1. Life sucks here, nothing to do but work. Beach is great but its a long way to the water, and your not allowed to wear your swim costume when you get there.
2. Yup its the money.
3. Your right, its not the time to be looking for a job elsewhere. But its also not the time to be caving into ruthless employers who want to get rid of all the western expat day raters either by forcing us to go direct and take a 40% cut in pay.