Mayor Grover Laseke!

The election is over and Grover won by 61% of the vote to be the next Mayor of Woodland. Go to the Grover for Mayor website for full details.

Thanks to all who supported us during the election.

Campaigning for Mayor

For the last five months Grover has been engaged in a campaign for Mayor of Woodland. So we have been pretty busy with forums, door belling, sending out mailers and meeting people. If you are interested in viewing how thing have been going with the campaign you can got to the websites listed below. We will post the results of the election the evening of November 8th.

Blog website: http://www.groverformayor.blogspot.com/

Facebook: Grover for Mayor

Visiting Old Friends

Wes & Jackie Parker

Wes & Stanton Parker and Eldine & Wendell Cole

Wes Parker & Wendell Cole On Sunday we took a drive up to Goldendale to visit one of Grover's former high school teachers. Back in 1969 & 1970 Grover attended Auburn Adventist Academy and his geometry instructor was Wesley Parker. Mr. Parker went to school at Bethel Academy (1935-1940) in Wisconsin and was a classmate of his mother Dorothy and knew his Grandpa Cole. He also was friends with Uncle Eldine and Uncle Wendell (Dorothy's brothers). Grover enjoyed his friendship with Mr Parker and spent time with his family. As a matter of fact he stayed with them at their house over a holiday weekend. Mr Parker is an amateur radio operator and on one visit he setup a radio-telephone patch that allowed Grover to talk with his mother in Chicago. It was the first time he talked on a two-way radio. Fast forward to 2011 and one day Grover thought about Mr Parker and did an FCC amateur radio license search for him. Turns out that the Parkers have lived in Goldendale for the last 19 years. They live very close to the Klickitat River which Grover went canoeing down a couple of times in 2009 with Steve Klump. So we went over for a visit and talked about old times and caught up on what we had been doing for the last 40 years. We called Uncle Eldine and Uncle Wendell on the telephone and they had a nice visit with Wes. We traded pictures and talked about how our families were doing. Found out that their son, Ken Parker, was the pastor of the Centralia SDA church in the 1990s when we lived in Lewis County. The Centralia SDA church was where Grover and his first wife, Kathy, married in 1971. I brought along some old Auburn Academy annuals that I had gotten from Grandpa Cole (he taught there in the 1950s). We looked at some of the old pictures and I found faculty pictures of Grandpa Cole right next to Kathy's dad, Archie Johnson, who ran the Auburn Academy upholstery shop for a couple years in the mid 1950s. Funny how our lives are so intertwined together. We enjoyed our visit and hope to do it again in the near future. Grover also hopes to be able to talk with Mr Parker on the amateur radio sometime soon.

Snow and Cold Weather

We have heard several forecasts this winter about snow and severe weather.  The weather prognosticators have been wrong up until today.  We got one inch of snow this morning and we are expecting temperatures in the teens tonight.  While that is nothing to my family and friends back east it is pretty dramatic for western Washington. We haven't had bad weather this winter but it hasn't been good either.  So we are hoping this weather will be the last of winter for the season.  We are looking forward to some spring soon followed by a warm (but not too hot) summer.

Leaving Oaxaca

Our plane was scheduled to leave the Oaxaca airport at 8:30 AM so we needed to be there by 6:30.  Abraham picked us up at the hotel at 6:00.  We drove the mostly deserted streets of the city to the airport in the dark much as we did when we arrived.  I was sorry to leave and wished we could have stayed longer and done more.  But we all had to get back to work and I hope to visit again. We flew out of Oaxaca to Houston where we had a layover of several hours.  We had lunch at a seafood restaurant and then sat at our gate watching the people.  A much different sight than we had observed while in Oaxaca.  Our flight to Portland was uneventful and we arrived there around 8:30 PM.  It was good to be home and sleeping in our own bed.  I will write an epilogue to the trip in a few days.

Friday - Last Day at Yagay

Friday morning started out with our usual breakfast at the Plaza. We asked Abraham to pick us up at 8:30 so we would get done a little earlier (that did not happen). Both teams set to work after moving a concrete latrine lid into place.

When we were done we met at the schoolhouse for lunch. The community women made the tacos from soy protein, rice and seasoning. The food was great and we had a good time visiting with Yagay community after our last day of work.

Before we left Abraham asked us to help set the concrete lid on the school latrine. This latrine is designed to be a double unit. While we didn't have to move it very far it required lifting an awkward object weighing about 600 kilos (1 kilo = 2.2 pounds) up a 2 ft step and onto the brick foundation. We did not know how much a kilo weighed until some time later.

Darwin and I didn't think it could be done. Every woman and man available tried to lift it but no luck. Spanish and English deliberations were conducted with a lot of pointing and sign language. We finally used 4x4 posts as rails and steel bars as levers to push it into place. It sounded and looked like a Chinese fire drill but with prayers from Goni turned out to be a well coordinated team accomplishment.

We headed back to Oaxaca to clean up and do some final shopping before dinner on the Plaza. Adam and his lovely wife, Dolce (sp?) joined us. It was a great evening to cap a week of hard work, service to the Yagay community and new friendships.

Thursday at Yagay

Our day started out with breakfast in the Plaza. We have gotten into a bit of a routine and usually go to the same restaurant each morning. We do this because they have an English menu and our waiter speaks pretty good English. He said he spent several years living in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Abraham was late due to traffic so we didn't leave Oaxaca until almost 9:30. The we ran into a traffic backup out on the main road. The Transito (traffic cop) said it was because of a procession by the people to bless the road. Apparently there have been several bad accidents along this stretch recently. At each bus stop along the road people had set up a small alter for the blessing. Taxi cabs and public safety vehicles participated in the procession.We took a detour around much of the procession. After a quick stop at the fruit stand to buy fruit for the community we finally got to the work site.

Plans changed and we went to the school to pass out the fruit and the school supplies we had brought from the US. The school is a two room building with an outdoor covered area. All with a dirt floor. Many barns in Woodland are nicer that the school. We met the teachers, Humberto and Olivia, who were appreciative of what we brought. The teachers are supplied by the government but the community must supply the building.

The community is building a double latrine at the school. The lid is ready for the brick foundation which is in the process of being built.


We learned there is a committee that is organized to govern the Yagay community. They help keep things running smoothly and help with education and health out reach efforts.
Adam from MTI worked with us for the day. Abraham, Adam, Goni and I all worked on one latrine while Darwin, Carol, Pam and Eric worked on the other. We had to move another concrete cover into place which is really hard work.

Our latrine was at he home of the storekeeper. The community has a little store that carries supplies and food. The latrine at the store is probably used by visitors and their old one was made from adobe bricks. It was the nicest one we had seen thus far.

We finally set to work (almost two hours late) and got our latrines built in short order. We headed for the little community restaurant and had a late lunch before heading back to Oaxaca.
After a shower we headed down to the Plaza for a snack and listened to music from an orchestra playing in the pavilion.

Tomorrow is our last day to work in the community. The community members plan to serve us lunch at the school to thank us for our work. Then on Saturday morning we start the trek towards home.

Wednesday

We had breakfast and met Abraham for our third day of work. We made a quick stop at the fruit stand to pickup bananas for the families. We built two more latrines. Each latrine is just a little different depending on the preparation by the family.

On one site we had to carry the pre-made concrete lid about 50 ft to the hole. It took 10 of us to move it. That much effort at 5,000 feet can really sap you for a while.

After work we had hamburgers and hot dogs at the restaurant made special for us. We also had a special drink made from ground oats.

Eric took us about 30 minutes south to Mitla to view another ruins site. This one was built about 1,500 years ago and later taken over by the Catholic friars who came to convert the indigenous people. They built a church on the site using materials from the original stone buildings.

The workmanship by the original builders is amazing. And their buildings have withstood many earthquakes with little damage. They really knew how to build stuff.

We headed back to the hotel and then to the plaza for dinner. There was a band playing and folks were all dressed up for dancing. The dances are all traditional and very elegant.

While we were eating we were contacted by several street vendors who successfully sold us some of their wares. They love to bargain and Goni and Darwin gave them a run for their pesos. We all had to bring back gifts for family and friends.

Tomorrow we will work with Adam at the site and learn a little more about other area projects. We will also go with Eric to visit the town he grew up in nearby.

Second Day on the Job

On Tuesday Carol, Darwin and I had breakfast on the Plaza (or town square) for breakfast. We met Adam who is the MTI contact for Oaxaca. He has lived here for several years having come to Oaxaca as a teenager to work as a missionary. He was born and raised in Portland and has worked for MTI for 4-5 years. Adam met and married a local girl. He gave us quite a bit of information on the local projects. He will be working with us in the field on Thursday.

After our breakfast we met up with Abraham and we headed out to Yagay to get to work. Goni felt well enough to go along but she was still not 100%.

On the way to Yagay we stopped at a roadside fruit stand and picked up a large bag of oranges for the neighborhood. We once again broke into two teams at locations right next door to each other.With a little bit of experience under our belt the work went a little easier. The families, and especially the kids, really enjoyed the oranges. They are a special treat they do not get often.

We stopped at the same local restaurant for lunch. We had meat ball soup and vegetables. This is a small family restaurant with home cooked food. The owner is a nice lady who has many relatives in the US.
We went back to the hotel for a shower and a little rest before going down to the plaza for dinner. The plaza was occupied by a group of protesters. We were not sure what the protest was all about but it was peaceful.

Eric told us that each town or city has a plaza where people congregate. The Oaxaca plaza has lots of indigenous people selling their homemade crafts. Many others come to just walk around. Tourists, locals, and beggars all co-exist here.

Our First Day at Work

Monday was our first day to work in the field. Goni was still sick so she stayed back at the hotel. Abraham is the local Medical Teams International field worker. He picked us up at our hotel and drove us out to Yagay (yey-guy). Along the way we picked up Eric who is our interpreter for the week.

Yagay is a neighborhood of indigenous people. I use the word neighborhood loosely because it is really just a shanty town. People live in small structures made from wood and tin metal. They keep chickens and live on almost nothing. Cooking is done outside over a fire pit. Americans live better when we are camping.

The residents have already each dug a pit about four foot square on their property. They then used large bricks mortared together to build a foundation. A concrete slab is poured on the ground with two holes in it. The slab is then allowed to harden and is then put on top of the brick foundation.
The slab is reinforced with wire mesh and has four pieces of rebar sticking out in each corner. The rebar is what the upper part of the structure is anchored to. We take wood and tin and build a hut on top of the slab.
Everybody in the family, and sometimes neighbors, participates in the project. Everything is cut by hand as there is no electricity. The kids hang around and watch the project take shape. Some even try their hand at hammering nails. The women cut the wood and tin while we build.

We completed two latrines on Monday before heading back to town. Goni was feeling a little better and went to dinner with us. Hopefully she will go out in the field with us Tuesday.
Keep an eye on our blog for daily updates. Will try to post pictures later in the week.

Oaxaca Day One

We arrived in Oaxaca late on Saturday night. It was a long day of traveling. Goni was coming down with a cold - flu so we went to the local pharmacy to get some medication to stop her cough. The pharmacy was on a corner and you had to order through a small window cut in the security gate. By morning Goni was worse so she spent the day in bed.

Grover went with the rest of the group to visit the Indian ruins at Monte Alban. The ruins date back to at least 100 BC. Took lots of pictures.Got back to town and spent some time down at the town square (aka Plaza). Lots of people there and some reasonably priced food. All kinds of peddlers trying to sell us stuff. We also visited a very large indoor market with individual shops selling everything from food to shoes to hats and hard liquor.

Goni was feeling good enough to go have dinner so we went and ate outside in the square. We then went back and got ready for our first day on the job.

Having to send this blog entry by Blackberry as no computers available. Will update blog again after the work on Monday.

Latrines in Oaxaca Mexico

We are on our way to Oaxaca Mexico to help build latrines as part of a Medical Teams International group.  We leave this morning and come back next Saturday.  We are thankful that we are not cleaning latrines but building new ones.  This is a big health issue in Oaxaca which is one of the poorest areas in Mexico.  Oaxaca is about 375 miles by car south of Mexico City and has an elevation of 5,000 feet. If we can get to a computer and the Internet we will make posts as the week progresses.  If not we will do one when we come back.

Santa Arrived Early!

This year we decided to give ourselves a gas fireplace for Christmas.  So we checked with Santa and he agreed.  He has been really busy and since we are old hands at Christmas he wondered if he could deliver our gift early.  We said yes and today he arrived and he even installed it. Our brick fireplace used to have a firewood burning insert which we got rid of several years ago.  So for the last 8-10 years we have had a piece of paneling covering the firebox to keep the heated air from going up the chimney.  It really didn't look that great but we didn't know what we wanted to do until we saw a set of gas fireplace logs installed in a neighbors house.  We decided that was the way to go. The gas logs are more for ambiance than for heating.  They do keep the living room toasty when we sit there reading on cold and wet winter nights.  We have only had one night with Santa's work but it is great!  Should have done it a long time ago. So if you happen to be in the area on Christmas Eve between 5:00 and 7:50 (just before church) stop by for soup, Goni's home baked dinner rolls and a sit by the fire for a while.

Christmas in Denver

Denver at Christmas time is wonderful. Grover is there for a national Incident Management Team conference with a couple of other county employees.

Weather has been great but cool at night. Our hotel is downtown and we have spent quite a bit of time walking around the area. This is a wonderful place to visit.

We have walked to the state capital and the Denver city-county building. The picture is of the city-county building all decked out in Christmas lights.

Sea Day to Seattle

Friday was the last full day on the ship as we headed south towards Seattle and then home.  We spent the day enjoying quiet time, walking the deck and going to a couple of shows. The first show was the "Oh What a Night" group that sang Frankie Valli songs last Sunday.  They did another great job and we enjoyed them a lot.  Friday night we saw Cirque Pacific which was a dancing and gymnastics program which was also great.  The crew then came in and occupied the stage to thank us for cruising with them. The sunset was also the first good one we had seen for a few days so we took some pictures of it.  The next morning we pulled into Seattle around 6:00 AM and Grover got some pretty good pictures of the skyline just before sunrise. We had a great cruise and enjoyed ourselves.  Several people we talked with has been on many cruises (one couple had been on 27).  We decided we are not necessarily cruise enthusiasts but we would probably go on another on if it had interesting ports of call. So we are out of vacation time and the vacation savings account is almost depleted.  We are headed back to work to build up some time and money so we can go do another vacation next summer.