Cyanide and Gasoline

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Cyanide?! Gasoline?! What is going on down there?! Well, there are some nasty aspects of living down here, and there's not really anyone to do them but me.

In fact, there's not really anyone left at all. The summer field season is over and everyone, including Harold (the owner of Yanayacu) has left. There are around 8 of us here, all between the ages of 19 and 26. My Bachelor of Science makes me one of the most learned persons at the research station.

We've dropped all the PhDs off at the airport in Quito and sent them back to states.
After dropping Grant off I stayed in Quito to be a tourist and to take a break. I climbed the Catedral del Voto Nacional --- literally climbed--- over catwalks and up scaffolding--- and got my clothes professionally washed (instead of with a rock and a hose like usual). But after getting three different stomach ailments (nothing too serious but you can't even look at the tap water in Quito without getting giardia) and spending all the cash I brought ($5 a night at the hostel and $1.75 for a three course lunch adds up) it was time to come back to Yanayacu.
But not before I bought some yeast.

Bread is bought at a bakery (panaderia) in Baeza and because Baeza is so far away (45 minutes) bread is a luxury at Yanayacu. We have it about as much as we have electricity, about three times a week. But I bought enough yeast to last till the end of days. I've made about three different batches of bread, each one gets eaten faster than it is made. I think I might have to set up my own Panaderia.

So since I've come back from Quito I've made bread and I've hauled rocks from the river for the new laboratory construction project, but mostly my days are as usual. I live in a giant clubhouse with a bunch of kids. I run around the forest looking for caterpillars. I put the butterflies and moths we've reared in cyanide (the stuff smells awful). And I play on a computer inputting data. I'm a 'biologist'.

The solar panel that we brought down here to charge the computers for data input just isn't working. It's probably because we get sun down here less than we get bread. So every time we need to turn the computers on someone has to go up to the generator shack to filler' up and cranker' on. You'd think that pouring the gas into a funnel would be the safest way to fill the generator. But in fact using the funnel always ends up a big mess, gasoline everywhere, making the generator shack a cinder-block-ticking-time-bomb. Using the long plastic hose to syphon out the gas is far cleaner and safer (trust me). Nothing like the taste of Super Unleaded in the morning.

No one seems too concerned by the thin haze around the station that's coming from the volcano (Volcan Reventador) 100km away. I sure am. It would have been one of our first sunny days in almost a week. I guess I'll have to wait just a little bit longer for my laundry to dry.

-Aaron

A thank you to my friends from New Orleans for all the updates. I never thought that moving to Ecuador would make my life so much easier. I can only hope that we have something to celebrate by Mardi Gras 2006.

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