Progress and Setbacks

To continue with last night’s goings on, the guy was indeed stung by a scorpion. He is doing well but feeling nauseas from the painkillers that he was given. The pain from the sting traveled up his leg very quickly and made it to his lower chest before the meds kicked in. He is hoping to get back out in the field tomorrow morning.

It isn't his fault at all, but some things in the village he was assigned to slowed down significantly.  In particular, the truck used for disposal was having mechanical problems later in the afternoon which means that about 200 bags of lead contaminated soil were left in the village instead of being taken to the landfill. Some of the young men on the disposal crew promised to guard the bags overnight to keep the kids from playing on them. The village chief was also notified so hopefully word will spread and the kids will stay off the bags. Another problem was the heat. XRFs don't like the heat over here and our blue ice in padded coolers only stay cool until about lunch time. So getting 260 soil shots in one day is a challenge.

The village I worked in today saw some progress. The exterior maps are fixed and I will shoot soil in those areas to confirm the data we already have and to find the extent of the contaminated soils. The interiors went very well, too. However, many of the compounds in this village are very large and very contaminated, so mapping goes slow in those compounds. All in all, no hiccups.

The first landfill, which turned into a swimming pool, was filled in this morning. The second landfill is in good condition but is not deep enough for all the contaminated soil. So we have a third landfill which is big and dry but the only access to it is not suitable for heavy loads. In fact, the area we have to drive through to get to that landfill is used as a rice paddy. So now we have to build a road.

The drive out to this village is between an hour and an hour and a half. The road is not really a road so much as it is path. In fact, the excavator tracked into the village about 12km and fixed three stream/river crossings so that we wouldn't have to walk 1km from the last river...

One the trip back from that village a man from another village stopped us to say that his village did ore processing and had sick children too. We are planning to stop there tomorrow to do a few shots with the XRF. If it is hot, then it will be another village to add to the list.

Things are great as far as the work. The villagers are very kind and the kids are amazing. Lots of laughter.