Winter Barbeque!

Well I'm back in Guinee again, working away for the next four weeks (I leave here for home on my birthday, I'll celebrate it in the departure lounge at Conakry airport, sniff sniff). 

Before I left though we had a barbeque at the house with some friends (it's winter at the moment, see Aurelie's poncho and the kids layers of clothes).  Our barbeque isn't fancy, just a ring of stones, wood from the garden and a grill, it does the job though and it was great to catch up with friends before I headed off again.

Barbeques are a thing they do well in Reunion, all the one's we've been to have been simple set up's just grills over stones or half barrels.  With tastey Creole food (pork or chicken usually, there is very little beef or lamb here) and drinks with family and friends, what could be better!  Ours was a small affair but when it's a bit warmer you'll find tent encampments everywhere down by the beach with groups of 20 to 30 or more family and friends all having weekend long barbeques!

Aurelie and the kids

Marie and the kids, my hammock was popular!

Looking beautiful!

Laurance and Jean-Fabien take control of the barbeque

And the result!



Waterfight!

So that's the waterfight marked off the list!

Sam's To Do List!

I'm back home now for a couple of weeks. I got in on Monday morning and Aurelie and Ela headed off to France on Tuesday morning for nine days, leaving Sam and myself  to have a boys week together! 

'Cos Sam knew he wasn't going to get to go to France to see his mami and papi this time he got to make a list of things that he wanted to do with me for the week that we would be by ourselves.  So when I got back he eagerly showed me the list magneted to the fridge.

• Watch movie Episode 6 (Return of the Jedi)
- Over the last couple of months Sam has seen all of the other Star Wars movies (see Aurelie's post on this!) but has been waiting for me to get back before watching the last one.  We are planning to watch it tomorrow, there will be popcorn, exciting times! 


• Eat bouchon sandwich
- bouchon are sort of like dumplings, and they are tasty!  One of the most popular snacks here are bouchon in a baguette with melted cheese on top, double tasty!  For some reason his mother doesn't make them for him (so far this week I've made them at home once and we had them at a snack once (a snack is the name of little places that sell snacks here).


• Go to Etang Sale
- Etang Sale is a black sand beach which Sam likes to go to but the waves tend to be a bit much for Ela so Aurelie doesn't take them there by herself.  we have been once already this week and had a great time.  If the weather is good in the morning we'll be off there again!


• Play Rugby
- Well, Sam calls it rugby, mainly I call it cheating!  Lots of running and tackling in the garden.  At least Sam knows enough about rugby to cheer for Ireland rather than les bleus!


• Look at space ship Lego on PC
- The Lego website has a lot to answer for!  And not just any Lego, Star Wars Lego.  Sam is building up quite a collection (and he doesn't know what is stored on top of the wardrobe, amazon.com is a dangerous, dangerous place with lots of Star Wars Lego!).  Really how evil are the people who came up with the idea?  Lego and Star Wars, it's like crack for geeks!


• Do water fight
- Self explanatory really, we have supersoakers and water balloons, there will be war.


• Play Ben 10 cards
- Apparently if he can find them we'll be playing the Ben 10 card game.  Not sure what this entails but I'm pretty sure that Sam doesn't intend to lose.

• Have a BBQ
- Planned for tomorrow evening.  We've made a circle of stones where we and rest a grill and have lots wood from the garden.  Sausages and husks of sweet corn have been bought so there will be burnt food for dinner tomorrow!


So that's what our five year old wants to do with his Dad.  On writing and thinking about this a few of things struck me, prominant among them were;


Firstly, how profoundly lucky I am to have such a happy healthy little boy who wants to do all these things with me and how lucky I am to be able to do all these things with him.


And secondly, how lucky he is to lead the life we lead.  Spending time in Guinea and things that have happened there has reminded me how little so many people have, how privilaged we are and how precarious our lives really are. 

Things you need to know before introducing your kids to Star Wars.

Aurelie's take on Star Wars and kids from her post from Facebook: ·

This one is kind of about parenting. Not that I want to give advice to anyone, this is more like a warning in case you are as unprepared as I was.

First I want to say that I was not (am I now?) a Star Wars fan. I had watched all the episodes once, the old ones about 12 or 14 years ago, the new ones whenever they came out. So this was not my idea, it was Stephen's.  After being assured that it was not too violent for a (sensitive) 5 years old, I said why not, I would probably enjoy watching it again too in this family bonding time. The only issue was that Ela (3) ended up watching as well, hopefully she'll be ok and won't have long term damage!

At first Samuel refused to watch the movie cos it was too scary, but curiosity won and well, it was a hit, and with that a few unexpected consequences:

1) From breakfast to bed time it's all about Star Wars. Don't expect any other type of conversation. Any attempt of normal conversation is either interrupted by some Star Wars related question, or just ignored until a Star wars statement feels appropriate, probably with no relation at all to the initial conversation subject. I'll give a list (not exhaustive, that would be impossible as more come every day) of questions I get on a given subject, light sabers:

• Are light sabres stronger than metal?
• Why do Jedi have blue or green?
• How do they get them?
• Why only Jedi have them?
• Why do the bad ones have red?
• Can I get a real one?
• Can you make one?
• Would they cut through anything?
• Is it the same button to turn on or off?
• Can they be other colour? And what about black?
• Why can you not make one?
• Can good guys have red ones too?
• If I become a Jedi, can I get a real one?

This only about light sabres, now you multiply this by the amount of possible subjects (size and shape of space ships, planets, characters, relationship, clothing, robots, lack of toilets...) and you get my day.
This can be fine if you are a Star Wars expert, if not it may lead you screaming (out loud or in your head, depending the frustration level) “I don't know, I don't care, it's only a f*** movie, light sabres don't exist, it's all made up, just like f*** Santa!" - oups-.

2) Don't be a fool thinking “its just a movie, its cheap entertainment!”. Even Sam, who never bgets to see adverts on television has managed to get a glimpse of Lego Star Wars. So as the weak parents we are we got something small to make him happy. This has lead to the discovery of the existence of more lego space ships (the lego instruction booklet helpfully included some ads for more Star Wars lego!). Someone may even have been be foolish enough to show Sam the Lego web site, where they have ALL the space ships. I now have Samuel's christmas wish list ready in May, and mentioned every day to be sure it's not forgotten, and no pressure to get anything before, just because he is a good boy and he wants it so much....
Also I have a request to come up with Dark Vader costume for Halloween (at least the Emperor (Ela) will be easy to make).

3) Of course kids don't watch movies once, or twice. They have to watch it over and over without apparent limit. Who said I was against TV in their room? Or maybe even just a TV, so I could actually use my computer in the meantime (which is the only audio/video media around when Stephen is away).

4) Being the 1st "grown up" movie they have watched, it has also raised a lot of more existential questions for which I had to come up with accessible answers from a 5 and 3 years old.

• Death. If death by guns shots was no problem, other death causes had to be clarified. Yes, people on board of exploding spaceships in space will be dead. Is Obi-Wan really dead if he still can talk, I'm not sure... it could a Force thing. it was a tough one to explain Anakin's mom and Padme (which he has not watched, just been told - and now I'm so glad I don't have to explain child birth!)
• Slavery. People working without getting paid, I know crazy stuff, and the worse part, it was actually quite wide spread until recently on Earth. And still happening...
• Deception. How to pretend to be a good guy when you're a bad one so they don't thing it's you. Please don't learn from that.
• Turning from good to bad. Proof of a weak mind, never trust a bady, he is just going to use you and get you killed at the end.
• Gender equality. Women can lead and use guns, good. Still there is a lacking of women Jedi and pilots that I can't explain. They are probably around, just not on camera.
• Emotions. Yes it's possible to feel so sad you want to die, and to feel so angry you want to kill every one. But it's better to talk about it before getting to this extreme. Anakin and Padme did not talk enough.
• Power. Some people like it so much, they always want more, and will do anything for it. And then get killed by someone who wants it even more. Not a good thing to be interested in if you're not willing to share. and give it up after a while.

So that's it. We have watched all episode but the last (Return of the Jedi). We are waiting for Stephen to be back to see it so HE can get all the questions. The problem is that now Samuel finds it easier to talk in French than English, so unless Stephen boosts up his French comprehension, I'm going to end up answering anyway...

The Emperor versus Luke!

Make love not war ;-)

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