May 23, 2005
Nothing worse than waking up to wind whistling thru the flaps of your tent and Randy (the construction foreman) shouting "dress warm it’s going to be a bear out there". The mood was set for the day.
The ticket counter at the airport weighed my bag that had my winter clothes in it and the magic number was 43 pounds. Now the only thing that was double in there is the long underwear and socks. I’m guessing I had 30 pounds of insulated clothing on, …and yes… I was the kid lying on my back in the snow pile asking for help up.
The bad part is that once dressed and out of the tent you’re dressed for the day. One last check to make sure everything you need for the day is with you, then into the cold and wind. The cold hits you and yes now you have to go to the bathroom. I now completely understand why there are only 4 urinals for a camp of 280 people. You can’t get thru 4 layers of clothing in time. Enough about the bathroom issues, although I will touch on it later, but not about me, thank heavens.
Eating in a room they keep at 80 degrees, with full dress winter clothing is miserable so now there are two strikes against the day. What else? Calls to our family to surprise them was a treat, we miss them.
Larry, our truck mates and I head up the hill to work. The wind up there is worse. The equipment fought us all day. Parts failed time and time again, and we were up against a clock. They are preparing an oil tank farm and need concrete ASAP. The mixer motor has been an issue for several days. Today we blew up the device that starts it - can not be repaired. We got people out of bed in Wisconsin to overnight parts but it sounds as if overnight delivery to Kupol, Siberia is between 7 – 10 days.
At this point I feel the need to tell you about the trip to the main communications tent to disturb our friends in Wisconsin. Our friend Roy, the 72 year old, gave us a ride to the tent, but on the way we discussed the problems with the bathrooms here, such as when you sit down your knees are inches from the plywood door and with all the clothing it’s hard to reach down to retrieve your pants without hitting your head or butt or some part of your body into something. At this point Roy pipes up to tell his bathroom story that happened today. (I’m sitting here with the computer on my lap laughing so hard I can’t hit the right keys) On his ride to the hill he thought he needed to pass gas and got "more than he bargained for". This proper English speaking gentleman was just so nonchalant about what happened and Larry and I were rolling on the floor. He has a British type humor that continued to keep us in tears the rest of the day.
Sorry about the sidebar but it set the tone for the rest of the day, as things got worse the stories from the people around us just got funnier.
Back to the day.
Since we couldn’t work on the mixer anymore, on to adjust the conveyor belts. Everything was looking good until one of the other workers came running to inform us the tail pulley just fell out of the bearings. Larry and I were able to repair this problem with a few choice words and brut strength. Next we found the weighing system that’s 20 feet in the air installed wrong. With 20 -30 mph winds we spent the rest of the day trying to work up there.
Works boring and sucked today, I need to talk about or truck mates.
These people help to keep each other sane with stories from all over the world. Olga is our translator, 21 yrs old and leaves us in two day to return home. She took the job thinking it was a job in an office and for the last month she has froze but never complains. When she returns she studies for her finals and the family takes a vacation to Moscow, St. Peters and other places. She is from Magadan, Siberia.
Randy is from somewhere in Canada, and has worked all over for mining operations. He came here for the adventure more than the money. He is in his late 50’s and he has a story regarding drinking and a bear at their base camp dump. All they wanted to do is scare it off using horns and other noise makers that didn’t work. The next night - more booze, and this time a home made acetylene bomb in a garbage bag that the bear got tangled up in and didn’t explode. That’s when the drinking took over and the guy in charge of the dump crawled on his hands and knees to reset the bomb that was attached to the bear. It finally exploded but the bear came back the next night. Should I say more booze and a 55 gallon drum filled with food for the bear the next night, but this time it had a primer wire used to detonate TNT wrapped around the 55 gallon barrel set to explode when moved. No bear that night until about 4:00 in the morning the camp woke up to the explosion and found only the barrel with the shape of a bear head impressed into it. The next day they shot the deaf bear.
Dan is our electrician from Canada but works where ver a job is. I think Mongolia is the next job he’s taking. His last project was in Trinidad where he met his wife. They live between Canada and her home. He leaves in 2 days and we will miss him.
Then there is Stacy who is a skinny, squirrelly over energetic guy who operates the heavy equipment and is currently building a ramp for us to fill the bins. Last summer he and his brother volunteered to build the base to a monument for the small town he lived in. The town was assembling a time capsule and after a few adult drinks decided to install their own. In the time capsule they put Twinkies, Hustler magazine, other items of zero interest and a Kodak camera filled with pictures that they hope they are dead before the capsule is opened.
There is Sasha, our Russian electrician that knows enough English to butcher everything he says. He is so animated that everyone has tears in there eyes from his stories. When he gets mad at me he calls me a Slovakian.
There are more stories about Roy and his stinky kid:
The suspenders that he was standing on in the bathroom stall while he was trying to pull his pants up and couldn’t until he moved his foot. The suspenders snapped him in the "junk" (Rusty’s word not mine).
This group of people sure helps make the time go fast and I look forward to coming home. 11:00 pm and I need some sleep. The cold is draining and everything takes twice as long.
See ya.