One Small Step...

Saturday/Sunday Sept 29/30, 2012

I was walking through one of two largest electric furnaces in the world today thinking how fortunate I am to have a part in this project.  For those readers, who don’t generally walk through gymnasium-sized furnaces, let me paint a description with words:

I feel like Buzz Lightyear… no no. Umm… Buzz Aldrin, or maybe it was Neil Armstrong. Yea that’s the guy I think... the guy who walked on the moon and now no one believes it.  Entering the furnace through a crooked scaffold and up a dusty ramp, I step through thick clouds of dust floating heavy over a rust coloured moonscape.  Vague shapes of men in their protective suits, respirators, helmets and gloves take shape through my dirty face shield. Loose rubble rolls into jack hammered craters as I make my way past pancake-flat mushroom-shaped deposits of hardened nickel under each of six electrodes, between which man-made lightning usually forks.  Through my foam ear plugs, I hear the deafening rat-a-tat-tat-tat thuds coming from strange looking machines mining away at the cooled slag and nickel. Climbing the highest deposit of nickel, I raise my flag and plant it deep in a crack, mouthing those infamous words through my dusty respirator, “This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind…”.  Then I called mission control on the radio and they told me to get the hell out of the furnace.

 

 

Back to the reality of being Kevin Nichol, I’ve been spending my nights in a simple room, sparse with furniture and accessories.  My luxuries include a twin bed and a single bed depending on my mood, a flat screen tv on the wall, a fridge, a telephone, a recliner and a single plug-in. Here in Brazil and throughout most of my travels in South America, the showers are not piped in from a hot water tank like in Canada where power and water come cheap. The water is piped in cold and an electrical appliance is mounted on the shower Fawcett which warms the water in a coil when you turn it on.  Unfortunately, about two weeks ago I was showering when the plug-in above the shower started popping and cracking and a plume of smoke filled the bathroom.  From then on, the electrical breaker has been popping a couple times every shower and I have learned to quickly lather up and rinse off before I have to slip and slide out into my room and reset the breaker.  I reported this to the owner yesterday and an electrician is supposed to change the shower head today.  It turns out my present shower head is rated for 220 v but it’s plugged into a 110 v outlet. The thing about appliances here is that they come in either or both 110v or 220v.  The other day, my boss and I unpacked a brand new printer, plugged it in and pushed the start button.  It immediately burst into smoke and flames and is now being used for parts.

Plug-ins in Brazil

 Dinner tonight was "Find your own" and I had the benefit of a company pickup so I drove the strip with my arm out the window a couple of times, and stopped at a Churassca on the other end of town.

 I managed okay considering the soup of the day was made with tripe (cow's stomach). Yum! My Portuguese is now sufficient that I can greet the local proprietors, ask for food, pay the bill and say thankyou.  Sure I use a few hand gestures and my fantastic smile but it works!

 

A couple thousand words...

 

Friday September 28, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

Flying Red Ant on the hood of the truck in the morning...

Thursday September 27, 2012

My apologies for the lag time, I went to work on Tuesday and when I got back to my hotel, the router for the internet had packed it in and had to be removed and sent to town.  I was very happy to get home tonight to a connection!


So the holiday is over and I'm working through until Sunday October 7th, which is my next scheduled day off. I am getting up at 5:30 am, having breakfast and getting to the smelter by 6:30 am where I work until 6:30 or 7 pm.  We are demolishing the two largest electric furnaces in the world after only 11 months in service.  They both had catastrophic failures when the bricks expanded and did not contract, leaving large cracks for fumes to escape.  They were shut down suddenly, leaving gymnasium sized masses of cooled nickel 8' deep. We are removing the metal "salamander" and the bricks right down to the shell plates.

Today at lunch the plant allowed a couple of their workers to play music in the cafeteria. When I took this picture it was to the tune of "Lean on Me" which has been running through my head ever since!

After several weeks of shopping around, I bought a bike.  Its an avocado green "Monarch Barra Circular" which is a popular but old design down here. It weighs about 50 lbs with its welded steel frame, single speed and mechanical brakes (no cables!) that hardly work.  I think my adrenalin is destined to reach new heights as I pedal around a town with not a single traffic light.

And with that, I'm off to bed in preparation of another exciting day. Hi ho, hi  ho!  I'll leave you with the timeless words of Lean on Me so they run through your head too. Great song!

Lean on Me (Bill Withers)

Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

Please swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you won't let show

You just call on me brother, when you need a hand (Chorus)
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you'd understand
We all need somebody to lean on

Second Verse
(Chorus)

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can't carry
I'm right up the road
I'll share your load
If you just call me
(Chorus)
Call me (if you need a friend)
Call me (call me)
Call me (if you need a friend)
Call me (if you ever need a friend)
Call me (call me)
Call me
Call me (if you need A friend)

Tuesday September 25, 2012

We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday
In a bar that faces a giant car wash
The good people of the world are washing their cars
On their lunch break, hosing and scrubbing
As best they can in skirts in suits
They drive their shiny Dodges and Buicks
Back to the phone company, the record store too
Well, they're nothing like Billy and me, cause
All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one...

Sheryl Crow and Billy might be drinking beer at noon on a Tuesday but I'm walking around the south side of a town with dirt streets somewhere south of the equator.  I headed out this morning, through some of the poorest parts of town until I couldn't go any further.

Long legged chickens with small breasts down here...

Many flocks of these "Black Billed Parrots" are in the trees around here...



Chicken Delivery!

I came from Canada with three maple leaf baseballs to give away to kids.  Today I gave my last one to some kids in a school yard.

Typical house construction...

My exotic treat of the day - frozen acai berries picked locally!

Todays lunch at a local restaurant... (Coke not included!)

All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one..

2:30 update:  So much for the fun!  My pass for the plant just came through!  I was headed out to go buy a bicycle but the forces that be intervened and I am now putting my work clothes on.  Off to work I go!

"If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent the night with a mosquito.”

Monday September 24, 2012

The last thing the nurse said after she immunized me for yellow fever was, "And don't get bit by mosquitos!"  It sounded logical at the time but something got lost in the translation because feeding time starts here when the sun goes down.  I have numerous bites on my legs, arms and hands and one particularly itchy one on my left ear.  The worst of it isn't the bites... oh sure, thats where Malaria, West Nile, Dengue Fever, Yellow Fever and Encepholitis come from but I'll deal with that when the time comes... its the frisken kamakaze attacks all night long that get me. I don't think there is anything that can piss me off like the annoying drone of a blood thirsty mosquito at 3 am.  My nightly routine now includes spraying bug spray around my door before bed, checking that the maid closed the window in the shower, and anhilating every mosquito in my room.  Nonetheless, about 5 minutes after I turn out the lights, the little bastards start divebombing my face, no doubt laughing when I slap myself.  I pull the sheets over my head but once I fall asleep, they bring on a full scale attack. 

Today was pretty sedentiary. I got up as planned and dressed like a tourist in preparation for a day in classes at the technical school.  Right around breakfast time, it became evident that no one had arranged for a ride for me.  And then, suddenly the plan was not to go to the school but to get on a bus and get to the plant 20 km away for training out there... and the bus was waiting for me.  A quick change into my work clothes and away I went!

We ended up, a whole busload of Portuguese labourers and I, in a delapitated building on the outskirts of the plant. It was an abandoned camp and we made use of a classroom for the day.  Unfortunately there was no running water in the foul smelling washrooms and the rest of the building had human urine and excretement in every room.

Class was taught by Miguel, who was less an instructor and more a drill sergeant. He yelled everything at the top of his lungs in Portugese with extra emphasis on the important parts.  Perhaps he had hearing problems because when he played videos, I used my docimeter to measure the sound level and he had the speakers set at 97 decibels.  In Canada, we require hearing protection after 82 - 85 decibels!  The irony of this being a safety course wasn't lost on me.

We did, after an hour and a half wait for meal tickets, have lunch inside the plant at the cafeteria, and then finished our course by 4:30 pm.

When I got home, I took a walk downtown and bought a new fruit as well as a few vegetables and a bag of Brazilian nuts. My fruit of the day are Maracuja's. 

This fruit reminded me of "Monkey Brain Fruit" which we ate in Columbia last year but the ones here are far more tart and lemon tasting.  The funny thing is you can just put your lips on the rim and suck and the whole conglomeration of seeds and juice comes out in one swallow.

When I went for a walk tonight I observed these two workers doing unsafe work.  There is such a contradiction between the lack of safety here in town and the excess of it at the plant...



Welding with no fall protection or helmet

High up on a scaffold cutting a masonry wall with a skilsaw. Not tied off properly, scaffold plank is too narrow and has no cleats and the scaffold is not secured to the building... and he has no mask to protect himself from silicosis!

Dinner cooking on main street. The guys buy the shishkabobs by the piece and cook them themselves... It sure smells good!

My next fruit of the day!

Dinner tonight

And thats about it for excitement today... I am now waiting a couple more days for a pass to the smelter at which time I can start.  We had two safety girls, hired here in Brazil, show up today in high heels, sunglasses, manicured finger nails and bling to match.  I can't imagine either of them have ever been in a furnace before so I'm curious what good they will be.  We shall see...

Sunday - Domingo!

I started my morning by taking responsibility for and signing off on the safety plans and equipment inspections for this project. It sounds like all systems are go and if my pass is issued, I should be working my first 13 hours shift by Wednesday or Thursday.  Tomorrow I am scheduled to attend the plant orientation all day with a couple of Peruvian colleagues who were also at Columbia when I worked there last year. 
After breakfast I tried to cut across some fields to the north of town in search of termite mounds but I was cut off by a large pack of dogs who thought I needed company. I make it a practice of wearing a large carabiner on my belt for the possibility that I may need to defend myself. I didn't need it in this case but just the same it's nice to know I can start swinging if I need to!

Detoured by the dogs, I ended up heading east out of town on the main highway where I walked all the way to the airport which is a few miles out of town. What follows are some of my random pics on my way out there...

Killer Ginea Hens and one is outside the fence... Run Kev.. Run!

Its a long walk to the next town... 145 km to Maraba!

I thought these were coffee beans but they tasted nothing like it!

One of several small to medium sized termite mounds I saw in my travels. They are hard as concrete!

Guava Fruit  (Of the Pomegranate family) - Contains 4 x as much Vitamin C as an orange!

Unnamed Bug which I discovered... herafter known as kevinusnicholusbugusus in latin...

Another hitherto unnamed specie which I will make up a name for as I go along... The erect yellow stalk which looks like a wax bean splits into a gorgious bloom.  Notice the fruit on the same tree below.

The remains of a 5' long python on the side of the road!

I arrived here missing a bag that had my 3rd injection of Hep A/B which I was supposed to administer myself.  Once my bag showed up a week later, I assembled the syringe and needle and tried to stab myself several times, always stopping a fraction of an inch away from my thigh or shoulder.  Fortunately, Day shift Superintendent Bob volunteered to do it today, a glint of sadism in his eye, and he stabbed it into my shoulder and emptied it with no problems. Thanks Bob!

After my noon siesta, I walked downtown and sat on the steps of a bank watching the world do its thing.  One thing I haven't mentioned is that political elections are pending and the streets are filled with cars, trucks and motorcycles decorated with the propaganda of several parties.  At any given time, the streets are surrounded by loud speakers mounted on vehicles playing music and giving campaign promises at about 120 decibels.  It is not uncommon to have three vehicles on one block all trying to drown the other out.  Fireworks are thrown in the air all day long and impromptu rallies are held in abandoned lots most evenings.

7:30 pm Update
As I updated my blog, strong winds blew in rattling the windows and rustling the palm trees outside my door. This was followed by a torrential down pour for about a half an hour which killed the internet.  When I went to see about dinner, I was reminded that there is no dinner on Sunday nights so I am satisfying myself with my now-ripe Abacate (oversize avocado) and a couple of kiwi.  I could walk down to Rosemary's Cantina but I'd eat too much!

Almost reminds me of the Cotswolds.. almost but not quite!