I hope you all had a very nice Thanksgiving Holiday! Did you eat lots of turkey, mashed potatoes and other favorite foods? I am writing you on my Friday which is your Thursday, your Thanksgiving holiday. As you know we are a day ahead of you. We do not get the 4 day holiday that you do. In fact, we worked yesterday and today.

We will celebrate the eating part of our Thanksgiving on Saturday. Can you imagine cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 1,000 people?! You'd need a mighty big table! No, we eat in what we call "the galley" which is really like a big cafeteria. There are many tables and chairs where people can sit and eat. There are 3 seatings for dinner tomorrow since it's a special day. I will eat with my friends down here at 3:00. We get both Saturday and Sunday off this week. This is very exciting to me because I usually work Monday-Saturday with only Sunday off. That makes for a long week! I hope to go skiing with my friend Patrick out on the sea ice.

We are having a nasty storm right now so no planes are flying in or out. The wind is really blowing. It blows the snow so that it looks like snakes side-winding along the ground. I thought this would be a good day to finally write chapter 3.

Chapter 3: Mactown - Our Community

No, Mactown is not made of hamburger buildings or french fry towers! It's a place where people live, work, eat, sleep and play. Just like your community at home.

There are many similarities and quite a few differences between the two, however. What do you think of when you think about your community? I think of houses, buildings, streets, cars, parks, schools, libraries, stores, movie theatres and many other things. Well, our community is very similar.

Remember, you can distinguish between needs and wants. What are the basic needs of a community? Right! Food, clothing, and shelter. Shelter is very important here for obvious reasons. You must be able to stay out of the freezing wind or you will be in a great deal of danger. Our buildings are very strong and built for this environment. They are made of metal and have to be strong enough to withstand the raging wind.

They are not very pretty and there are no flower gardens or grass. I guess that kind of thing could be classified as a "want." Everyone here lives in a dormitory which is a building with many rooms inside it meant to house large numbers of people. You will probably live in a dorm when you go to college, so you will learn just what I mean! It is also a little like an apartment building but our rooms don't have kitchens or living rooms in them. Everybody has to share their room with a roommate. We live in one room with 2 beds, a desk, two closets, 2 night stands, lamps; and we are lucky enough to have a small cube-shaped refrigerator!

There isn't any way for us to control the heat in our building and our building is very warm. I sleep with my window open. In Antarctica! Can you imagine? There are 2 big bathrooms with 5 showers--one for the men and one for the women. Since we don't have kitchens in our rooms, we go to the galley for all our meals.

This leads us to the next "need": food. There is no need for a kitchen because there are no grocery stores, so no food to buy! (That's one of the differences!) It's kind of nice having all my meals prepared for me and to not have to do the dishes after I finish eating. That is one of the many different jobs people have down here: cooking the meals and cleaning up. I'm not sure I'd like that job, but at least you get to come to Antarctica! Our food is flown in on the planes and sailed in on one of the vessels that will come when the ice breaks up and melts. We like it when planes come because then we get to eat what we call "freshies" which are fresh fruits and vegetables, not frozen. Don't worry! We have enough frozen and packaged foods to last for a long time, so we won't starve if planes can't get in! It just isn't as good. The chef does a good job making tasty goodies to eat though with whatever he has.

I've already talked about clothing, the last need, in a previous letter (remember the ECW gear?). So let's talk about wants. I am learning a lot about getting along without "wants". I might WANT Ben and Jerry's ice cream, but I don't need it. I might WANT to take a hot bubble bath, but I don't need it. I might WANT a slice of pepperoni pizza, but I don't need it. It'll all be there when I get home.

What are some other parts of a community? Stores. We do have one store where we can buy candy, cookies, soda pop, soap, shampoo, socks, hats, some clothes and other small items. That is having some of your "wants" met. We got a shipment of real milk and half and half in the other day. That was very exciting because usually we have to drink powdered milk which I am not very fond of. I like half and half in my coffee. We brought our own special Seattle coffee down. That was a "want" I didn't want to do without!

We can rent videos and many of the lounges in the dorms have TVs and VCRs. There is no movie theatre. Sometimes they will show videos in the galley dining room on a big screen so it's sort of like going to the movies. There is a gym and a weight room so people can exercise. They play volley ball, indoor soccer, and basket ball in the gym. There is a bowling alley with human pin setters. There used to be a "playhouse" where plays were sometimes performed, but it just got torn down to make room for a new technology building. But don't worry! We will find another place to put on a play! There is a pottery room for ceramics. There is a green house where some plants and food is grown.

There is a band room where musicians can go to play instruments. I am singing with a chorus and will be performing in December. It's really fun. We also have a radio station. I am a DJ on the radio, too! My radio show is Monday night from 6-8. It only plays to the people here in McMurdo, so you can't "tune in". I play many different kinds of music like jazz, blues, rock. I love it!

Science is the main reason we are all down here. There is a big science building where people study everything from penguins and seals to weather and water. People go out to what are called field camps and that is when food, clothing and shelter become extra important. Then you are out in the elements, setting up your tent in the wind; lighting a stove to cook your food; sleeping in a sleeping bag on the ground. Your ECW gear is very important then. I will get to go to what is called "Happy Camper School" and learn about these things. I will write more about that after I go.

What else about communities? There are dirt roads in our town and stop signs. The speed limit is 20 miles per hour. We drive big red or orange trucks and vans. There are no sidewalks or street lamps. One thing I really like is my "commute" to work. There isn't any! I walk. My dorm is right down a short hill from the building where I work. It's takes about 3 minutes to get there. The galley is about 2 minutes away. I don't have to drive at all. In fact you have to get a special driver's license to drive here, probably because of the ice and snow. I don't really need to drive, so I probably won't get the special license.

There are no parks. I guess the whole wide wilderness of Antarctica is like a park. There is no grass or trees here. Another strange thing is that there are no children down here. People come here to work. You can't bring your family down here. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because it is all for science research, not meant for families. I will be very happy to come home and visit all of you! There are no pets, either. No dogs running around. No cats to stroke. Until recently, there weren't even any birds flying around. Now there is the occasional skua--the sea gull-like scavenger of the ice. We are very careful about cleaning up our trash now, so there is not much food around to lure the skuas here. The penguins are far out at the ice edge now. So the only animal we see on a regular basis are a few seals lounging around on the ice. It's very strange. Soon we will see open water and other wildlife. But more about that sometime later...

I was thinking it would be fun to complete a Venn Diagram on some of the similarities and differences between my community and yours. You could even write a compare and contrast paper with paragraphs! I would be happy to answer any questions these letters generate if you want to write. Keep a log of questions that arise, if any. That way you won't forget what they are when it's time to go outside and play!

I have inserted a few pictures of "Mactown." The first one is a view of town from the seasonal ice shelf. This will melt soon. See the 4 dark brown rectangular buildings in the front left of the photo? These are dorms. If you follow the roof line of the 4th building, you will see 2 other dark brown buildings perpendicular to the other ones. The 2nd one is my dorm. The big yellowish building in the center "behind" the 4 dark brown dorms is where the galley is. The yellowish building on it's own above my dorm is where I work.

The 2nd picture is a view from town. The white mass in between town and the mountains is the seasonal ice which will soon be open, unfrozen sea. This is where we ski, walk, drive and land the planes. You saw those pictures earlier. If you enlarge this image and look closely, you can see what looks like a line of "things" in the center of the picture to the right of the big mountain. Those are planes! Well, I think this letter and chapter are long enough. Thank you for taking the time to read it. I will send close up pictures the dorm, galley, building where I work and other places very soon.

Take care of yourselves and each other!

Love, Miss Talso

Chapter 4: Adventures

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