C-5Ms over El Puerto

For the past two weeks giant C-5 military transport planes have been flying overhead and landing at the Rota Naval Station a few miles down the coast. They must be part of the military effort to "destroy" ISIS. The Rota base is a convenient trans-shipment location on the way to Iraq. We lived here from August 2002 to June 2003 and during the build-up to the US invasion of Iraq these planes were a common sight. Now, it appears there are 3 or 4 flights a day. I'd like to know what's in those planes. The cargo bay is almost 150 feet long, 13 feet high and 19 feet wide! That's a lot of missiles!

Recent developments have cemented the lunacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It appears that the ISIS leaders include a large contingent of Sadam Hussein's military people!! After 10 years of "nation building" the country has collapsed and the civil war continues. The Rand Corporation estimates that 20% of a country's population must die before a civil war exhausts the survivors will to fight. Iraq has a population of 25 million. That means we have a long way to go before this is over!

We ginned up reasons to push Saddam off his wall in 2003 and all the king's men and all the king's horses never could put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Sadly, a majority of Americans still believe he had something to do with 9/11 and he had weapons of mass destruction. Proof that if a message is repeated enough by corporate/government/media sources it begins to take on the aura of truth, even in this day and age.

Info about the C-5 airplane from the US Air Force:

http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104492/c-5-abc-galaxy-c-5m-super-galaxy.aspx

The latest modifications to these 1970 vintage planes allow them to fly 4,800 miles with a cargo of 125,000 pounds....all the way from the US East Coast to the Middle East, without refueling.

The wall is done

I left Algodres two days ago, but it is already taking on the trappings of a ephemeral experience, albeit one that produced a long-lasting result. We finished the wall a day early and spent the last afternoon planting trees and shrubs in the surrounding area. The area had to be fenced off to prevent the horses and cattle from munching on the trees. 

Antoine, Manu, Anaise, François, Abel, me, Zé, Anna, Augustinho, Charles, Nuno. Look how tall the wall is! Abel and Ze sported Faia Brava shirts with this embroidery. The preserve is home to Bonelli eagles and Egyptian vultures.

I lived, worked, ate and partied with a crew of 11 people for two weeks. A lot of hard work, intense heat and good times. Now, poof, it's over. I guess the best compliment I received was from Emmanuel who told me I was "boule d'énergie", a ball of fire. We all danced and drank until 3:30 am the last night at the village party....none of the local girls would dance with the French boys....too much gossip afterwards, I suppose. The crew danced together anyway and the village men made fun of us. Antoine got up on stage and danced with the women in the Pimba band.

The Faia Brava project is ambitious...trying to help preserve the steep valley of the Coa River and return some of the historic biodiversity to the area. The preserve is adjacent to the Coa Valley archaeological preserve, one of the premier Paleolithic Rock art sites in the world. We visited one of the sites at night with an archaeologist....20,000 years ago people in this valley created the oldest known animated drawings of wild horses, sheep and cattle (aurochs). Many of the drawings show the animals with two or three heads, tracing the motion as they cautiously looked around for predators. I asked about lions and yes, there were lions, and a 20,000 year old rock drawing at a nearby Paleolithic site in Spain to prove it. 

So, we built a stone wall at the entrance to a preserve containing Paleolithic Rock art. Everybody found this satisfying. Nuno wants me to come back to work next year. I achieved part of the dream I had working with stone picks and shaping stone, a task straight out of the Iron Age. The other part of this strange fantasy, driving burros, has not been achieved yet. As if it was pre-destined, Nuno told me that if I wanted to drive a burro he has the perfect opportunity for me. There is an organization called Associação para o Estudio e Protecção do Gado Asinino in the nearby Tras-o-Montes (behind the mountains) region of Northeast Portugal dedicated to the preservation of the Burro de Miranda which originated there. The organization can arrange for me and Gina to take a burro out for a 3 or 4 day village-to-village trek. The burro carries our things, water, food, etc. and we follow old shepherding trails and stay with local people along the way. I haven't told Gina about it yet! How could she possibly say no? 

Strength in numbers

It is amazing to see what 10-15 people can accomplish...especially with a five twenty something boys and a few people who know what they are doing. Our project should be done by Saturday, in time to enjoy the Festa Em Honra da Gloriosa Virgem Martir Santa Eufemia...the very local party honoring the virgen martyr Saint Euphemia which promises to be a drunken dance party with the crew.

Stonewalling

Last night we went to a dance party in the village next to Algodres. The band consisted of a beat machine, a keyboard player and three singers playing Pimba music. I'm not sure how to classify this music...somewhere between polka and .....

This is Luis and Nuno, the bosses on the job. Nuno (on the right) has a lot of experience building dry stone walls. He founded the non-profit group Palombar 13 years ago. They specialize in rebuilding traditional pigeon houses, ovens and other buildings.

I told Augustinho that I liked fresh figs and he showed up with a few last night...

A wall of stone

I'm having a blast here. There are 8 volunteers on the job and 5 or 6 Portuguese. Most are young but Antoniho looks like he must be 65-70. It's fun hanging out and working with the group. There are 5 French architecture students on the job.

I have been too busy and fried to write! Plus, there is no internet in the building we are staying. The wall is progressing well. The first day on the job was the hottest...102 degrees! Two nights ago we had a pizza party at a house in town with an ancient stone oven. The couple that owned the place make wine and I think I might have had too much wine and pizza. I got up in the middle of the night with bad heartburn and fell down on a short flight of stone stairs in the dark...I thought I might have broken my big toe but today it feels better. 

Yesterday I spent most the day picking a holes through big pieces of granite. There will be two holes on either side of the entrance, holding up a metal gate. The first one went well but after three hours of work on the second one, the stone cracked and Nuno said I had to do another one. I started in on it this morning. Nuno chose one that it is more fine grained than the one that cracked....but it's much harder and the hole was only halfway done at the end of the day today.

Here's a group photo taken while we were hiking through the preserve.

I have to go now, we are off to visit the archaeological museum. I'll try to post again soon.

The cafe life

This picture was taken at midnight last night in La Plaza Mayor of Salamanca, a city of 150,000 people. Granted the Spanish take their vacations in August so there are a lot of visitors here. But, there were thousands of people in this square. The Spanish just love the cafe life! It is a fact that there are more cafés per capita here than any other country in Europe.

There is an enormous pedestrian-only zone surrounding the old university...very beautiful sandstone construction mostly dating from the 16th to 18th century.

I bought a SIM card for my IPad and have used it to Skype Gina on her cell phone..by far the cheapest way to call from anywhere. Unfortunately the phone store didn't have the nano SIM I need for my cell phone. I'm going to a different store tomorrow morning before I head across the border. The small village I'll be living in won't have a phone store with nano SIM chips...I'm hoping it has a cafe!

The Road to Algodres

I am feeling a little like Don Quijote, a man with an imbalanced view of the world and his place in it. A man of imagined adventure. I have signed up as a volunteer to help construct a stone entranceway to the Faia Brava nature preserve in northeast Portugal. I will be working there for two weeks with a group of 10-15 people, both Portuguese stone masons and international volunteers. We will be starting around dawn each day and quitting at 1 pm when the temperature is expected to be in the high 80s. There are four main tasks outlined in the write-up: collecting the stone from the surrounding hillsides, shaping the stones with hand picks, building the foundation and placing the rocks on the entrance wall. I am imagining myself as a burro driver, delivering the stones from the surrounding hills. I also foresee spending a lot of time picking at the granite rocks to shape them. I am trying to avoid the vision where I am lifting heavy rocks all day in the blazing sun but I guess there might be a lot of that too. I really would rather not think about my back at all.

I flew into Madrid today, rented a Peugeot Kangoo (two bikes should roll in without taking the front tires off) and drove west to Salamanca. This is a university town. The university here was established in the early 1200s and has been considered one of the most prestigious schools for centuries. Salamanca boasts a Plaza Mayor that rivals Madrid in size and grandeur, as you can see. The historic buildings are built in a beautiful tawny sandstone.

Of course I arrived in time for lunch. The Spanish love seafood and must have the highest per capita consumption of cephalapods in the world. They have perhaps a dozen different names for squid (mostly to distinguish the size, from less than an inch to 14 inch monsters) and eat cuttlefish and octopus regularly. I enjoyed a plate of chiperones a la plaincha for lunch and couldn't resist taking a picture of them. Life is good with a plate of grilled squid in front of you. These were so tender, perfectly grilled.

I have to start work on Monday. I'll let you know how the burros are behaving. 

Light at the end of the tunnel

I am feeling more upbeat, optimistic. Less than five months to go on the chemo pills. I agreed to take the Dasatinib pills for a year after the traditional chemotherapy was done in June. The pills make you tired and, according to the discussion of side-effects in the study write-up, give you a "feeling of general malaise". I was lucky to spend 10 weeks off the pills (due to low platelet levels) at the time Gina and I took our trip around the country. I haven't felt nearly as good since re-starting the Dasatinb in mid-October. Five months to go is sounding damn good at this point!

Plus, the survival curve is looking better and better for me. I've pasted it in below. Note the red line. It tracks the number of people who relapse over time, starting with the initial date of complete remission. My intial date of remission was December 5, 2012 so I've been in remission almost 14 months. I have survived the period where the red line drops quickly and I'm into the gradual part of the curve. My chance of making it to 18 months without a relapse has improved dramatically. After that, the chance of relapse is very low and at 2 years, the chance of relapse is remote. I'm not sure the word cured is used by the medical establishment for patients who make it to 2 years without a relapse, but I'll take it.

The combination of the decreasing amount of time left on the Dasatinib and the improving odds for survival have made me feel that I am putting this episode behind me. I am considering stopping the Dasatinib a few weeks early so that I will feel better at Emily's wedding on June 14th.