Okay... I'm back.....

Hi all,

This tour has been a whirlwind of work. Got back to work and found nothing had been done while I was gone. We had 3 incidents in January while I was gone. Plus all the daily paperwork, equipment certifications, and programs I started fell through the cracks. It's taken me a month to get back to where I was before. I guess I can't leave anymore.

So... I haven't taken many pictures of the area; only work stuff. My days have been getting up at 4 am; be at work by 5am; have tool box talks with the crew; go to meetings; go back to my room around 7pm; and in bed by 8:30pm only to start over the next day.

The weather has been interesting here. When I arrived it was a monsoon. In a matter of 3 hours it dropped 6 inches of rain; flooded downtown PortMoresby; and made it difficult to get to camp. The next day, the sun was out and the humidity was about 90 percent. It's been raining like this on and off since I've been here. The temperature has been cool at night, around 78 degrees, but, the days get up to around 95. With the humidity on top of the heat we have a feel like temperature of 105 degrees or more. Really strange weather here.

Clouds before and after storms 

This is my new background on my laptop. This storm came in and dumped 3 inches of rain in 45 minutes.

Another cloud formation that ended up dropping enough rain to cause no vision while driving. Simular to a white out when it snows hard.

This formed after a storm passed through the night before.

I thought this was a cool cloud formation also.



 Everyday the sky has a new appearance here. The sunrises are dramatic as well as the sunsets. It's hard to pick and choose which ones to photograph.

I also have some pictures of the largest crane on site. It can lift 600 metric tons. And a picure of a pumper truck that we use for pouring concrete.

This is Big Red. It lifts 600 metric tons and the yellow crane in front can lift 250 metric tons. Red is the biggest crane on the site. The tracks on big red are taller than I am.

.Here is our crew working with a pump truck pouring 120 cubic metes of concrete.

The next picture is a girl that works in our office. Her name is Aiva. Aiva is 23, married, and with child. Two weeks ago she was at a conference on-site and started to hemorage. She went to the on-site clinic for help and could not get the help she needed. The clinic told her to get to the general hospital where she could get looked after. However, the clinic on-site would not provide any medical transportation. By this time the hemorage had stopped and the doctor felt it was safe to tranport her. Myself and two other people transported her via company van to the hospital. We spent four hours with her trying to get through the crowds of people at the hospital to get her check out.  We were able to get her to the front of the line for her examination because of where she worked and some persuasive talk from  me. Once she was in proper care and her mother arrived, we left. Later that day we found out she lost her baby because of the complication. I was amazed to here this is not uncommon in this country. The hospital we took her too was a sight to see with all the women there waiting to be seen by a doctor. I heard some of the women waiting to see the gynocologist have been there 2 days waiting for there appointments. It's a sad sight to see.

Aiva is doing well. She is back to work and moving forward with her life. Here is a picure of her I took at work a few days ago.

Aiva Avia

On the brighter side, the next two pictures are of Nembo and Peter. Both guys are our top welders in the shop. They keep everything under control duing our hectic times of production.

This is Peter.

this is Nimbo

Well thats it for now. Need to get some sleep. Hope you enjoy the pictures in this session. I will be writng soon to show my one day trip to Seguri village just outside of Port Moresby.

Take care.

Ken