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Y&R Discussion Group
He also said that his compound was about 15 miles from the airport and you would get stopped an average of 11 times. You had to make sure you had enough cash to cover at least 11 bribes. All held by multiple men, surrounding your car with machine guns pointed at you.






A good friend of mine went to Nigeria with her hubby once. They were invited to a wedding. What a story! Too long to tell but man, the things that went on. She said you couldn't pay her enough to ever return to that place.
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It was also interesting that he said that pretty much everyone, literally everyone had a bar set up in their living room. Even those that lived in small apartments. Actual bars with stools and all! Drinking is a huge part of the ex pat lifestyle.
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Our street of 34 houses, has a half dozen that are owned by oil company employees who are currently on assignment in other countries. Everyone of their houses is always leased to foreign oil company employees, here on temporary assignment, so in a way, we're like those ex-pat compounds. lol
Eduardo is from Peru, but over the past four years has lived in Indonesia, the Hague and now Milan. The renters in his house have been from Finland, New Zeland, Chile and France. Along the street, we have/had other French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Romanian, Japanese, Syrian, Russian, Bosnian and Iranian. It makes for a really fun place to live. I can hardly wait to see who moves into Eduardo's house next. It's a pretty sure bet they will be foreigners on assignment, since their companies cover most if not all the rent and the rents run around $4,000/$5,000. Not likely any locals would pay that to rent, expecially since buying in Houston is very reaonable.
At anyrate, we're recruiters in the industry and Eduardo was here shooting the breeze about what the hell is going on with the outrageous prices on oil and the subject came up about his maybe looking at other opportunities. He wanted to be sure we let him know of openings he fit, at long as it wasn't Nigeria, Gabon, the Congo or that whole Ivory Coast area. We told him we neither work that area, nor do we even recruit from there. Eduardo was talking about the bribes and said he's had a few offers and the companies tell him that its for the employee only, familes stay behind. They pay full pay (for him that would be $180K+), plus a bonus of 60-70%. He said there is no way he'd even consider it.
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