Monday

It's just Monday. That's all I can say.

I know very little about the country of Bolivia. Hubby did a little research on Bolivia before heading down there for a work assignment. He learned it is the poorest of the South American countries so he figured the situation on the ground might be a little dicey. Hubby has been there working for two weeks. Due home this week. Yesterday, however, I received three e-mails from him and they were rather disturbing.

The first e-mail, written Saturday night, said the oil drilling rig problem he was sent to heal was not yet completely fixed but better. He said talk of political unrest and talk of blocading the oil rigs countrywide had lead the top guys to put plans into place to evacuate expats Sunday morning to Santa Cruz by air. He was working all night to get things done and would e-mail Sunday. He said there was no sign of trouble and everyone was being careful. He wanted to know if I had heard anything in the news.

The second e-mail, written early Sunday morning, said he was delayed at the rig and not able to travel to airport. Too much rain and the mountain roads were too dangerous under those weather conditions. He was hearing of trouble in other small cities. He reminded me he still had tickets to travel back 4/5, maybe sooner.

The third and last e-mail, written about an hour later Sunday morning said the rain had stopped but the road was washed out between the rig and town. The drive to the town to get the charter flight to Santa Cruz is 20 - 30 miles and takes 3 hours in good weather due to the dirt roads through the mountains. He said it looked like it may be days for the road to be passable.

He goes to Santa Cruz, flies to La Paz, then on to Miami and Houston.

Haven't heard from him since. Communication is rough there. So, all I can do is monitor my e-mail and wait. I don't like this part of my job.

I googled Bolivia and found an article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer dated Friday that said military and police took control of Bolivia's major airports Friday. Hundreds of striking airline workers blocked runways and disrupted flights to three airports the day before, according to the article. Seems the government intervened to maintain public safety and avoid accidents. The airline troubles began in February. An earlier strike was ended by the government several weeks ago but last week the Constitutional Court declared the intervention illegal so new walkouts resumed.

My hubby is a field engineer for oil drilling rigs. He works his magic and makes them run when they have problems.

Welcome to my world.