Summary of my week

We just got back from our work site this morning. By the way, the term " we" refers to myself and my trusty motorcycle. Overall the first half of this week has gone well--considering. The office in Cheip is somewhat operation now although the trails through the stacks of boxes and equipment are a bit hard to negotiate. Hopefully we can finish organizing it before Dennison's next field trip. We had a district orientation meeting on Tuesday which was well attended and most of the village chiefs were enthusiastic about our upcoming project. We announced that we were looking to hire several villagers from each Khum. Hopefully we get a list of names this time that is not just Commune chiefs sons and nephews. We are now having a meeting in each village which is working well. So far we have had meetings in 6 villages with good attendance by women and kids but almost no men. Apparently they are all drunk this time of year. Casual observation supports this theory although the few men that were there tried to tell me the others were busy in the forest.Yesterday afternoon Chan and I went to TBY to meet the police about getting permission to haul our TNT from Rovieng to Cheip. The chief was very helpful and immediately signed our request as soon as we promised to drill a well on their site by the end of this month. He is quite nice actually and speaks English very well, having been to Australia and other countries for trainings. He asked if i knew of a good school for his kids to attend and Toul Kok (his house is opposite Franks old house and very close to ADRA). I call Sharon at CAS and found out they can't accept more students this year but maybe next. I gave him Sopheak's # so his wife can at least go visit CAS and evaluate if she wants to send their kids there or not. Personlly, I was quite imressed with CAS students last week when they came to JBH and requested that all the debriefings be done in English rather than Khmer.After meeting the police we checked out the only 3 gravel companies that sell gravel in TBY. Two of them were producing one 5 gal. bucket of gravel every 45 seconds. The three kids running the machine were emptying the buckets into a motorcycle trailer and it lookd like it might be a while before it was full. Since we need 100 m3 delivered in the next couple weeks we went to the next " company" and found a similar setup. So much for the cheap gravel we had heard about! Our last stop was the big gravel company supplying gravel for the road companies. They were a dollar so so higher but can have quality gravel delivered on demand. So i think we will go with them. Then we stopped at the shops to find a battery for the drill aircompressor. None had the dry cell battery we needed so we ended up getting some tools we need to build treadle pumps and left for Chiep. We got there about 7:30 and since i had spoiled my appetite on with a hand of banana's i skipped dinner and went straight to bed after making a PMC agenda reading the news on the internet.I left for home this morning (Thursday) after fiddling with the treadle pump we are putting at the office for a model. After two hours " we" arrived home. Sharyn and Bucky were waiting for me and after kissing me they directed me to bathroom to see the evidence of the crime committed by Buggy the red squirrel. Apparently he viciously attacked all three of the girls in their bed before sunrise this morning. Sharyn tried to fend him off and ended up with muliple facial lacerations more becoming of an axe murderer. The evidence in the sink, (blood everywhere with a soaked towel in bucket plus the blood splattered bed made it clear to me that "Buffy" as Bucky so affectionately calls the squirrel, will probably have to banished to JBH. We could also put him in a cage here but i think he would go bananas having been free for so long. After verifying all the evidence and making sure none of the injuries were life threatening, i next went to the Health Center in Rovieng to check on Sym. He crashed into a bicycle yesterday and knocked himself unconscious. He's now in the equivilent of an ICU ward here with drips and bandages all over him. The main injury was to his temple where his unprotected head contacted a concrete road marker. The resulting gash went very deep and my main concern now, since he's not exhibiting signs of a serious concussion, is an infection. They got a lot of dirt and gravel out of the cut but it happened to be the same doctor that did my knee 8 years ago. For that one, i had to spend a week in BKK to finish cleaning and clearing up the resulting infection. Since Sym's head can't get any fatter and still qualify as a human head, we can't let this one get infected! This after noon i need to take his wife and Aunt and try and get his motorcycle back from the police since they confiscated it. Since Sym's wreck involved his own niece there is no complaint being filed. Still the police will probably want a payoff to let it out of their warehouse. Maybe we can threaten to put something in the "box" . By box i mean the corruption complaint box. The plan was to work at JBH today and tomorrow but it looks like it will only be tomorrow. We are way behind on the canopy walk but with out Sym, it will be hard to make fast progress. I have not been very useful lately up in the trees as i try to recover myself from the motorbike crash i had last week as well as the monkey bite which got very infected. Such is life. Anyway, I'm glad it's almost Friday! This half time job is about all i can take!