Photos

Here are some Photos of the Workshop. On the first day we learned how to set up water tests in the morning. then in the afternoon we made solar stoves. The next day Sra. Martinez Garcia gave a talk on nutrition and cooking using the solar stoves. We examined our tests and we cooked a meal on our stoves.

Day 5

Day 4, Friday night
On Friday night my problem was not that I had so much material to cover, but that so little of it was in Spanish. Even organizations that work in Latin America often have their websites and materials only in English. Sources of information on sand filtration systems in Mexico have really interesting products and methods but in English only, similarly solar UV radiation sterilization demonstrations; ceramic filters; and more fuel efficient “rocket stoves”. Before I left Oregon I paid to have some of Dr Metcalfs materials translated and copied in Spanish. I thought those were slides and photos and technical information directly related to the subject, including a photo of Dr Metcalf. These other sources are very interesting and helpful, but in English and less useful. Some in the audience speak or read English, but almost none do in the ultimate target audience, the local community.
The best I could come up with was writing out a brief Spanish summary of the different websites with their web addresses. Most in the community don't have water or sanitation, let alone computer access!, so that was mostly for the benefit of the NGO's. I just hope some of it filters down or up depending on your perspective. Luckily everyone stays up late there in Oaxaca, so I was able to find a late night copy center and make a bunch of copies of the summary.
I tried to sort through my stuff to find more visual things and leave out stuff that is mostly written. I thought I could make a display of photos of various water purification techniques, that way we could look at the pictures and talk about them. I also had the “wapi” wax water temperature indicators to distribute – the local people call them “little thermometers”. I had purchased a bunch and Dr. Metcalf gave me some more, so it was the one thing I had about enough of for all the participants. It would give everyone something to hold and play with, Susan called them “manipulatives” in her first grade classes.
My general plan for Saturday was to have Maria Elena talk for a half hour or so, then get into looking at the results of everyones water testing. Supposedly they had been incubating their samples over night and we could see which ones were positive. Then, after a break we could get into the other purification techniques for a while. Maria Elena was going to set up her cooking first thing, and so then at the end we could see how they turned out and take some taste tests. I thought that should be enough for one workshop, so I got to bed about 3 and got up at 6:30.

Saturday Morning

They don't leave the hot water on at night, so you get a really bracing good morning shower. It's warm in Oaxaca in the evenings so I don't know how the water gets so cold! I thought I should try and look professional and organized even though I didn't feel that way, and I wore my red Medical Teams International t-shirt because it looks good in photos. There is a nice little breakfast place down the street from the hotel where you can get eggs and beans and tortillas, so I got in a quick meal before Bonifacio picked us up at 8. Maria Elena was all set with her cooking supplies and lecture charts and was making me feel sort of disorganized and desperate.
Bonifacio said he had a deal for me, he would pay for the fruit for the break if I would pay for the shade tarp and all the rental chairs he rented. Since the fruit cost about 5 dollars and the tarp and chairs about $50, it would seem like he was getting the slightly better deal. I'm sure I couldn't have put on the conference without him organizing behind the scenes. Everything was very simple and local but totally appropriate. I think he is really effective at his job.
When we got out to the community center there were some people there early waiting for us to open, as distinct from yesterday when I didn't know if anyone was going to show up. I suppose most of the people were really there to have their water sample testing interpreted and to take home their solar stoves, but I'll take any audience I can get. I got them to help set up the chairs and sweep around the patio a little. Maria Elena started preparing her cooking dishes while I set out the solar stoves we had made the day before. I took a picture of all the stoves set up in the sun, I think we set a world record for the number of solar stoves constructed at one time. I think there were probably 20 or so by the time we were done, all taken home to be used by individual families. Maria Elena chose 4 stoves and put 4 different pots of food in them at about 10 oclock. There was a pot of rice, one of black beans that had been soaked overnight, one of a dozen eggs to be hard cooked and one of fresh broccoli to be steamed. I had suggested arroz con pollo, but she is sort of a vegetarian and wanted to just stick to healthy natural dishes.
It was a slightly smaller crowd than the day before, but there were a few new people from the who community who had heard from their neighbors. A few of the NGO's had said that they couldn't come on Saturday due to commitments, but many others stuck it out for the second day. It was a very pleasant day and a nice setting. The center itself is just three small dark rooms, but they have a nice patio, and with the sunshade it is a very adequate place, and well used and supported by the local community.
I started off with a few short announcements then introduced Maria Elena. She is a small, shy woman, but when she stood up to talk she totally took over the program. Her speaking was simple and self confident and she seemed totally relaxed and in control – way different from me! She seems to naturally start a dialogue with her audience and direct the discussion in the way she wants to go. Her audience, local community people as well as professional organization leaders all lean forward to listen to her. I didn't realize it but she had her complete outline on flip charts and very naturally worked her way through them.
Maria Elena's program took about an hour and a half. It was a combination of healthy eating and lifestyles, diet and exercise and recipe tips. The group was completely fascinated, and it became an interactive discussion and sharing session. One thing I found interesting was that the questions and responses were similar from the local community members and the foreign NGO's.
It was noon by then so we took a break for lunch and at the same time I started helping the group examine their tests to see if they were positive. I forgot to remind them on Friday to bring their fluorescent lamps so that we could examine the specimens correctly, so we only had one or two lamps and we crowded into one of the darkened room. Some people only had one or two samples, but one women, a community leader and activist named Ana from a neighboring community had six different samples, all most all of them positive. She had collected them from the families in her neighborhood.
I needed more help and so I asked Cecelia Barry to make a chart of the tests and which were positive, in all, about half. Some were tests of bottled water so discounting them there was a very high number of positives from the surrounding communities. They don't have wells, so this is contaminated water that they had to buy.
There were also a fair number of poorly set up or invalid samples which were my fault.. I had everyone practice pipetting first, and I did demonstrations of everything, but it does take a little practice and I should have had more trained helpers to help the participants do it correctly. Maybe next time I should have an advance session for some people who could then help everyone else. I feel bad about the wasted samples. Also, some that appear negative may have not been set up or incubated correctly, and the testers might be getting a false negative result and drinking contaminated water. I suggested that they should test the negative samples a couple of times to make sure the results are correct.
By this time everyone was up and moving around so I pretty much gave up on any more lectures, especially following Maria Elena. I set up a display table with what materials I had and talked about them with the people as they stood around. I thought it was sort of lame, but people were interested and my sheet with the info of websites was well received. Actually some of the participants had tried one or more of the different methods, some more than me. I think its partly because they all do their own thing and don't interact enough with other organizations that they seemed a little scattered. I said I was going to set up a network of the participants where we would share ideas and results. I asked that they send me their water testing results and we will keep track of them and try and learn what works and what doesn't.
We also got started talking about how we would get more testing supplies when these ran out. I gave out enough free supplies for 250 tests and most people seemed ready to go right out and use them up. Maybe the enthusiasm will wear down, and maybe some will have problems with the $65 the kits normally cost, but I hope there will be continued demand of some kind.
Another issue is the “Wapi” temperature indicators. Every family needs their own to test their own water. Now they cost several dollars each and are hand made. I asked someone here in Portland who is an advisor to a student group of Engineers without Borders if his college students could design a better, cheaper one that could be mass produced.
One idea is to utilize the distribution methods of the various NGO's. Now they ship medicines and humanitarian relief supplies, and it wouldn't be a stretch to shop water testing materials. This could potentially be another benefit of more networking among the agencies.
At that point Maria Elena stole the show again by taking her pots from the stoves and opening them up. The rice was fluffy and delicious, the eggs were perfectly cooked and the broccoli was beautiful. Everyone was standing around the pots sampling and suggesting other recipe ideas. I even ate some broccoli which is unusual for me. I thought the beans were fine but most people thought they needed longer, perhaps another hour or so, so what do I know!
The program broke up mostly at that point and people started collecting their solar cookers. They seemed proud of their stoves and eager to try them which was fun. I gave them websites and ideas for other fancier stoves they could make as well.
Bonifacio then said he had an announcement to make. Apparently the participants took up a collection for me! They that have so little and work so hard for it were donating money to me. I choked up and almost lost it right there, I was overwhelmed. I think I'll use the money to get more Wapi “little thermometers”, but the real solution for them will be when the Wapi's are cheap enough that everyone can buy their own. I also got a very sincere and touching letter from Ana the community leader. She seems extremely dedicated and hard working and I think will be a great asset to her community and hopefully we could work with her in the future.
We started cleaning up, because the community center had several classes scheduled for later in the day. Bonifacio seems to really be good at getting a lot of use out of the community center, and perhaps it might be time to think about enlarging it so that it could be even more useful. My papers were scattered like a whirlwind had been through, but that was good because a lot of people had looked at them. I gained and lost supplies, as people left things behind. I now have enough testing materials to do a few demonstrations as needed, but will soon have to get more from Dr. Metcalf.
I was really looking forward to having Sunday off to rest, when Cecelia Barry announced that she was anxious to get started working on her school construction project and so had decided to begin tomorrow, Sunday at 8:00! We have a mountain of rock and gravel to carry up a hill to the school site and need to get started. Maybe I'll get some rest when I get back to Portland!

This is about it for my blog about the water testing workshop. I'll write a summary and follow up and try to post some pictures. I'll also try to keep it going for general discussions about water testing and clean water programs world wide and invite others to contribute as well.
Thanks for reading,
Tom Carter

Day 4

Continuation of Blog days 4 and 5 October 23 and 24
Bonifacio picked us up at 8:30 to go out to the site of the workshop. Maria Elena was with us and we stopped to buy some fruit to give out for a break . With a nutritionist with us we really couldn't give out Coca Cola and sweet breads like they often do. We picked up Cecelia Barry from the house where she was staying with friends of hers and arrived at the site at about 9:15. There was not a soul there! I thought it was going to be a disaster. Some guys showed up with a bunch of chairs and a bit tarp for a sun shade that Bonifacio rented and they started setting it all up in the patio of the community center. I was semi – freaked that no one was coming but I started racing around fluffing up my papers anyway. As I looked at about 9:50 cars started arriving and people started walking up to the center, and in about 10 minutes it went from nobody to about 40 people. I couldn't believe that there were people standing in the back behind all the full chairs! It was a great mix of community members and various NGO people from at least 10 different organizations.
My outline was to start with the statistics about child mortality due to to drinking contaminated water, in some parts of the world up to 40% of hospital admissions for children are due to diarrhea and dehydration, and in Mexico 5% of children under 5 die of it. Then after that I started in on the causes of the deaths, mostly contaminated water. I asked the community members who filled up the front row to help me with my Spanish pronunciation, so it was like a Greek Chorus with me saying a word and them repeating in back in unison correctly!
After I talked about how we could test the water, I set up stations where they could practice pipetting. I added a little Coca Cola to some water so they could see what they were pipetting and had everyone practice being able to dispense exactly one ml of water. It's a little awkward at first, but eventually most of them got it. Then we passed out the testing kits. Dr Metcalf calls them Portable Microbiology Laboratories, and they cost me $65 each plus shipping. I only had 10 so I asked people to share and they did. I also asked Bonifacio to help decide who should get them so that they wouldn't be wasted.
The problem was that everyone was so excited to start testing that they weren't listening to closely and then had to asked repeated questions of me. In the future for sure I will need trained assistants to help, because I had to race around and help people. Some did better than others but everyone was enthusiastic. They all had brought samples of water to be tested so that was great, we had a lot of different things to try.
The punch line always is when I tell them how they have to incubate the samples for 24 hours and ask how they think they can do that. Then I pull my pouch out from inside my shirt and they all laugh. I show how they can tuck the samples inside their pants or down their shirt. I tell them to pretend they are incubating an egg like a chicken ,which they think is hilarious. Then we took a nice break where we served fruit and water.
After the break we got started on how we could make contaminated water potable. I had set up my solar stove with a pot of water in the morning, and by break time the water was really hot. I showed my wax temperature gauge – everyone called it a little thermometer, which was close enough. Then we started in making more stoves. I say started, but it really was a wild scene. Everyone racing around with pieces of cardboard and knives, cutting stuff up. I told them to be careful, I fainted at the sight of blood, which again they thought was funny. Maybe if my Spanish was better I could be a comedian. The sight of everyone down on the floor, cutting and taping things together was exactly like a third grade crafts project. After they made their stoves they covered them with aluminum foil and as much school glue got on them as on the stoves but it was definitely a great hands on project.
We set the stoves out in the sun to dry started cleaning up, there were several garbage bags full of cardboard scraps that some of the ladies took home for stove fuel.
Then I did one of several things I am proud of, I had everyone fill out an address list, with phones, addresses and emails. It was amazing that many of these NGO organizations didn't know about each other before and spent a lot of time at the workshop talking. I hope I started them networking a little at least.
I was so mentally exausted at that point that I could barely think, but everyone said that they had an interesting day and would be coming back tomorrow. I think it was partly to see how their water samples turned out and partly to collect their stoves, but I was happy to hear that they would be returning.
On the way back to town, Maria Elena and I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some rice and beans and vegetables for her to cook in the solar stoves. She also got a dozen eggs to hard boil, and some onions and other spices to demonstrate that families could make good tasting meals on their stoves. After we got back to the hotel I went straight to my room to take a nap. Unfortunately I was so wired that I couldn't sleep and so I got back up and started fussing about Saturday's program.

days 3 and 4

Blog days 3,4 and 5
I think I'd better write about the last few days while I can still remember. They have been some of the hardest, most stressful and yet most satisfying days I've ever had. I've barely slept since Wednesday and feel wrung out, but I've had tremendous rewards and am extremely elated that my workshop was a success.
On Wednesday afternoon we finished my tour of Lomas de San Isidro early, after only a few hours. I think Oscar and Stephanie went way out of their way to accommodate me, but were worried that I would miss my bus or my lunch and sent me to the TAPO bus station plenty early. I still had the snacks that Susan had made for me from the previous day and my water bottle, so I managed to catch an earlier Oaxaca bus. I also was able to change Susan's bus ticket to Oaxaca for a ticket for me to go to Juchitan and on to Tuxtla next week, so we didn't lose the money we spent.
The trip was fast and interesting. The day was clear and once out of the smog around Mexico City I could see the mountains, including Popo. It's a good highway but the route goes through a very rugged mountain range and must have been difficult to build. I enjoy just riding on the buses in Mexico and looking at the scenery, it's so different from our Oregon. ADO buses are really nice and the driver put the pedal to the metal so we arrived about a half hour early. By the time I got to the Hotel Principal and checked in, it was dark though and I was a little disoriented about my location. For some reason its easy for me get turned around in downtown Oaxaca and I was afraid if I walked too far at night I'd get lost, so I constantly checked my bearings and tried to stay within sight of the hotel, but. I had a nice dinner of a seafood paella in a corner restaurant.
My Oaxaca cell phone that I was counting on refused to work however. I was sure that I could get it charged up and add minutes to it and use it, but nothing seemed to work and no one had an idea about what was wrong. I wasted a couple of hours trying to get it to go, before giving up and going to bed abut 11:30. I really needed to contact my local coordinators, but without the phone for information I was stranded.
Oaxacans love to party and love to honk their horns when they are partying, or when there is the slighted traffic slow down. They also shoot off loud fireworks for all occasions, including birthdays and holidays, at all hours of the day and night. It really lifts you out of bed to have a loud explosion right outside your bedroom window at 3 am! At any rate I was starting to fuss about my workshop and not sleeping very well anyway.

The next day, Thursday, I didn't know what to do until someone contacted me. I sent some emails telling them where I was and waited to hear back. I was afraid to leave the hotel for fear of missing them, but it did give me a time to work on my presentation and get a little better organized. I was worried that I had a lot of small and large things to purchase for the workshop before Friday and I didn't know what would happen if no-one contacted me.
About 1 o'clock Bonifacio Fernandez, the local coordinator showed up and so we set off to buy stuff for Friday. I bought pans to cook food in in the solar stoves and black spray paint to paint them with, box cutters to cut the cardboard to make the stoves, and a lot of other items large and small, cheap and expensive. I also got my Oaxaca cell phone fixed, which has helped a lot in keeping things organized. I don't fuss or worry so much when I know what's happening. Cecelia Barry, the leader of our trip and her husband were tangled up with the family they were staying with and couldn't meet me till Friday morning so I was pretty much on my own at that point.
The Mexican lady who met me at the airport, Maria Elena Martinez, is a real authority on nutritious cooking, plus has street cred because she grew up in the slums herself and knows how things are. She agreed to come to Oaxaca and make a presentation on using the solar stoves for healthy cooking, which was really welcome for me. She was going to come on Thursday evening and participate on Friday and Saturday. The problem was that my phone wasn't working and she didn't have email so weren't communicating. I was told that she would be arriving at 6 pm at the bus terminal, so I waited there from 6 till 8:30 during which time several buses from Mexico City arrived. I didn't know what had happened, whether she wasn't coming, or missed the bus or what. I went back to my hotel and started making long distance calls back to Mexico City to try and find someone who knew what was happening. After several calls back and forth to people I found out that she had taken a different bus line and arrived late at a different bus station. Then she took a taxi that didn't know where the hotel was and just dropped her off somewhere! I got her cell phone number and when I called her, she was wandering around the streets asking people if they knew where the Hotel Principal was. By this time at10:30 at night I was frantic with worry, but she didn't seem too concerned. I guess Mexican people are used to crazy hassles. After we finally found her and got her checked in, neither of us had eaten all day so we finally found a late night restaurant for a meal. I finally got back to my room at 11:30 on the night before my big presentation, and by this time I was so emotionally exhausted that I could hardly think.
I couldn't sleep though, either, thinking about my workshop the next day. I had counted on this last evening to get ready and now I was sinking fast. I got back around 1 and started sorting my stuff and writing out my program. I was really worried because I didn't know who was coming. Every time I spoke with Bonifacio he gave me a higher number. I was counting on 10 or 15 people, mostly professionals with NGO's and he was saying 30 – 40 people, mostly community members. At that point I threw out my original technical lesson plans and rewrote them to focus on the individual and what he or she could do for their own water. This was a better lesson anyway, plus I didn't have to explain all these technical terms in Spanish! I worked the rest of the night and by 8 in the morning I had new lesson plans and materials. They seemed way less professional or organized than the original lessons that I had someone painstakingly translate for me. But it was what I had, and as I walked out the door of the hotel, I had the distinct feeling of being a condemned prisoner walking to the gallows.
Continued tomorrow

Day 2

Day 2, Wednesday October 21st.
I figured out that the family I stayed with had given up their only double bed for me, and that they were sleeping on their couches. I felt a little guilty about that, especially since I think that they were counting on Susan coming as well. They charged me $10 for dinner, breakfast and staying there, rather than the $20 they had said originally, even though I offered the whole $20.
At 9 I met with Oscar Garcia Reyes, the local head of Amextra and Stephanie Sieveke, a young US volunteer at their office. We rode a few miles to Lomas de San Isidro, a community on the outskirts of Chalco. It's a squatter community that grew up in an abandoned gravel pit. The government won't give them title to the land because it is unstable and has landslides when it rains. It looks a lot like the area around the dump at Tultitlan, with rough unpaved roads, no electricity or water and no sanitation.
Amextra has a office there too, with classrooms. I think they focus more on adult education than on children, because I only saw or heard about literacy classes and health and nutrition classes. There was a class of women there when we arrived.
One really neat thing I saw was a very complete, very expensive water filtration system that they had there at the office. It is only a few months old,. The water from the local water trucks is contaminated and is the only water available to the community, so Amextra buys the water, stores it in a huge tank and then filters it and sells it very cheaply to the people. People bring water jugs to the filter system and Amextra washes the jugs and fills them. Apparently some other agency is going to donate a bunch of water jugs for the people who can't afford to purchase them.
My only concern about their very cool system is that it is sophisticated and complicated and needs good maintenance. It is similar to systems we had in the laboratory in the hospital, with a series of filters and UV treatment of the water. I guess they bought it from some company in Mexico, who installed it and taught them how to use it. I remember that we often had trouble with a similar system in the hospital. Oscar said that they are sending out weekly water samples for testing to make sure the system is functioning correctly.
I said that the water testing procedures I am teaching would work well for them to help maintain their system, and they were very interested. I took a water sample of the water from their “before” tank for testing.
We walked up into the community to see some of their other projects. A number of the houses have started collecting rain water for use in gardening and clothes washing. I suggested that they could use it for bathing also, but they said the water is irritating to the skin because of all the polutants and smog in the air. Then we talked a little about simple sand filtration systems they could use to clean the water better, even if they didn't drink it. I have some literature that would help, but I need it for my class, so I said I would email them materials later. I think I see my friend from Tultitlan Gaudencio's hand in this as he is a big advocate of sand filters. He is apparently very successful in working with the various communities that Amextra serves because he can speak honestly about how things should be done.
We also looked at some poultry and rabbit growing programs that Amextra has in the community. They are similar to ones I saw last year in the mountains of Oaxaca. In Oaxaca the communities worked together to breed and grow the animals for sale, so that when a family had extra roosters and hens they passed them on to another family so that they could start their own flock. Here I think the animals are donated. They are beginning to use the fertilizer from the animals to grow gardens. Perhaps now they could use some help with the proper methods of cultivation and which crops are good to grow and sell. Since they are close to town they have an advantage over other crop and animal growers who live further away.

Hi all from Mexico

October 20, First day. Hi, this is my attempt at a running blog while I'm here in Mexico. Susan did such a good job with one while we were in Norway that I thought I should try. I'll do my best to keep up.

As you probably know Susan didn't come with me today, she got a phone call yesterday morning from our doctor saying that the Holter heart monitor she wore a couple of weeks ago showed significant arrhythmias and that she needed to see a cardiologist. The timing couldn't have been worse, we were all packed and ready. Susan hasn't really felt any serious problems and we have been doing lots of walking up and down Powell Butte and other places without effect. If the doctor had waited one more day he would have missed us and we would have been happily on our trip.

As it was, the doctor wanted to put her on a beta-blocker heart medication and Susan felt really uncomfortable starting on it while out of the country. So, the choice was to ignore the doctor, not start the beta-blocker until we got back in a month, or not go on the trip and start on the drug and see the cardiologist next week. Anyway, we decided that it was stupid to take a risk, so we hurriedly canceled her reservations for her flights. We have insurance but our hope is that after seeing the doctor she will be checked out to come down next week and join me for the rest of our trip.

I felt that I needed to come at least this week because of all the preparations I made for my workshop. I have about a thousand dollars worth of supplies and equipment, plus between 10 and 15 people committed to coming. At worst, if Susan doesn't get clearance to come and is feeling ill, I can cancel and come home early.

Anyway, I left Portland this morning loaded with two huge suitcases, about one and a half of which are supplies for my workshop. One was entirely my testing materials and also books I'm carrying for Cecelia Barry. I'm not sure how much I'll need for the workshop, so maybe I'll be able to send the one suitcase home with the extra stuff with Cecelia or her husband Martin. After I get rid of all that stuff, I'll just have a few things to carry with me the rest of the trip.

I arrived in Mexico City from Houston. It's not a bad flight, 4 hours to Houston and 2 more to Mexico City. I arrived at the new terminal for the first time, which is pretty nice. No major problems with Customs, though they really wanted to know what the testing stuff was. Luckily I had my cover letter from Brenda Porter saying that they were humanitarian supplies.

I was met by a nice lady from Amextra, the Mexican NGO agency that took over our previous project at Tultitlan in Mexico City. They have projects ongoing in various parts of the country. She took me to stay with a family in one of the projects where they are working, near Chalca which is South East of the city, sort of on the way to Puebla and Oaxaca. We talked for a while. She has been working with Amextra and living in one of the communities for a number of years. Her work has been nutrition education for families. She is a strong advocate for healthy diets and has suggested that people add soy protein to tortillas and posoles to increase the nutritional value. Without some other protein, corn is not very nutritious. She also wants more beans in the diet for the same reason, and less fatty foods.

I suggested that perhaps she might want to come to my workshop in Oaxaca and give a cooking demonstration on the solar stoves, and she wasn't totally opposed. I don't know if she can get away, or how much it would cost for her to come, or whether it would be socially correct for her to travel like that, but it would be interesting. Susan was going to help me, but with her gone I'm sort of in a bad way for help. Cecelia Barry said she would help, but it would be really cool to have a real Mexican cook in charge. The Amextra lady also said that she knows Gaudencio and Ruthie, and that Gaudencio now is an advocate for solar stoves as well!

The family I am staying with lives upstairs over a tiny tienda they manage. They have two children and I'm not sure what else the husband does. They seem nice and friendly and have had other volunteers from Amextra stay with them. I had a nice dinner with a flat steak, fresh avocados, cucumbers and limes! My favorite Mexican food! Also a nice pasta soup and fresh salsa and hot tortillas.

After dinner we went for a walk around the neighborhood. It seems a little poor, but not too bad. They have electricity and water and paved streets. There is an Amextra office down the street. I guess tomorrow morning we will be going to another nearby community nearby that is a lot worse off.

I'm sleeping tonight under a mosquito net, they say they are bad. I haven't seen any yet, and I have bug lotion, but probably won't use it tonight.

That's all for tonight, its 10:15 and I have to get up early tomorrow.