Life as a travelling engineer and wondering what normal life is

During this rotation into Malabo Equatorial Guinea, I have been pondering the meaning of life. What is it all about and why am I doing it. I took this job for several reasons, mostly because I had spent all my money after I quit the engineering giant GE after a long and distasteful trip to Turkmenistan, I picked up a nasty bowel parasite called Giadia Lamblia, I had Ghandi’s revenge and the most horrific farts imaginable. Anyhow I was short of money and touted around for a job and was offered some contracting in Brazil, I was hopping up and down with excitement thinking I had hit the jackpot. Well after a couple of days I was offered what they called an equally important job in the West African democracy of E.G. I didn’t mind, I had been to work in Zambia and thought I could handle this place. The rotation was very good, 28 days about and all flights paid for to my new home in Costa Rica with my new wife. That was also part of my reason for quitting GE; they had refused to let me move to Costa Rica. So I was set for my new job as controls engineer working on a gas terminal in a dictatorship in Africa. I arrived to find the progress on the plant was well behind schedule and can only be described as organised chaos. The accommodation was OK and we had great air conditioning everywhere to protect the sanity of all the guys working here, as the usual temperature is 90 and 90% humidity. To my horror I found out that I was expected to work 12 shifts for the entire 28 day rotation and I had determined 15 years previous to this that I would never work shifts again as I love my sleep at night and become a tyrant on night shift, I really detest and hate them with all my heart and soul. I also found out that I wasn’t really going to be working as a controls engineer but just be operating the gas turbines that I normally install and commission. This means I have basically nothing to do, I get to work and see if there is anything to do and then chat with the guys and then walk around and chat a bit more and have coffee, chat more and check the units and as usual they are running like a dream, should do for the 1/4 million dollars the control system cost. And then try and surf the net to keep me from falling asleep, I do anything to prevent my brain from seizing up. I have been here for 10 months and have just decided that I cannot continue here anymore and asked my manager in Florence to relocate me to a job or project where I will actually have something to do and use my brain again. I cannot deny that I have enjoyed some of the time here, with 200 British contractors who are building this site; we have had some good nights in the clubhouse they have on site and made some good friends. I have also had to learn much about computer viruses and Trojans as I suffered an attack of Trojans after surfing some music download sites, so I have become the unofficial IT department for removing Trojans and setting software to prevent attacks and removal of the offending crapware. I have also learned how to copy DVD's and make MPEG4 copies and very good quality they are to. So all in all I have made some good money, all paid in Euros as my payment office is in Dublin and as I spend in dollars I have had a 15 % pay rise effectively. I have learnt some new computer tricks and had an easy time. I do have to take malaria medication and it does have an affect on your bowels but other than the jetlag I haven’t had too much trouble.
The terminal and compound sit on a peninsular and overlook the Bay of Guinea, we have many tankers lay up and see drilling platforms on barges travelling past to move to distant oilfields, huge structures all lit up like 300 foot Christmas trees, and don’t mention Christmas as I was here for the whole thing and pretty miserable it was to, on night shift for the whole two weeks. The island of Bioko is basically two large volcano’s and when the cloud clears the scene is very nice quite spectacular actually. I am winding down the last 8 days until I fly home and on the day shift trying to recover from the night shift. The food is OK but has been shite for the last few weeks for some reason we don’t know but we have been promised better food so let’s hope it is on my hopefully last trip here in April.