GPzMike Abroad

Really? Only 19 days? Impossible. Feels like so much more.

Made it to the beach last Sunday. Was nice to be back in the water here. There was a lot more activity along the reefs than I recall. Perhaps the time of year has some influence. The water is certainly cooler this time of year - and there is a much more definite cold layer that I hit at 15 or 20 feet.

The past few days have been interesting: first, had my sobriety/tobacco anniversary on the 27th and had a great outpouring of congrats on FB and from those on base. It really made me feel good to know that other's cared enough to send me a few words of encouragement or a hug or pat on the back.

Thank you, all, for that!

I've been sorta defacto supervising school 9 and have been feeling both good about it and also a bit guilty. Haven't been there every day but things are running smooth. I'm happy they are running well and that I don't have to be out there micromanaging, but at the same time shouldn't I BE out there managing? Or is a good sign that things are running smoothly? Yet I'm not doing nothing, either. Back on base I'm watching over the building of our secure tool storage area, furniture fabrication and assembly, and doing some base improvements.

That's enough, right?

Can you believe that the same 3 or 4 songs are still being played nightly at the bar next door? These are the same songs that were being played 9 months ago when I arrived in July of 2010. Gag me. No, really, gag me. There's just gotta be some evolution of music.

The power is about to go off here for the night and while I've got plenty of battery juice to go on typing, I don't have the energy. Must get up in the AM and be fresh for the day.

Site for Ekol 10 is much closer to the water table than I'd imagined. The bobcat went out there today and churned up a big mess of clay and soil and mixed it with a couple cubic meters of river rock. The rock just pressed right down into the soil and still nearly got stuck numerous times. So now we've made a mess at the site, lost a load of rock to the earth (easy come, easy go, eh? hehe), and we are short on volunteer power at the moment so we must backburner Ekol 10 for a few days so we can free up some folks to take on the foundation dig and site grading by hand. The real concern is that the water table is so high. Should we be putting a school there at all? Should we do something to enhance the foundation? Should we add more fill so that the slab is well above grade? Should we dig the footings deeper and wider? I don't know the answer. Tomorrow I will voice my concerns at the meeting and see what the thoughts are.

items to blog on:
security razor wire, bottles, steel doors...what for?
are we bringing the 20th century to a world that's best served by leaving it at it's own technological level? If they can't support it then why bother? If they can't afford it then why bother?