KM Day 5

Every day the helicopter comes twice for shift changes. I am in the radio room so I get to hear the chatter between the pilot and the radio guy. The helicopter pilot has a French accent and you can almost see the sneer as he finds something to complain about every time he lands. We keep making fun of him by imitating his accent and saying ridiculous things like "Nex time we come back you will have for me ze escargot!" and I am afraid one time he will hear us.

I have been scanning Chinese language laptops from Singapore and Arabic keyboard laptops from Dubai. Everyone seems to have the same viruses, and the uniformity helps. We're actually lucky they don't have Internet in place already for the masses or we'd be in much worse shape as these little devils downloaded 100 of their closest friends. Even the iPods and SD cards are infected.

Sorry there are no pictures yet but the Internet has been slower than usual. I am getting about 5kb/sec transfer rates or less, and I am grateful even for that. I get to wear jeans in the living area of the Kobyashi Maru but if I want to explore and see the other side of this place I have to wear coveralls and protective gear. I got coveralls yesterday but they are new and smelled terrible. So I put the in the daily laundry drop. They came back today only slightly less smelly! I would go explore but I was up till 2:30 am yesterday cleaning computers of viruses (remember our day starts at 6:00 AM!). The Ghana game is on now but I didn't get to watch it! My companions back in Accra are out tonight to a sports bar frequented by both locals and ex-pats to watch the game. That would be more fun, I think, but I don't miss Accra. No one here is trying to hustle me.

Can't believe I have been on board 5 days. I am doing ok but Saturday will be two weeks away from home and that is about the time you really start to feel it. I miss all of you and hope things are going well. The Internet phone has basically no hope with the bandwidth we have today but I hope to be able to make some calls soon.