Saturday February 26, 2011
For reasons not exactly clear to me, I wake up around 4 am and lay there wishing I could get another 45 minutes of sleep. I tried unsuccessfully to get online, had a quick shower and went for breakfast. Rolled omelettes with ham and a good variety of fresh fruit including watermelon, cantaloupe, kiwi, papaya and some watery orange juice. Its quite amazing that coffee isn’t on the menu and has to be ordered almost as an afterthought… in Columbia!
On the 6:05 bus which is always at least 10 minutes late and arrived at the plant by about 6:30 am. Uneventful day with the exception of nearly tripping over a humungous iguana in the plant. I shuffled paper all day, input data, did reports and did a couple walks through the furnace. Imagine a pot that you could put a 7-11 in and bring it to a boil! All in all it’s a very dangerous place and I have to put all of my knowledge to use. Often while walking through groups of Columbian labourers, never mind pointing out unsafe behaviours, of which there is no limit, one can feel the group resentment like a skinny chick at a fat farm. Its really bad with the labourers… not so much with the ones hired to work with us. The interpreters are all very pretty young raven haired girls with nice smiles, high cheekbones and beautiful smiles and I’m sure the only selection criteria is the ability to fit in a pair of skinny jeans. Today at lunch, Harold flew home and he left me his last “Monkey Brain Fruit” which is a fruit which I shall have to take a photo of. Its basically just like in the Indiana Jones movie when you saw off the top of a monkeys head and scoop out the brains. Lunch today at the smelter was what I call a cardboard sandwich… day old sub buns with the ends cut off (dry as a bone), no spreads at all. One piece of dried out cheese and a dry piece of ham. I have to choke them down and when I burp… dust. They are terrible. Cardboard would be better. I asked my interpreter today, Yulis, if its common for a big company to feed all its workers lunch (there are thousands of workers here) and she said it was. Her father has worked for the mine for 38 years, lives in a company house, drinks company beer and both her and her sister got free university paid for by the company.
Dinner tonight was an outdoor barbeque with our choice of polo (chicken), carne (beef) or something unrecognizable with ribs sticking out of it. Baked potatoes with REAL sour cream and ensalada added the finishing touch. It was very good.
