New projec t, weekend travels etc

The week has come to an uneventful close. My work is moving ahead slowly, but at a pace that I think will see it finished before I leave. Since I'm working with community groups, there is a lot of back and forth. I do some stuff, then I wait for them to do some things, then I have some more to do. I try to hurry up with my end of it so that I'm not the one holding things up. Some things though I try to do inefficiently -- like going around to talk to people in person instead of email or phone. I like it that way, and I get to know more people and see more of life here. Also it's keeping me on my bike for about an hour a day, which is good. I am thinking about riding in the MS 150 just a couple weeks after I get home. When I get home I'll probably be pretty strong over short distances, but riding two 75 mile days might be a mistake.

I've entered into a side-project. They are working to improve the sanitation in some camps several hours north of here. Part of it involves building new latrines. It is in the mountains, and they build their villages on the tops of the ridges for defensive reasons. The cost is that the water source is guaranteed to be below the latrine/septic system. Given my interest in sewage and plumbing in general, I'm getting involved.

The environmental office at the clinic is run by a Burmese man who studied environmental engineering in the US and returned here two years ago. Since then he has been working to improve the MTC water systems that have been cobbled together over the last 17(?) years. There is some interesting stuff. Once the clinic expanded beyond their first holding tank, they built another one...five feet higher than the first. So, for the last few years they have been pumping sewage from the old to the new tank. A big project now is finishing a new tank, lower than the first, before the rain really gets started. It's about the size of a small 2-story house.

He is going to have a class on latrine construction here next week and I want to sit in on it. It will be in Burmese, but hopefully there will be pictures. I don't really have anything to contribute to the discussion, but I have a lot to learn about how they do things here. I never really know when I'll be busy and when I won't, but I should have time to attend. He's also given me some info from various NGOs on how to go about making septic systems in these situations.

I'm going to spend the weekend in Chiang Mai, which should be interesting. They say that Mae Sot isn't really a Thai city, that it's a Burmese city that happens to be in Thailand. Chiang Mai has more the Northern Thailand city, or at least the one all tourists go to. It should be fun, and a nice break. It kind of works out also since the first draft of the survey is ready for translation and the translator they normally use is in Chiang Mai. I will meet with her Sunday to talk through things. We will probably be back to Mae Sot on Monday afternoon.

I'm going to hopefully get some pictures of Mae Sot taken next week and post them here.