activities because the condition of the soil was very dry and hazardous to their health. This in itself was huge. BUT the even more awesome thing is that this man has a speech impediment, he stutters, and he’s the last person I would have ever expected to voluntarily step up to say anything at all. It seems small, but it made me feel like we’ve created an environment (FINALLY) where our people feel comfortable enough to step forward and voice their concerns. I was beaming like a proud momma :)

I've really been missing everyone back home since I've been gone, as a result, have been super anti-social after work. One of my South African friends was giving me a hard time for never hanging out with our usual bunch and I told him I've just been missing my people. He assured me that everyone goes through the Malongo slump around the 4-6th rotation where the newness wears off and the slump sets in. Then he made me go to the Satruday night BBQ with him, and after a glass of wine I was back normal self. See ya later slump!

12 days down, 23 to go! xoxo…

oh, hey cutie!