My
Site Visit
So, last week we met our counterparts (compañeros de trabajo) at the training center and had some good ol' meetings and all that. On Tuesday we were supposed to go to our sites, but to some emergency, my counterpart (he's actually one of my surpervisors), being one of the volcanologists for INSIVUMEH had to go to a meeting in Antigua to talk about the threats Volcán de Fuego could pose to bomberos who would be working on the fires on the near by Volcán Acatenango. So I went with him to the meeting, which wasn't too bad, though in the end I missed about a day and a half visiting my site. Oh well.
Wednesday, I waited at the center for the call he was going to give me around 11:00, which I got at 11:20 (not too bad) telling me he would be there at 12:00. He got in around 12:45. So, due to more changes he dropped me off at a bus stop and I had to go to my site solo and meet my counterparts. Well, I made it just at late dusk. It was raining hard, and because it was a little late, we had to take a different route in. So, hanging out the sliding door of an overpacked mini-bus in the rain for 25 or so minutes we made it to a traffic jam. OK, by now I was in the van. But eventually we made it to the main gates of my site. It's private land so there's a wall and gaurds and stuff. We waited for a pickup to bring us to the site. To get there from the gates, it was about a 20 min ride on all cobblestone road. Cool. I couldn't see anything at my site cause there were pratically no lights and very dark by now. On the way up to the observatory (my new home) we could see the incandesence of Santiaguito.
Thursday I got to meet the owner of the land, a teacher (at the 2 fincas I'm at to start, each has 1 school and 1 teacher), the other was away, a couple supervisors and some cool people. A very mellow place, but there is somewhat of an inter-finca fútbol league. Most of my work will be at the observatory training the observors and working to get up to date technology up there to monitor the volcano better and do the other stuff INSIVUMEH does better.
So there's not too much to say yet, I have a lot more exploring to do, but I can also say that I didn't need that day I missed to get to know my site. But I'm going to have to get to know San Felipe a bit.
Anyways, I'm off.
Cheers-
So, last week we met our counterparts (compañeros de trabajo) at the training center and had some good ol' meetings and all that. On Tuesday we were supposed to go to our sites, but to some emergency, my counterpart (he's actually one of my surpervisors), being one of the volcanologists for INSIVUMEH had to go to a meeting in Antigua to talk about the threats Volcán de Fuego could pose to bomberos who would be working on the fires on the near by Volcán Acatenango. So I went with him to the meeting, which wasn't too bad, though in the end I missed about a day and a half visiting my site. Oh well.
Wednesday, I waited at the center for the call he was going to give me around 11:00, which I got at 11:20 (not too bad) telling me he would be there at 12:00. He got in around 12:45. So, due to more changes he dropped me off at a bus stop and I had to go to my site solo and meet my counterparts. Well, I made it just at late dusk. It was raining hard, and because it was a little late, we had to take a different route in. So, hanging out the sliding door of an overpacked mini-bus in the rain for 25 or so minutes we made it to a traffic jam. OK, by now I was in the van. But eventually we made it to the main gates of my site. It's private land so there's a wall and gaurds and stuff. We waited for a pickup to bring us to the site. To get there from the gates, it was about a 20 min ride on all cobblestone road. Cool. I couldn't see anything at my site cause there were pratically no lights and very dark by now. On the way up to the observatory (my new home) we could see the incandesence of Santiaguito.
Thursday I got to meet the owner of the land, a teacher (at the 2 fincas I'm at to start, each has 1 school and 1 teacher), the other was away, a couple supervisors and some cool people. A very mellow place, but there is somewhat of an inter-finca fútbol league. Most of my work will be at the observatory training the observors and working to get up to date technology up there to monitor the volcano better and do the other stuff INSIVUMEH does better.
So there's not too much to say yet, I have a lot more exploring to do, but I can also say that I didn't need that day I missed to get to know my site. But I'm going to have to get to know San Felipe a bit.
Anyways, I'm off.
Cheers-
posted by Beepen' Bopper @ 08:09
2 Comments:
At 01:44 ,
Anonymous said...
I would love to hear more about Finca el Faro. How are the owners? Did you get to meet them? I have read some articles and found their story very interesting and inspirational.
At 01:45 ,
Anonymous said...
I would love to hear more about Finca el Faro. How are the owners? Did you get to meet them? I have read some articles and found their story very interesting and inspirational.
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