October 27, 2005
Almost over
Like something from the Woody Allen film "Everything you wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask" myself and Jacob (much recovered) were chosen under the tutelage of William to do a full scale, no holding back, dressing up exercise in full radiation gear. This included not very fashionable wellies, a glaring white "tyvek" suit ie a disposable paper suit, masks, gloves etc all taped shut.
Never seen William that excited before! This morning he was all "morning hon! morning darling!" I think I might have seen him even pat the camp's dog good morning. No he didn't get any the night before! Today we go to Bober for our final measurement and training trip before we return home tomorrow. The week prepared us very well to deal with the seriousness of Bober.
Our job was when properly suited up, to take some samples in the heavily contaminated village of Bober, bring them back to a specially prepared decontamination area, clean and prepare the samples for shipping then decontaminate ourselves.
The village was cut in half by a small road. Once in a while a truck transporting the huge chickens drives through. We were advised to work behind the houses and be out of sight to any traffic on the road. The reason was that people would get scared and think another accident occurred if anyone sees us.
Calling myself a girl couple of days ago haunted me this morning. Even though, I was using William's state of the art new shovel that would allegedly cut through steel, it was a struggle to dig my sample out. So the boys were all giving me dirty looks!! The most annoying thing, was Jacob digging his sample as if he was slicing bread!!! COMON!! HE WAS IN A DIFFERENT SPOT! I had trees and roots all over my area. And I am strong, REALLY!!
The others did some more field tests and continued to get acquainted with our high tech radiation detection and measuring equipment.
William continued to be in a good mood for the rest of the day, which, is kind of unusual. He even praised our work and said "not too bad".
Our afternoon was as hectic as a beehive. We had to pack all the equipment and get ready to go back home the next morning.
To be honest, I don't want to go back home. No, I don't want to live here either, but I am not sure how I will handle or deal with this experience. In less than 24hours, I will be back home, back to my "normal" life and try to process all this. Wonder if the images will haunt me!!