Last night I overheard some guests at the hotel talking about how land prices have jumped by huge amounts in a community called Juan Adrian. This because of a new highway under construction from the centre of the country to the west which is transforming Juan Adrian from sleepy mountain village into bustling, near-urban way-stop.

We all have heard about the world's shifting population, and how for the first time in history there are more people living in cities than in rural areas. For me this shift tends to be mostly invisible, and so it is a bit shocking to have such an in-your-face manifestation of global change. This also likely means more deforestation and erosion in a place that was otherwise stable. The area where the highway is going slices right through the very top of the Maimon watershed which feeds the Yuna river, which ultimately flows into Samana bay, a critical breeding area for humpback whales. Not that road building is going to immediately threaten whales, but everything is inter-connected, and protecting the source of the Maimon and Yuna river becomes more important and urgent than before. 

I think--not totally sure--but I think hotel staff are bringing me my breakfast this morning without me ordering. At least a coffee was delivered to my table without me asking for it. And I think I smell eggs frying. Two days in a row now I have ordered an egg and cheese sandwich, so I'm guessing that I'm getting an egg/cheese sandwich today too. Which is what I would have ordered anyway.

I want to say that this is the first time in a while when I have actually felt like blogging. I know that creative energy fluctuates up and down. Difficult to describe but I think everyone knows the feeling: when your energy is down, it is kind of like being a fly on a spider web--the more you try, the worse it gets. Or to put it another way, if you've seen the movie Limitless, the main character, Eddie Morra is trying to write a book, but mostly he is just sitting at his desk bouncing a tennis ball off the wall.

In any case we soldier on, right? I think it was Thomas Edison that said, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration".

Today was a good day. So was yesterday if you're asking but today was good also. We secured the water quality monitoring station so it definitely will not wash away in a big storm, and trained staff in how to retrieve the data. Which turns out to be almost too easy. We have invested in some dataloggers which record data automatically and will continue to do so for as long as the battery lasts, about 1 year. And the logger transmits data to your smartphone which means no wading into dangerous rivers, no connecting with complicated cables, very easy sharing of data between users.

I'm also noticing, that at least the two times I have done a water quality datalogger installation, it leads one to some of the most interesting and beautiful places. The upper Ozama river, which you see in the photo, is practically national park material in my opinion. In fact it would be a good step to protecting an important source of water for millions of people, but I don't believe that any such plan exists. If there is a long term plan, it is likely to turn this area over to mining interests. By the way, if you look in the middle of the picture, on the far side of the river, you will see a white post sticking up out of the water. That is our monitoring station--but accessible by phone from this side of the river. Cool huh?

But I digress. This good day is ending with me enjoying a plate of cassava and salt herring--a traditional dish both here and in Haiti. And best of all, when I asked the waitress for water, she didn't bring me bottled water! She brought me regular drinking water like regular non-touristy people drink. Small victory, I know. Still, good end to a good day.

I have no pictures of the 2 staff members and 2 farmers and myself wading around in the Ozama River installing the water quality monitoring station. Mostly because it was raining when we were doing that, and also because my phone may be dead--because of said rain and river. I'm trying to dry it in my room right now using a zip lock bag and packing peanuts which may or may not work as a dessicant. I bought this phone because it was supposedly water resistant. But I guess wading around in a river doesn't count.

Nor do I have photos of us getting a vegetable delivery truck unstuck from the mud in the one lane road that leads to the river. Also no pictures of my pants splattered in mud from the spinning tires of the truck as it slowly slithered its way up the hilly mountain road--more of a path than a road.

And no pictures of the super drunk guy at the next table at this restaurant where I am eating. Even if I had my phone I probably wouldn't take pictures of that. Best that you trust me when I say he is super drunk. 

The view from my room. I guess it should be safe here with the police right across the street. I've never really worried about safety here. Not that things don't happen but I've never felt like I was in an unsafe situation. Honestly right now I feel totally relaxed. Or the nearest analogy to total relaxation that I can achieve.

Well it's not 30 degrees but I've shed my jacket and toque for a tee shirt. It will do.

Here's a view from my dinner table. I am super hungry having got up at 4 to go to airport and had a small sandwich between flights.

I think terminal 3 has improved the check in procedure or something. I felt like I got through in record time. 15 minutes from the parking lot which probably means less than 10 from the time I entered the terminal. 

This morning is one of those times when the strategy of entering the terminal with only the clothes I will use at my destination wasn't the greatest. It was minus 25 outside and I sprinted from parking to the terminal. I guess I would also say this is one of the few times when I feel actually glad to be getting out of the cold. Going from minus 25 to plus 30. Hope it's not too much of a shock to the system. 

The noodle shop where I had breakfast --which by the way was a quarter of the price I paid for my espresso at the Ritz-Carlton.

I also decided to be surveyed by the tourism board at the airport. I've asked so many people to take surveys for my work, I figure it is only fair that I fill in someone else's database once in a while.

Hong Kong harbour as viewed from the restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton in Kowloon. Hong Kong is a special administrative region or something so I am totally counting it as a separate country for my "country-counting" purposes. This may be getting by on a technicality but I'must still counting it.

In the Kilimanjaro airport where I believe I can probably guess someone's original just by looking at their shoes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but all the Europeans and North Americans are wearing hiking boots and all the Africans are wearing dress shoes. There's a few exceptions of course but you'd be pretty safe betting on that one in this airport. 

I just had (at Tel Aviv airport) one of the most thorough security checks I've ever had. Actually I would say it was 3rd most thorough.  In all 3 cases I have felt like at some point the person questioning me switched their focus from assessing me as a risk to just trying to figure out exactly what I do. That seems to mystify some people for some reason. Also not everything I do makes sense so that doesn't help. In general security checks don't bother me--mostly I figure what they do may actually keep me and others safe.

Saturday night traffic in Tel Aviv

20 hour layover in Tel Aviv. It was originally supposed to be 14 hours but never mind,  it means I was able to spend a few hours admiring the Mediterranean. Also worth noting that website travel posts gave somewhat conflicting info on whether things were open on the Sabbath, which is when I happened to arrive. Turns out that things are open in certain areas like Old Jaffa, but not so much in the other parts of town I tried to visit. Trains and buses do not run until evening which means I had to rely on a cab to get me to the city. If I had arrived any other day I would have been fine. Still, it was good to get a bit of a walk in and soak up some pleasant 20 degree weather.

27 minutes 28 seconds from economy parking to gate--pearson airport

44 minutes airport door to gate, SDQ

 Day 6 from hotel window. And finally, a work-related picture. The second photo here is a mahogany which exhibits characteristics of 2 different species, the local, native mahogany (Swietenia mahogani) and an introduced species, Honduran mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla). In general mahogany is a highly valued species for timber, and used in furniture, crafts, etc. The problem for farmers is that mahogany is slow growing and they can't turn a profit fast enough. Honduran mahogany is now preferred for planting because it grows faster but the trade off is that, while the quality of the wood is good, it is not as good as the native species. The tree in the photo is likely a hybrid of the two species and may therefore have good qualities of both, that is faster growth, but also higher wood quality. Turns out that in the tree world, there is lots of hybridization, or mixing of species, and in fact the boundary between species is not nearly as clear as once thought. The tree you see in the photo is in a plantation where the two species are planted in alternate rows, and over time we are hoping to collect seed and better understand the hybridization (mixing) process. Maybe even develop a seed source that combines the best characteristics of both species. But that is much further down the road.

Day 5

Day 3 and day 4 from my hotel window.

The view from my hotel room day 1 and day 2. Mostly the other things I might take photos of this week are people sitting in meetings, people hunched over documents, people, looking at slide presentations, people hunched over a different set of documents. So this may not be the last pictures you see from my hotel window.

21 minutes 37 seconds to gate at Pearson. This includes getting from the commuter parking lot to main building.

This week, among other things, we are doing a survey of crop yields. Understanding how much farmers are producing is a common practice worldwide but trickier to do among subsistence farmers. Reasons for this are many and one of the key reasons is because the typical subsistence farmer is growing a mix of many different crops in small batches. So while any single crop might do well or poorly, this might not give us a fair picture of whole farm performance.

This week we will try some strategies to try to paint that bigger picture, which I can talk about more later.