More from Simandou

This week I took some long distance photos on the point and click camera that I am using for work using the inbuilt zoom.  When the sky is blue and the air (mostly) clear its spectacular here.


Big Sky



A local village in the distance


Home sweet home!



One of our neigbours

 I know the last few posts have been short on words and long on photos, it'll be a longer post next time, honest...

And you think your commute is tough....

Today I took some photos along the route up to where we are doing some of our work (we are working on two ridges, Ouelaba and Pic de Fon, the photos are from Pic de Fon).  It really is spectacular here!

Looking North

Looking South

Looking East

We got a kitten!

In my absence the Bradley-Trombetta household has grown.  Toffee (briefly known as Obi-Wan) has joined the clan.

Toffee's first photo

Play time

Getting to know the new family member

Ela examining Toffee

Pig tailed girl and kitten

Pouncing!

More lunar landscapes from Pic de Fournaise

Pictures from the moon

Well I'm back at work in Guinea now but while I was home my brother Michael and his son (my godson) Matthew flew over to visit us for a couple of weeks and to enjoy the island.  It was great to have them over and we have more visitors promised later in the year so we are looking forward to them too.

Their visit gave me the excuse to go see some of the Island that I haven't gotten around to yet, including the active volcano, Pic de Fournaise.   And oh my, is it spectacular!  The barren "lunar" landscape is such a change from the forests and shoreline of the rest of the island.

We were able to drive to the wall of the outer caldera and look accross to the inner caldera (there is a footpath to the edge of the inner caldera but we didn't venture that far, next time we will).

The last eruption was in 2008 (I believe) so there hasn't been that much time for plants to recolonise the volcano as can be seen from the pictures below.

A mini vent from an old eruption

A view of the inner caldera

Lunar landscape

I hate plastic bags!

One of the good things that happened in Ireland during the Celtic Tiger years was the introduction of the plastic bag levy.  For those who don't know what that is ten years ago last month the Irish government introduced a 15c (later raised to 22c) levy on all disposable plastic bags, almost overnight those ubiquitous scraps of plastic pretty much disappeared from life in Ireland. 

Both before and after the introduction of the levy my work took me all around the countryside of Ireland and it was phenomenal the change that simple levy made.  In my memeory most trees and bushes had sad scraps of plastic dragging in the wind, after the levy they disappeared. 

The reason that this is in my mind is twofold. 

Firstly we were recently at a turtle refuge here on Réunion and saw how much plastic gets ingested by sea creatures, as a soft greenie it upset me no end. 

Secondly because I was passing through Conakry (the capital city of Guinea) a little while ago and a collegue and I took some time to go for an amble about the neighbourhood where the Golder office is based.  The neighbourhood includes a beach where we walked and came across part of the beach strewn with sand filled plastic bags.

Sand filled plastic bags on the beach

Because the bags are filled with sand they aren't going anywhere

A part of the beach that gets cleaned up (the photo was taken from a beachside bar, the life of an itinerant geologist can be tough)

Now this isnt a rant about Guinea or the people, they have enough problems and don't have the wherewithall to have city workers down cleaning their beaches. But rather a comment on what a lot of other beaches in wealther parts of the world would be like if they weren't maintained and cleaned by local authorities.  We generally don't see the problem because somebody else is cleaning up our mess.

Yet it such an easy problem to address, make people pay for their plastic bags and suddenly they realise they don't seem to need them so much.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that I really hate plastic bags!  Right, rant over.

Tales from the home front. - Happy Easter / Joyeuses Pâques

I know it's been a while since the last article and you probably been wondering (or maybe not) what's been happening here. Well not much...
But now it time for one of the most important celebration of the year (according to the kids): Easter. I actually think it is Samuel's favourite, even before Christmas...

Anyway as you know, Easter is all about chocolate, eggs and hunt. Since we started the "tradition" in Ireland, it also involves bunnies. This year, because of the move and Stephen being away I had to face a lot of new questions and problems that did not occur last year, and all by myself!

First of all the questions from a rather curious 5 years old: Do the bunnies do here like in Ireland? Are the bunnies watching to see if we are good? How? Do they hide? Are they watching us NOW? Is there one or more rabbits? Do they have a big basket? How do they carry the basket? Are they watching me now? Are they going to hide them inside or outside? Do we have to leave the door open? Is the hen coming too? (In France we have either hens or more traditionally the bells from Rome, but that would be a very long way down here).
Then the logistic: in Ireland you buy your chocolate in advance, hide it out of reach until the D day. Here it's 30 degres so it has to kept in the fridge. I had to wait for the last moment and then hide some on the top shelf wrapped in kitchen tissue and some more in the veg box of the fridge dreading that they would find out. Glad they never go for the veggies!

Finally the delivery: the 2 major issues of hiding chocolate in a tropical place are heat and beasties. At night the temperature drops to the low 20s so I hope the chocolate will not melt to much between now and tomorrow morning, But I have to make sure they do find all the eggs early enough. The other reason I was reluctant to leave chocolate eggs all over the place is for the beasties. It's mostly ants, but could attract worse. So I've been a little more inventive and in the house I put none on the ground, but I'm a bit worried to find trail of ants leading to them by tomorrow morning. For outside I wrapped them individually in cling film (on top of the alu wrapper) hopping this would be enough. I started to write down the number of eggs for each room but I got distracted and now I'm not even sure how many eggs were in total (27 or 28).

It's now 2 AM so I should go to bed to be fully operational tomorrow morning for the big hunt and dealing with over excited children high on sugar... but I really like this moment when I have set up everything and just waiting for them to enjoy.

Have a happy chocolate day!

Market day at Moribadou

 Last weekend I took the chance to head down to the local village of Maribadou during the market day (Sunday).  It's a real eye opener, here in the camp we are insulated from much of the outside world and could anywhere in the world and when you are caught up with working its easy to forget where we are and what it's really like.

With the work that is going on Maribadou has seen major changes in the last few years, for one thing it's population has grown from roughly 800 people to about 8000 people in the last five years! 

One thing that struck me (and not for the first time) is that despite the world of difference in location, wealth etc. how similar things are in so many ways.  Day to day life goes on, whether its the group of lads hanging around outside a cafe watching the world (and the girls) go by or a mum leading a crying child by the hand.  And it continually reminds me how lucky and privilaged we are. 

The kids here are great.  Like all kids lively and full of life.  They love the cameras and seeing themselves in the photos (the joy of digital cameras).  While it's tough to see the poverty (mind you not as tough as it would be to live it) it good to know that these kids are likely to have a brighter future than they would have otherwise because of the mine project.  The mining company here puts huge emphasis on social and environmental issues and has a policy of employing locals wherever possible, it really has been impressive and certainly makes one sleep better about being involved in such a project.  Among other things in the short time that I've been involved they have drilled new water boreholes for local villages and carried out improvement works in the local hospital among lots of other continuing work. 



Market day

Downtown Moribadou

Local kids

More of the kids

More photos from Conakry

Some more photos from Conakry, the quality isn't great as they were taken from inside a moving vehicle.

Though if you look closely at the first photo (which is actually of a roundabout) you may be able to see that the elephant has a football at it's foot - the Guinean soccer team's nick name is the "National Elephent".


The National Elephant

Fresh fruit is plentiful here.

Taking a back road to avoid the traffic.

So much of life here is lived on the street. With the heat and small stifling buildings it's not supprising.

Conakry!

I'm back in Guinea again and as usual passed through the capital Conakry where I stayed a couple of nights before heading on to Canga East where I am working at the moment.

Although I didn't get to the very centre of the city the photos below (taken with my trusty iphone) give a fair idea of what the city is like.  It's a city of over 1.5 million people and it's pretty poor but it is certainly busy and lively.

Paragliding

Aurelie and I went paragliding for the first time yesterday.  There is a place near to us called Saint Leu that is famous for it.  And my oh my, what an amazing sensation to be soaring on the thermals above the island, literally sitting on the wind!

Au

Not all sweetness and light!

The last week there have been localised rioting in parts of the Island (nothing near us), just goes to show nowhere is perfect!

http://observers.france24.com/content/20120224-three-nights-riots-reunion-island-cauldron-boiling-over-saint-denis-high-cost-of-living-gas-prices-protest

Back Home Again and An Unexpected Party

So I got back home to Réunion on Wednesday after more that five weeks working and a few days back in Cork.  It was great to get back to work and to spend some time in Cork with friends and family but it's good to be home and Réunion feels like home now which is great and a little bit surprising.  I do find myself occasionally thinking "do I really live on a tropical island, sweet!"

I was only just back when we had to move out of the house for a night as the house was getting treated for termites and we wanted to give any resulting fumes the chance to dissapate.  So it was back to our favorite hostel in the world, Residence Creolile, for the night. 

We were the only guests there for the night so we thought we would have a quiet night, little did we know!  A few of Jean-Fabien's (the owner) friends were about and they were planning to go out for dinner, however plans changed (as they so often do here) and Jean-Fabien decided he wanted to cook for everyone.  So after brief discussion some people headed off to the shop for food while others went off to get the drinks.  We headed off to a little restaurant as was our plan because we needed to get the kids fed and we knew from previous experience that the local crew would be eating far too late for our little people.

So after getting back from eating we had a night of music (with both Sam and Ela on drums!), chat, drinks (various for me, pina colada for A) and a second dinner (just for me, hmmm, boucané).  Sam finally admitted tiredness about midnight and went to bed.  Plans were begun on a camping trip for before I head back to Guinea (I've not been about for any for the camping trips so far, it's just been A and the kids so they have gotten to know the group pretty well).  All in all a great evening with great folk.   

Music time at the hostel

Dust cloud!

Over half way through my first rotation here in Simandou and we're in the midst of a huge dust cloud at the moment that covers much of West Africa

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/uk-westafrica-dust-idUSLNE81702920120208

So all planes into and out of here are grounded (the local airport isn't the most sophisticated) and it gives the place an otherworldy feel.

Enjoying the work here and being onsite, thankful to the nice folk at skype for their computer program!  There is a great crew of people out here and that has certainly helped ease being here.

Where's the mountain (usually you can see a mountain just beyond the camp edge)?

The morning sun shining through the dust

Some photos from Simandou

I've been taking some photos over the last couple of days and thought I'd share some of them.  The ever present haze means that it's tough to take landscape photos but I do my best!

Sunrise over the camp

Taking a break from driving training

A little lizardy friend

View from Mont Ouelaba

Another view from Mont Ouelaba

A tale from Aurelie - The joy of camping

When my dear husband left he told me to try to be sociable, to meet people.

So I made the effort last week to go back to the hostel to keep in touch with the 2 guys there, especially Lorence who has a boy of Ela's age so the kids can play. There came the suggestion of a BBQ on Friday night, I said cool count us in.

Got a call on Thursday to be at the hostel on Friday early afternoon to organise shopping, more people were involved. They take BBQ very seriously here and it probably takes an afternoon to organise it.

So here I was on board, ready for my 1st bbq without Stephen. There I met Manuella and Fred and their 3 kids. Women were sent to go shopping while men were getting the camp and fire set up. Gladly I was just the driver for Manuella cos I had no idea what to get. As we were shopping she kept mentioning tonight, tomorrow and Sunday. I realised then that this wasn't just an evening bbq. This was CAMPING.

I don't do camping. I like comfort, my own space, things not being on the ground and above all private bathroom. I understand it's a cheap accommodation when travelling, but I rather spend my money on hotels, and the more stars the better. But this was a new concept to me all together: camping for the sake of it, when you live actually 10 min away by car!

I was not sure exactly what I had enrolled into, but I went to get the kids who were excited about bbq, and trilled about camping for the first time. I kept saying to myself that I could always go home later if I needed to, after all it was only 10 min aways 15 at most. Worse case scenario I could sleep in the car.

They camped just beside the beach. Camping is actually not allowed, but everyone does it anyway. So it's wild camping, with no facilities beside the fire place. Great.

Kids were sorted they were sharing 2 tents for 6 of them. The camp was sheltered by big plastic cover tied to trees. There was one more on the ground and a big blanket to sit on. They had bought all the pots and pan, bags of food and ice box. They were making marinade and everything from scratch. I was very impressed. With Lorence there is always music so we had a guitar, djembe and  Kayamb. So far so good.

The fun started when I had to take my kids for a pee in the dark in the wild. Samuel refused to pee standing up and he did in sitting position so his trousers were soaked ( at least I had brought spare clothes). Ela refused to do at all and I had to drove her back to the hostel 5 min up the road (which was fine with me since I had to go for myself too, not being an outdoor type of person). In the mean time it started to rain. Kind of tropical rain fall. Ela fell asleep on the way back, so I decided to leave her sleep in the car while I go back to the camp waiting for the rain to stop as it usually does not last too long. I was told is was not a good idea and I had to get her back paddleling in the mud. With her sleeping in a tent I saw my chances of going back home getting a lot less probable. Shortly after Samuel asked to go to sleep too in the tent. I was stranded.

Don't get me wrong, people were very nice, the food when finally ready (sometime after 10) was very good, even if I prefer to see what I eat. It's just that the plastic covers were not really waterproof, and there were more tropical showers.

Everyone insisted that I had a drink to ease it up, so I did and then there was definitely no going anywhere. After a couple of drinks and maybe some smoking we had good fun singing away or at least trying to as we did not know most of the word in them. This could be the reason why the rain did not stop. We had the visit of a crab who managed to get under the blanket. I was told we were probably surrounded by dozen of them, so to be careful when walking in the dark (not like it was going to happen anyway).

Then some people left, the others passed out and I was left with Fred who told me he was not going to sleep cos it's not safe here. Strange people are around (they certainly have to be if they stay in the rain in the dark). 3 people have gone missing from this place, never to been seen again, except for 1 found 3 month later somewhere else (very X files). So I should never ever leave my kids in the car (though I did not get if it was more dangerous for the car or the kid). Etc, ect...  I was not sure if Fred was trying to scare me or being spookingly paranoiac.

So let summarise the situation: it was 3, 4, 5 o'clock AM. I had been sitting on the (hard and actually stony) ground for hours and my bum was sore and my legs were numbed (or the other way around). There was nowhere to lie down. I was tired. There were heavy showers one after another. I was getting drops on my head. Everything was damp. I was now being scared by every noise around me (blaire witch came in my mind). I had been bitten by mosquitos.  I needed to pee, which was not going to happen for so many reasons (rain, dark, blaire witch to name a few).

Hmm... Yes I remembered: this is why I don't like camping!

At 7, some sun came out. I went for swim to keep me awake. This was cool as I nearly had the beach and the sea to myself. Ready for the new day I went back to the camp and it started to rain again. A lot. That was it I took kids and bags, said goodbye and left.

I'll do a quick epilogue as it's a very long article. Saturday night as I was going to put the kids to bed I get a call saying they were waiting for us. So we went back (things you do for your kids!!). 2nd night was better cos it did not rain and I squeezed in the tent with the kids to sleep (very cramped but I was so tired I did not care).

Conclusion: next time I'll send Stephen camping and I'll have a comfy night in all by myself

!

D2: camp site on dry ground
"neighbours" also joined in