Esperanza and Maria
Steve and I were on Maria duty again today (i.e. in the kitchen) and with the additional forty-seven members of Esperanza base we spent almost eight hours helping out today.
In between this we logged samples and started freeze drying some samples in the lab, although the power shutdown when the generators were changed over made this challenging.
While helping out in the kitchen I met the Esperanza second in command and his wife (the commander is still at Esperanza) and some of the teachers at the Esperanza school. The school accommodates children from the age of two to eighteen and this year had fifteen children taking lessons there. Living on an Antarctic base for a year is hard but once you have done it a few times you are allowed to take your family. However, it can also be hard for them, though the children (as in Chilean Villa de las Estrellas) always seem to enjoy it, especially being part of the Antarctic scouts. Christian (Jubany mechanic) is going to Esperanza in 2013 and looking forward to being able to take his wife and two small children. He has already done 3 overwinters in the Antarctic without his family, effectively meaning his children have only seen him for half of their lives so far. I mentioned that we had visited the school in Villa de las Estrellas and was quickly told that the La Esperanza school was the first school in Antarctica, being set up as long ago as 1978 and the Las Estrellas school came later when the Chileans copied Argentina. I was also later told by the La Esperanza school teacher, when discussing our peat findings, that because there is peat here we are not really in Antarctica. La Esperanza is true Antarctica because there is no peat. My Argentinian Spanish and mood wasn't up to a heated debate but I still think if the teacher would be outnumbered in a discussion with everyone else I have met from eight nationalities from over ten bases we have now had contact with during this field campaign.