Redberry Lake: When many of Canada’s oil fields stopped in early 2015, Saskatoon well drilling representative Douglas Tompson temporarily discovered his work, overseeing dry drilling rigs. Later that year, he discovered paintings in Saudi Arabia on a rotating basis 28 days a week, 28 days a day out, which he has been doing for almost five years.
But the last time he checked into his Saudi accommodation was in February. Weeks later, the global COVID-19 pandemic hit and the maximum number of foreigners was interrupted. Now, seven months later, he landed in Saskatoon on 13 September.
There, he was delivered in his van, already supplied with food and supplies, and taken to the airport through his wife and a friend. He temporarily went to his cabin in Redberry Lake, near Hafford. , to spend the next 14 days in quarantine self-storage.
“Suddenly, the pandemic hit and closed the airports. And everyone in the world predicted that it would be only in the short term; a few weeks or a month or so. And then it became this saga,” Tompson said on the phone. from Redberry Lake on September 15.
He has a Saudi cell phone and has earned normal text alerts in Arabic and English when the pandemic struck. He said, “They did a wonderful job of communicating everything, and they just said everyone locked up. “
“Masks were mandatory. They weren’t optional. No company took the decision to have a mask or not. There was no such argument. It is a central resolution that you wear mask and it is a public policy.
He noted that he came here from the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia and included the use of masks, hand washing and social estating.
“I felt very intelligent there. It was well arranged. And they had curfews there, and the curly curfews. Everyone knew what was going on. And in fact, I was impressed. I was very reassured, knowing how well groomed No one wondered if the mask worked or not. I mean, even if the mask doesn’t work, they don’t do any harm.
Tompson added: “The hand sanitist everywhere. Social estinement everywhere. Workspaces did. Posters abounded. They did remote work, other people did it remotely.
“We follow Skype like no one else in the case. “
In Saudi Arabia, he worked as an oilfield instructor. At first, they switched to distance learning, but eventually, in-person training resumed. Class teams were cut in half and the study rooms were larger than before. They were all dressed in masks. Even the smallest things were made to build a social distance, such as staggered coffee breaks.
Tompson said the places to eat were closed in the first place, but the place to eat from hotels like yours remained open. You had to stand on a well-spaced line, where they would give you food with cutlery and disposable containers, and then eat in your room. It was a few months before I used genuine cutlery again. And when it was allowed to sit in the places to eat, at first, a table for 4 to six other people had only one legal person. Finally, this was higher than two, sitting on the opposite side. Ends.
He noted that in one case, instead of frequently disinfecting the handles of public bath doors, they found it less difficult to keep the door open so that no one had to touch the door handle.
Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 Global Monitoring website notes that Saudi Arabia recorded 326,930 cases of coronavirus as of September 15, ranked 16th in the world. 607 consistent with September 14, approximately the Canadian average.
Tompson had no primary epidemics, he said.
He may have just passed home earlier, but that would have meant finishing his job, which necessarily made him a one-way ticket. “I’m looking at what they were doing and what was going on. And I know I have to go through some countries. “pass by and you may see the effort being made in the Kingdom. And they did everything right.
“It’s the other people who tried to stick to regulations in the most productive way possible. “
Tompson plans to return to the Kingdom in a few months to continue painting. On the one hand, there aren’t many paintings in your box in the Canadian oil box sector right now, drilling, your specialty, is a shadow of what it is. five years ago.
“There are many features for me in Canada in the oil sector,” he said.
Tompson said he was more involved with the round trip and said, “The riskiest activity I’ve done in the last seven months has been to move home. “
He noted that many others on the return flight wondered if they deserved the full two weeks of quarantine, not Tompson.
Now he manages to catch up on his many projects at the cabin, before meeting him and his son in two weeks.