Friday night was great fun. Collin (the Fiddler), Tim (the Caller), and I introduced many McMurdites to contradance in the Byrd Field Center (BFC). We had about 23 people show up, with only a few more men than women, which is an amazing feat in a place that has 3 times as many men as women. Some of the dancers were familiar with contra. All had fun. I heard several dancers ask as they left when Collin would do it again, because they wanted to be there. Success! Of course, I won't be here (I hope) so Collin will be finding a new guitarist.
The administration is well set up to facilitate these cultural offerings by small groups to the community. We were able to snag an excellent sound system, get help moving it, arrange a place to hold the dance, and spread advertising all within the space of a few days. There is a board of community activities which is updated weekly. Individuals/small groups sponsoring events can post their flyers there. There's a lot to do here if you are willing to do almost anything.
I am on the manifest for the flight departing tomorrow (Monday) morning. I am supposed to get up at 3am, check the web, and show for transport at 4am if it the plane has left Christchurch. The C-17s don't spend much time on the ice; I don't think they even turn off their engines. Some of the C-130 pilots were telling me that this is how they take planes to the Pole: they arrive there, leave the engines running while the plane is unloaded and reloaded, then takeoff within the hour. It is cold enough there that fuel gels in the lines if the engines are stopped. Here at McMurdo, it is not that cold, but apparently they don't often like to take that chance.
Here is a video of our contradance that I was able to load a portion of to youtube. Bandwidth is small enough here that it took about an hour to upload just this short segment.
http://youtu.be/EsMVlFBIm30
See you next week?
No comments:
Post a Comment