July 5, 2005

Wind picked up this morning. Helped a little with the mosquitoes but "hot" is the word of the day.

Went into Randy’s maintenance container today and as hot as it was, he kept complaining that something smelled, and as bad as my nose is I smelled it too. After looking for a few minutes behind Randy’s Job Box we found another string of fish drying. That was thrown out.

From noon yesterday to the end of the day today not an ounce of concrete was poured. Instead we did maintenance and trained personnel. The problem is with the rotation of operators, by the time I train these two, it’s time for their "two weeks out". I hope they’re back in time for me to leave.

Taught them to calibrate the scales, train belts, grease and clean the equipment, mostly without translators. Instead of a lot of arm waving and pointing this time, we worked out a system of numbers and drawings that seem to work. The newest operator knows enough English and understands when this system is working. When he is unsure he says, "I get translator."

I’m actually having more fun with the Russians this time than the last but I think it has more to do with me being the teacher and having to interact with them rather than Larry being the one in charge.

The translators are working with me, (or should I say it’s their personal challenge) to teach me a word of the day. CHI is tea. They tried teaching me "ice cream" but their word had four syllables to my two, and I argued with them on why I would want to learn four when two says it all. (Thanks to CJ for teaching me to reduce the number of syllables when I can)

The last hour of the day was about how Americans viewed Russians, and what history we were taught in school about Russia. If anyone can help me with an answer I would love to tell them.

My answer was when I was in grade school we were taught about communism, the Iron Curtain, and what to do if there was a nuclear attack. The older Russian people were taught about the same thing regarding nuclear attack. The wall coming down was a big event and that was the start of better relations. But the majority of time all we hear is about Putin or internal problems of the country.

Their view of the US comes from the news and music/movies and TV. I told them to quit watching and listening to any of it, unless it was old rock and roll.
I would say the average person working for me is 25 and eager to learn. In their schools it’s mandatory to learn English and they wanted to know if we were taught Russian. They were disappointed that not much was known about Russia and again I must thank Becky for the book she bought me on my last trip because I could sound a little knowledgeable about their history.

That’s it for tonight…
Tae (one syllable instead of the two in Terry)