My first topo study,pt 2

Wed., November 12

Today we left at 8 am, an hour later than I was told we would. I sat around at my community contact's porch, got free coffee and a cookie from his wife. Apparently he has to milk the cows at the same time every day, and thus always gets back at 8 am. On horseback, coming in across a river behind his house, with probably 10 gallons of milk strapped to the saddle in heavy duty plastic jugs.

Thankfully he gave me and my guys a ride up the mountain in his truck. So even though we left later than we did yesterday, we still got there at the same time, but with more energy to work hard.

We got a full day's work in! It was great! Only thing I didn't like was the government water project guy told me he wanted me to take side shots to the left and right for about 10 meters at every point I set up my theodolite, giving him an idea of surrounding terrain and more data to play with if he needs to move the line to adjust pressure during the design phase. Good idea, yeah, but sooo time consuming when you're on a steep slope or surrounding by dense vegetation.

We got to where we left off yesterday and set up. First shot of the day: 200 meter shot across the corn field of death, owned by the most disgruntled campesino yet. Corn field is in a valley, so in theory it's not hard to shoot over it. So I do my backshot, then send 2 guys ahead (3 went) to scout for a place to start the pipeline up again. After a lot of shouting, I finally make out the 3 meter long rod through the trees, way past the farm. Apparently the property line didn't end at the corn, where I had a great view, but well into the forest. Efff. But I manage to get a clear reading, and we pack up and I carry the theodolite on the tripod on my shoulder like a real man.

I get to the spot they put the stake in at, set up, and aim to shoot the backshot, and I can't see the man with the treebranch marking the previous stake. What gives? Then my guys tell me they were having a hard time getting high enough to be seen, so they stood one guy up on top of a fencepost, with two guys steadying him, while he waved the 3 meter rod well above his head.

You see folks, that's not how you do surveying. The rod rests on the ground, so you know what level the ground is at, down to the millimeter. When a crazy Honduran is playing acrobat waving the rod at heaven as high as he can, what happens is something we call error. So I had the guy do it again, get into the same pose, and I measured him to figure out exactly high off the ground he was. Then we had to get the guy at the previous stake to basically cut down a tree and stick his white cowboy hat on it and wave it around so I could get my backshot. No avoiding it though if we have to avoid the corn field. I got my shots and hoped for the best. Worst. Shot. Ever.

The rest of the day was pretty straightforward. Lots of gullies to cross, which means lots of suspended galvanized iron pipe in the future. We were working across a slope of 20 to 45 degrees in certain places, in the thinner top end of a pine forest. Pretty view. Lots of flies. Biting flies.

It took me a bit to get back into the groove, but once I got my routine down, we moved along pretty well. Weather was good, sunny, no rain.

Yesterday during the meeting, the two rival communities called the county mayor and scheduled a meeting to sort things out. That'll happen tomorrow, and my presence is requested in case they need neutral technical information.

On the walk back down the mountain, we're still so high up we're above the mountain village, and as we're walking through they say there's a guy with a truck from World Vision who should be heading down soon, and we should wait to get a ride from him. So we do. We eat more sugar cane while we wait. Riding down this mountain is an interesting experience. Flying on an unpaved road, with rises and falls and twists and turns, with steeep slopes down to unforgiving rocks and trees... kinda unsettling. And bumpy. Walking is definitely more relaxing. Walking down. Hiking up, that's rough.

The World Vision guy apparently heard about my advice to the junta de agua at the mountain village and got my contact info, saying he'd like to stop by my site later and coordinate a training program for junta de agua organization and operation. I said that'd be cool, and I'd introduce him to my counterpart, who is probably more qualified than I am. He got excited.

I wanted to take a bath at my sleeping house, but they said since it hadn't rained in 20 days, they didn't have water to spare, but if I wanted, they'd take me to their bathing spot in the river. I said "Ah, nice, thanks, maybe tomorrow." So I washed my upper body off as best I could at the pila by the light of the full moon, then walked back out to the bridge with a knife and some sugarcane and ate until my woman went on her break between teaching classes. Then I called her. It was the highlight of my day.

Walked back, read a bit, slept.


Thurs, November 13

Same basic morning routine. Finally got inside the pine forest proper today while surveying. Lots of shade, lots more bugs (glad I still had some DEET repellent) and lots of babbling brooks to cross. Some of which, coming directly from the village above us, were orange. Not cool.

The two guys ahead of us with machetes had a rough idea already of the where the pipes needed to go and after giving them some more general guidelines, I sent 'em on their way, chopping away and resting as needed. We never really caught up to 'em.

I did get one moment to shine. The machete guys kept a straight line going throughthe forest, which included one spot where they forged ahead down a 45 degree slope to a rocky creek, crossed, and pressed on. They way the land was, to put a pipe there, it would have to be a pretty fancy suspended metal pipeline with wires and anchors and stuffsupporting it. I called the two guys back and said we should look for another place downstream to cross the river, because we could end up saving a good 15,000 lempiras in wire and concrete and pipe cost if we can find a more shallow crossing. After about 45 minutes, they forged a path to a location I helped scout that was perfect. we re-routed there and pressed on. I felt good, and I think I earned leadership points in my crew for making a clearly good decision.

Heh, I was working with one kid and one old man who were both interested in learning English. So after asking me for the time, the old man asked how I would say "once" in English. It's "eleven." So I spent a good 5 minutes leveling my theodolite and taking shots while repeating the english number and correcting his pronunciation. Got so ingrained in his head that he'd shout that at me every time he saw me in town for the rest of my stay. "Eleven!" "Yeah, that's it. 'Eleven.' See you around, Don Miguel." He's slightly senile, I think.

The kid was more curious. I told him I'd spend the walk down with him teaching him the alphabet. We reciting the alphabet back and forth for an hour or so before I couldn't take it anymore. Aren't kids supposed to have short attention spans? He had trouble with the English T sound, D and Z, and some others. I tried to explain tongue position and stuff, and it helped, but he trouble remembering everything I was telling him.

It was the same crew as yesterday, so we developed a rapport, with the same nonsense jokes repeated to get a laugh every time. One of the guys ate a lot of tortillas, and I gave him a hard time about it and we all kept exaggerating the numbers. I think by the end of the day we were all convinced the guy ate 80 tortillas a day. So silly, but it kept us all chuckling. Don Miguel drinks a lot of coffee... we did the same sort of jokes on him.

So other male volunteers integrate with their surveying crew by smoking and cussing in Spanish like a pro, I participate in tortilla jokes and teach kids English. Make of that what you will.

The meeting with the mayor got cancelled because the mayor backed out, so we got to work a full day where I thought we'd stop early to attend the meeting. That was a plus for me, but could be problematic for the towns.

We're still pretty high in the mountains, so I figure I'll be working til Monday or Tuesday.

My dinner house gets water from the river to fill their pila, it looks like, so I asked if I could use their shower stall and take a bucket bath tomorrow. They said it was fine since they had plenty of water. So tomorrow, I hike with a towel, soap, and shampoo all day to take advantage of the offer.

I head to the bridge again to talk to my chick and she tells me she's going out on a 4 day hike through some mountains to a beach and won't be back til Sunday, and she won't have cell reception til she gets back. So I wish her luck and get ready to focus completely on my job for a couple days.


More later!