بديع الزمان
04 Jul 2005, 08:10 PM
Bady AlZaman says :
here is a letter from Mr Makkinje to our web site....
may i ask the responsible of translation Mr rafhawi to translate it??;)رفحاوي يا رفحاوي
يله تنحنح وترجم بس انتبه لا تنتفخ مقدمة الرأس :D
وللمعلومية ترا كل هالسوالف صايره وانا ما انولدت :p
اضن اني اعرف صاحب فصه الماطور:pا ........................... ا رجو من ا لاعضاء المداخله بالعربي والذي يستطيع الكتابه بالانجليزي يترجمها
لأنه مايعرف عربي وهو يشاهد المنتدي الان ....... تحياتي للجميع
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Badey,
Thank you very much for your e-mail and your very kind remarks.
I looked at your website but although I was amongst you for so many years, I never learned to read Arabic. !!
You ask me to write something about Rafha, well I really do not know where to start. But I will just write down what I thought when I read your e-mail and saw your website.
My first thoughts of Rafha go back to sometime around late1954. At that time there was just one main street, unpaved and with most of the shops along the street made of mud bricks. These shops were mainly on the east side of the street and somewhere near the end was as small shop that sold kitchen utensils some of which were electric. In those days nobody had electricity except the governorate office and some of the houses of the officials. So the owner of the shop I mentioned before had a good idea, he had and old car engine and got a small generator and conneced them together. The total capacity was about 5 kW and he provided power enough for one100 watt lightbulb to people who were willing to pay for the privilege. All went well until he connected too many customers and the generator burned out.
He went to look for another generator and found one that he connected. After the first evening run, he received many complaints because people who were using small electric fans for cooling came to his shop the next day to complain that the fans stopped runnign and started to smoke. He came to the station for help and that is how I got involved, we found that the generator he had bought was a DC generator which was the reason for burning up the small motors in the fans and even one or two small refrigerators.So his customers were left in the dark until he could find a proper generator. He finally came back to us to make sure that he had it right and that the connections were ok, before he restarted his generating business. I always remember this story because I liked this very enterprising gentleman.
I was reminded of that story and the enterprising Rafha citizen when in the early eightees the Rafha Electric Company started their own generating plant. I visited the plant many times and the management always received me very well to discuss and exchange ideas. It was a well designed plant and as far as I remember it was working very well.
Another story that came to mind happened sometime in 1961 or 1962, I am not sure about the date though.
It was a very dry spring and by the time summer arrived, not much rain had fallen and many of the small lakes in the Rafha area were left dry. The Bedouin were w orried about their herds and were desperate.
About a year or so before this draught we showed a movie in the cinema which was called the Rainmaker. Two of the American employees were apparently quite impressed by that movie and decided to have a go at making rain.
The waterwell department which was located in Rafha used a lot of magnesium as anodes to stop corrosion of the waterwell pumps and casing. The supervisor of the department Richard Ragsdale and Witey Gieseking started to work, helped by some of the other employees like Joe Grimbergen. They collected all the scrap magnesium anodes and hauled several pickup loads to the small hills just north of the pumpstation. On a fateful Thursday they lit the heap of magnesium and the fire spread very quickly giving off a lot of very bright flames and masses of white smoke. Ragsdale and his helpers got scared because there was more intense light and heat than they had ever imagined or expected. They got scared and drove off back to the station to watch the spectacle at a distance.
The anticipated rain never came although Ragsdale insisted at the time that some of his waterwell employees members had heard from Bedouins out of Iraq had reported a mild shower north of Rafha. Anyway their intent was good.
When I realized that you have your own website it was clear that the progress of the Kingdom in continueing.The web is a wonderful thing if used for the right purpose. One can find answers to any question that you want answered. I see it as a magic wand and feel sorry for the people who misuse it.
When I saw Rafha again in 2001 I was amazed how the town has grown , the nice paved roads lined with trees etc. Quite a change from the old days. I was disappointed that I could not find many of the old employees, but that is life.
Please can you give my fondest greetings to my dear old friend Mohammad Kublan, the owner of the Ali Baba hotel and any other people who remember me.
Attached is a picture I took two days ago in my front garden.
With my best wishes to you, your family and visitors to your website.
John Makkinje
here is a letter from Mr Makkinje to our web site....
may i ask the responsible of translation Mr rafhawi to translate it??;)رفحاوي يا رفحاوي
يله تنحنح وترجم بس انتبه لا تنتفخ مقدمة الرأس :D
وللمعلومية ترا كل هالسوالف صايره وانا ما انولدت :p
اضن اني اعرف صاحب فصه الماطور:pا ........................... ا رجو من ا لاعضاء المداخله بالعربي والذي يستطيع الكتابه بالانجليزي يترجمها
لأنه مايعرف عربي وهو يشاهد المنتدي الان ....... تحياتي للجميع
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Badey,
Thank you very much for your e-mail and your very kind remarks.
I looked at your website but although I was amongst you for so many years, I never learned to read Arabic. !!
You ask me to write something about Rafha, well I really do not know where to start. But I will just write down what I thought when I read your e-mail and saw your website.
My first thoughts of Rafha go back to sometime around late1954. At that time there was just one main street, unpaved and with most of the shops along the street made of mud bricks. These shops were mainly on the east side of the street and somewhere near the end was as small shop that sold kitchen utensils some of which were electric. In those days nobody had electricity except the governorate office and some of the houses of the officials. So the owner of the shop I mentioned before had a good idea, he had and old car engine and got a small generator and conneced them together. The total capacity was about 5 kW and he provided power enough for one100 watt lightbulb to people who were willing to pay for the privilege. All went well until he connected too many customers and the generator burned out.
He went to look for another generator and found one that he connected. After the first evening run, he received many complaints because people who were using small electric fans for cooling came to his shop the next day to complain that the fans stopped runnign and started to smoke. He came to the station for help and that is how I got involved, we found that the generator he had bought was a DC generator which was the reason for burning up the small motors in the fans and even one or two small refrigerators.So his customers were left in the dark until he could find a proper generator. He finally came back to us to make sure that he had it right and that the connections were ok, before he restarted his generating business. I always remember this story because I liked this very enterprising gentleman.
I was reminded of that story and the enterprising Rafha citizen when in the early eightees the Rafha Electric Company started their own generating plant. I visited the plant many times and the management always received me very well to discuss and exchange ideas. It was a well designed plant and as far as I remember it was working very well.
Another story that came to mind happened sometime in 1961 or 1962, I am not sure about the date though.
It was a very dry spring and by the time summer arrived, not much rain had fallen and many of the small lakes in the Rafha area were left dry. The Bedouin were w orried about their herds and were desperate.
About a year or so before this draught we showed a movie in the cinema which was called the Rainmaker. Two of the American employees were apparently quite impressed by that movie and decided to have a go at making rain.
The waterwell department which was located in Rafha used a lot of magnesium as anodes to stop corrosion of the waterwell pumps and casing. The supervisor of the department Richard Ragsdale and Witey Gieseking started to work, helped by some of the other employees like Joe Grimbergen. They collected all the scrap magnesium anodes and hauled several pickup loads to the small hills just north of the pumpstation. On a fateful Thursday they lit the heap of magnesium and the fire spread very quickly giving off a lot of very bright flames and masses of white smoke. Ragsdale and his helpers got scared because there was more intense light and heat than they had ever imagined or expected. They got scared and drove off back to the station to watch the spectacle at a distance.
The anticipated rain never came although Ragsdale insisted at the time that some of his waterwell employees members had heard from Bedouins out of Iraq had reported a mild shower north of Rafha. Anyway their intent was good.
When I realized that you have your own website it was clear that the progress of the Kingdom in continueing.The web is a wonderful thing if used for the right purpose. One can find answers to any question that you want answered. I see it as a magic wand and feel sorry for the people who misuse it.
When I saw Rafha again in 2001 I was amazed how the town has grown , the nice paved roads lined with trees etc. Quite a change from the old days. I was disappointed that I could not find many of the old employees, but that is life.
Please can you give my fondest greetings to my dear old friend Mohammad Kublan, the owner of the Ali Baba hotel and any other people who remember me.
Attached is a picture I took two days ago in my front garden.
With my best wishes to you, your family and visitors to your website.
John Makkinje