 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
 |
||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||
|
July 13, 2010
Boy howdy! What a start to my day! Eric gallantly helped me change a flat tire on the car that I’m temporarily borrowing. Then I had to take the flat tire to the tire shop to get fixed. Thirty guys appeared out of thin air when they realized a woman… correction: white woman…was driving the vehicle. Then they called to their friends, “Hey!” and motioned for them to come out and take a look at this spectacle: a woman sitting in a car. And another thirty guys appeared. Just to test the extent of how NOT RUDE staring is here, I decided to get out of the car to check another tire that had looked low. I felt like I should have been performing on American Idol, or be my own parade and throw out candy to the masses (I should have been practicing my Miss Universe wave for just this moment). Now I know precisely what Shamu the killer whale feels like, with all of the ooos and aahs uttered from all directions. Perhaps I should have done a back flip followed by a bow for these guys to see if I could get some applause. JULY 8, 2010  Tembagapura. Neither of us took this photo but I thought it was an interesting view of our town.  Another photo from the company's archives, showing the Grasberg Mine. The elevation difference from the buildings in the valley and the pit is over 3000 feet. I got to go see the pit for the first time ever, and took a few photos.  First, however, we had to get there. In the photo above this one with the view of the whole pit...see that light colored squiggly line in the middle? That's the road. And we met a "roadblock" along the way. I got to overlook the pit and watch the trucks go around and around for quite a while, and also caught a helicopter in action.  Zoomed in...  A safety message for anyone driving around in a puny little Toyota Landcruiser... This is what happens when the big "Tonka" trucks don't see you. I'll bet that didn't happen in your sandbox, did it?  JUNE 27, 2010 Photos of the Grasberg Mine by Eric  At this point, your are truly on top of the world. This is one of the tallest peaks peaks between the Himalayas and the Andes.  Each bench is 120 feet tall. This is one of the largest mines in the world. The shovels and trucks in this photo look like tiny specks! Of course, the geo-nerd in me says, "Oooo, look at the lovely oxidation patterns in the rock," and would probably convince the right-side of my brain that this is a form of abstract art and should be framed and put front and center above my dining room table. JUNE 25, 2010 While I realize I'm writing this in June, it is almost July, so I decided not to pretend that we'd had an interesting June, and we'll move on to July.
Our friend Pius came by unexpectedly this week. He showed us a photo (taken with the Polaroid that we gave to him) of his father, who had died on Tuesday. No, it wasn't a photo of his father while he was alive. It was a photo of his father being dead. Death is not perceived the same way was we see it. It's almost as if the people like to show it off as something that is accomplished, rather than lost. I've seen more photos of dead people here than they show on CSI.
|
 |
 |
|
| Site Map |