Ramadan Kareem

Ramadan Kareem means something like Happy Ramadan. Yes, it began on Friday night - and what a crazy start it's been. So much shit has happened in the past 48 hours, its hard not to see a correlation.

On Friday I continued with the low profile that kept me away from work and rushing between bed and the bathroom for three days. Lots of people went on a desert safari, and a bunch of others on another watersports day. But whereas last time we were all 'young ones' and got completely pissed, but without a bruise (other than to the eye, from Van Crack's crack), on this cruise there many injuries.

Within the first hour a girl fell off the hotdog thingy and got a big black eye. Soon after another girl hit her head on the boat and got a black eye for herself. While they're convalescing on the boat with icepacks, the speedboat returns with two much more serious injuries. Two guys, one in SFX and another the head of stage management (read bigwig) have had a head-on collision on the jetskis, and are away with fairies. Luckily a girl on a nearby jetski saw them both lying face-down in the water passed out and was able to get their soon enough to turn them over and hail a boat to take them in. Frighteningly one was bleeding from the ear and disoriented. The other continued to be out cold, and then had no idea where he was or what had happened.

They were raced back to the city and then to hospital, where one remains with a fractured skull (sounds worse than it is) and the other is out now, but won't be going to work anytime soon.

Meanwhile back on the boat the mood was pretty low - the business owner was furious at the damage to his jetskis and probably also shit scared if the police found out that they were drunk (in a semi-public place) when they crashed. He didn't allow them to play music for the rest of the afternoon, nor make use of any of the other activities, so I'm just picturing 4 hours of 10 people looking glum and drinking, without music or talk.

At some point in the afternoon they decided they should at least go for a swim. That's when half of them got enormous jellyfish stings, like big red dinnerplates on backs and legs. They scrambled screaming from the water and returned to the silent drinking.

Fortunately the desert safari team had no such bad luck. But we did hear that a young Qatari man was killed on the dunes that very afternoon.

At work today a man in our department was spirited back home to the UK on the first available flight when he started losing his vision and balance. I saw at least two other people with bandages of some sort on their heads, from what i don't know. Lots of others were absent with similar ailments to what kept me away last week. A letter went out to all staff from the big boss about safety.

And then tonight it got weirder, and creepier. There was a crash from outside and Trav, El and I raced to see a workmate in the street surround by three smashed vehicles and lots of men. We went down to see if we could help and discovered that some lunatic had swiped three vehicles, including the van that this woman had borrowed for the night, and that of one of our drivers, before speeding off.

Worse, was finding out that a guy from the workshop had attacked his girlfriend in the street, pushing her to the ground and possibly kicking her while down. This is someone I work with every day, including today, is in a management position, and I have always thought of a very together, friendly guy. His girlfriend is also lovely, they're both from the north coast, and seemed a great couple. I find this really shocking, I just can't fit the picture of this guy I know with what just happened. I think he should be sacked and sent home and I really hope they don't not send him home just because of his position, or his appearance of being a 'lovely guy'.

I hope the ramadan craziness ends here, this was just the first day of a whole month!