It is the year 1996 and I am employed bij a company that has signed a Joint-Venture with the Turkmen government inorder to extract oil from consecions in the Caspian Sea.
This republic is situated on east side of the Caspian Sea. I am send over there to install the database of the accounting package on the server there, and train the local staff in using the accounting package.
It also is the first time I travel into the Soviet Union and the first time I travel so very far away from home!
I am a bookkeeper that works for Larmag Services BV., a subsidiary company of the Larmag Group of companies. I also do work for Larmag Energy NV, who has signed a joint-venture with the Turkmenie government.........
I step into the dining room with apprehension, since I am still angry about last night. After a good breakfast (to my surprise) we head off for the airport, again guided by the same driver from yesterday.........
It is six in the morning and time for a "rise and shine" and a good breakfast. And breakfast is definitely good around here, let me at least assure you that. A rock solid "English breakfast" with bread, bacon, sausages, eggs and fried potatoes.........
After having finished our coffees, we return to our tasks, which are still waiting for us at our desks. Work lasts till six o´clock after which we leave for dinner. And a good dinner it is I might say. It is a regular cornucopia, a horn of plentiful. The silly thing is, I am really hungry, as a matter of fact........
The next day while doing the accounts, I am asked to drop something of at the workshop were they do the repairs around here. When I say repairs I mean repairs in the widest possible cense of the word. These guys repair computers, faxes.........
Enough with the rants, there are other things also which are quite unpleasant to say the least. One of them is the dust that collects on all the horizontal surfaces. I now can see for myself the cause of death of so many floppy drives and floppy disc´s. I rub my finger forward across the surface of my desk.........
It is a cold yet bright and sunny morning today. It is still a little bit too early and the doors of the diner will still be closed. I walk around the camp a little and along the fence. Not to far away from the fence I notice heaps of dung. I learned earlier this week that there are wild dromedaries here that roam these planes.........
What ever they had planned to do here, it didn´t take them that much time to do it. At some stage the both of them being finished with their business, gather around me while I am instructing some British members of the Russian staff. Initially I was sent out here for four weeks........
Having finished my administrative tasks, training the local staff that is, I am heading for home today. I bring my luggage to the van that is waiting for me in front of the office barrack. This will bring me to the Cheleken airport where I will catch a domestic flight to Ashgabat.........
Sitting down in the Boeing 747 from Lufthansa I can´t help comparing it with the old bird that flew me into Ashgabat. The seats here are excellent, the seatbelt is complete and the stewardesses here will serve with a smile. She may hate my guts, but she will smile at me in a friendly way while she serves me........
Turkmen 100 Manat bill with the picture of Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov, president for life as off November 2 1990, who past away in 2006.
Turkmen 100 Manat bill.
