Journals 2006/2007

Mike Lampert
West Salem High School, Salem, OR

"Infrasound (low-frequency atmospheric acoustic) monitoring" October 3 - 18, 2006

Journal Index: October 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11             12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18

October 13, 2006
Installing Solar Panels

Up at 6 am. I can't get out of the hotel because no one is awake and the door is locked from the inside. Finally someone comes and I grab breakfast and head out to the CRF to help load the equipment. Today is all about wiring. I am getting better at the solar panels. We finish in two hours at one site and go for another. This takes two more hours. The sun is blistering hot. It has to be over ninety today and it is incredibly dusty. Everyone is tired. We get back into town roughly at 2. Have gnocchi and grilled fish. It is exquisite. We down lots of water and Fanta. We go back to the CRF, load and head out to H6. I install my third solar panel for the day. This time we are visited by the Italian family that adopted the guys. It is funny to see them out here. They are so misplaced just like the array itself, nothing seems to blend with the solitude of this dusty island and acacia trees.

The Italian family that adopted the guys.		Inside this box resides the rechargeable batteries, they need to be hooked up to the solar panels. View full version pop-up.		An entire array with antenna up. View full version pop-up.

The sun starts its descent, the rapidity of darkness causes us to hurry and go back to Vila, strangely, there are no hitchhikers to pick up. The bus runs regularly and carries probably a hundred kids each day. They are dressed in nice uniforms. Later I go to the English restaurant. The guys order steak and fries. All food is served from a common platter. The salad is grated carrot and sliced tomato. The Peace Corp girls are there. Stef is talkative as usual and has to come up with a lesson plan of using "be" and "been" in English. Good luck with that, they have no reading books! After dinner I head to talk with the Italians and real coffee. The island life is so slow. They really need to find a way to store large quantities of water to make this place liveable.

This is the main plaza for Vila and one of the hotels there.