The Cold Blooded Truth About Field Base

It's nearly the end of Phase 1 and the venturers will be returning to Field Base again to 'recover' before deploying to their Phase 2 projects. Some may wonder what goes on at Field Base while the Venturers and Project Managers are away, Gerry the Field Base Gecko recalls a snippet of the morning habits of our Field Base team:

5:45am. A cool morning in Karnataka. The dew wets the air and the gliding breeze ruffles the leaves on the mango trees that permeate the dusty plain which Raleigh Indias’ Field Base sits upon.

Someone is rousing inside, the light at this time of morning is still dim as the sun sits low in the sky, only the outline of a human shape is visible in silhouette against the white walls of the Communications room. I scuttle over the porch tiles and slither through a gap between the slatted doors into the Communications room, what’s going on in there?

A man sits in front of a computer screen; he is scribing something into a book and talking on the telephone. I climb up the side of the desk and hide behind a mug which smells like it is full of rich, strong coffee. I hear mention of ‘comms check’ and ‘messages for Echo 5’. Ten minutes later the phone rings again, this time I hear messages for Charlie 1, and the muffled voices confer on the progress made on the sourcing of masons to complete a wall for a building of some sort. Several other calls are received, from Echo 4, Charlie 3, Tango 6 and Tango 7 over the next hour, each one around ten minutes after the other, each one passing on a message for the man in the Communications room to take a note of and clip to a board beside the desk.

 More people are wakening now, the sun is burning whatever is left of the damp mist that veiled Field Base away and the air is dry and getting warmer by the minute. I watch them from my perch on the wall above the office window, towels in hand as they search with their toes for the sandals they left outside their tents the previous evening. There are four of them; clumsy, bleary eyed humans making their way into the building from the back garden. I spy two more inside the office, they look to have been awake for longer and are talking about how the villagers stare at Anna when she runs past, as if a woman running through Jayapura at 6:30am will make the local news headlines.

As I cling to the ceiling and move through to the kitchen area I smell the thick, sweet scent of porridge on the boil. It’s a large pot and the steam rising coats my leathery skin in the warm moisture, time to move. In the office, work has already begun. Sophie is beavering away on her computer. Spreadsheets and receipts and expense forms fill any space on her desk as she tracks payments and invoices and makes notes about budgets and allocations and orders from ’Harry’ in Mysore. Next to Sophie, Jo, soon to leave to visit Tango 7, ponders several sheets of scribbles, pen in mouth as she fingers through each slightly crumpled page. I can make out the title on the first page; ‘10C first phase – how are they all doing?’ She grins at the words, pens a few notes and begins typing purposefully on the keyboard. Claire, opposite Jo, with a bowl of freshly made porridge and a cup of coffee sat beside her camera, enquires about which picture of Echo 5 would look best on the website...there is some to-ing and fro-ing about resolution and colour contrasts, but eventually a decision is made that the boys pulling muscle poses is not too frightful to go on the blog.

Oooh, a Fruitfly! Breakfast!

Bodies trail through from the showers, Tom and Dr Tom spring into their chairs, fresh from a bucket wash and change of underwear (I avoid the bathrooms, one curious enquiry into morning bathroom rituals too many has taught me this lesson). Dr Tom has a look at his book of medical reports, it doesn’t take long and there aren’t any updates today so he takes a sip of his tea and opens up a copy of ‘Expedition & Wilderness Medicine’ and flicks to page 75, ‘Camp Hygiene’. Tom, the logistics co-ordinator stretches back into his chair, hands behind his head, and says to Dr Tom;

“If I have to fix another tent pole on this expedition it’ll be the last thing I do”.
Dr Tom smirks, tent poles are a contentious issue on Field Base. A high pitched ‘awwwwwww’ from the ground behind me distracts me from Tom for a second. Sophie, known animal lover and insect hater has spotted me through the fins of the ceiling fan and has her hands clasped at her shoulder. She gets a bit giddy when she sees me crawling around, ever since I helped her out with her centipede episode she always says ‘hello Mr Gecko’ when I hang around long enough.

Kevin saunters through from the kitchen and taps Tom on the shoulder to say ‘I’m just nipping up to the shed’. He’s a bit pink today after a solar injury picked up whilst he and Tom were on the roof fixing tent poles and mending groundsheets, he’s almost as strange a colour as I am. As he walks through the office to make his way through the front door and up to the Logistics shed, Amanda greets him with a jolly smile and a wave as he passes through, avoiding Mark’s massive ‘guns’ as they both try and fit through the doorway. Mark stops at Vijay’s desk to chat about a meeting in Mysore with the District Commissioner for Forestry and potential developments for a future environmental project. Vijay is still half asleep so they’ll pick up the conversation after breakfast.

The walk up to the Logistics shed isn’t long. Either side of the 60 metre dirt track is flat dusty ground, with the northern side set up to receive the venturer tents and the southern side marked out for a permanent dormitory block. But it’s hot and Kevin doesn’t like the sun too much so he strides briskly up the track. I weave and scurry through the bushes to keep up and just squeeze through the closing steel framed door as it creaks shut.

It’s much cooler in the Logistics shed as the corrugated iron roof beats back the relentless heat of the Karnataka sun. The room is lined with grey metal racking; three shelves high, each shelf filled with anything and everything, all in an orderly arrangement. Boxes of rice, tins of porridge, jars of peanut butter and countless other food stuffs are stored on the shelves of the back wall, the shelves either side are filled with equipment, some well used and some brand new. Blue barrels full of food create an island in the middle of the floor. Kevin rifles through the shelves of camping stoves and wooden handled trowels and kit for the project campsites looking for something; Tom appears through the door, the creaking sound of the metal hinges startles me. It looks like the Field Base kitchen is short of a ladle as Kevin’s hand emerges grasping the shiny utensil.

‘There you are you big spoon’, he says. Tom looks bemused and slightly insulted. Kevin realises his faux pas, ‘Oh no not you Tom, the ladle...we’re short of a ladle in the kitchen’.

The shed is much tidier than it was a few weeks ago; I could find food without any trouble, a crumb here and there. Now it’s all boxed and packaged away so they can reach it easily to give to the venturers before they leave Field Base. Flies are back on the menu it seems.

               
They leave the shed, ladle and packet of Tang in hand and lock up the door. It’s nearly 9am, time for the daily Field Base meeting. I fill up on a few moths and a cricket on the way as I tail Tom and Kevin back to the Field Base building. There’s a table and benches set up on the porch and Sophie, Jo, Claire, Dr Tom, Amanda, Anna, Mark and Vijay wait on the guys joining them before they start.

Dr Tom gives the table an overview of the communication he’s had from the project groups (it was him I heard this morning on the telephone) and hands over the communications role to Jo. Each member of the Field Base team gives a run-down of their plans for the day...sllluurrp, another fly...I’m getting full now. Everyone gives a fact of the day, I’d use my voice (yes, Geckos have a voice) to tell them a few facts about me, such as my Latin name, Gecko gecko (that’s not an echo), but Sophie would probably deafen me with her high pitched ‘awwww’ sound again...best stay in the background. But I listen still, and Anna briefs the team on the plan for the Changeover weekend when all of the project groups return to Field Base and are allocated to a new team for their next project. I nearly always get trodden on at Changeover as some lumbering bi-ped stomps through the grass in their wieldy boots, glad I listened in to the meeting today so I know when those pesky Venturers are coming back.

Half past nine and the meeting is over. Kevin,Tom and Dr Tom stroll back up to the Shed to collect tools to continue work on the Field Base vegetable patch, Anna begins to pour over the Venturer allocations for Phase two, Mark and Vijay return to their conversation about the Forestry Commissioner, Amanda weighs in with some of her thoughts about previous environmental projects that Mark and Vijay could consider at their meeting, Jo takes up her seat in the Communications room and scans the details of the log book for any signs of a tasty story for the blog, Claire sets off to the dining room to finish painting the kitchen. Sophie grabs a large cardboard box and begins to stock up the fridge with goodies for the Field Base shop, and I shuffle back to the kitchen to see if there are any more centipedes loitering around...

                        

It’s 9:35am, it’s 32 degrees, and Field Base is starting to buzz with activity. Phones will ring, the trekking groups will be tracked with tacks as their movements are traced on maps, and the Field Base team will bustle as they work to build each day into another memorable episode of Raleigh India 10C.

This is a Fly on the Wall account of just a part of a day in the life of the Raleigh India Field Base team. At least it would have been a Fly on the Wall account, but the fly stuck around too long and I was hungry...

Gerry.