Oil

So, I don't know if you all got the news, arcoss the great divide, about two months ago, an oil tanker was headed towards China in the West Sea. An iladvised crain boat, that supposably had been warned to leave the area, by the coast guard lost control of his ship and ran into the tanker. Around 13,000 tons of oil spilled into the water and the current pushed it towards South Korea. So for the past two months millions of volunteers have been helping clean up the disaster. So we had heard, that groups have been going to help from Gwang-ju, so we thought we should put our energy towards helping the cause. We did not get on with a group, but four of us took the bus and headed up to Taean, which is the closest big city to the oil spill. If you look on a map it is 3/4 the way up to Seoul along the west coast. So we left Gwang-ju at 7:00 am, we thought it might take 3 1/2 hours but we took the way, that had about five transfers so it took more like 5 hours.

The night before I (ethan) must have eaten some bad chicken because I could not keep anything in me. Everything comin out was not solid, if you know what I mean. But I perservered through the misorry, because we were on a mission to save the beaches of South Korea.

Once we arrived in Taean, a very nice man that spoke english gave us a ride to the beach. We asked him, how many people were volunteering that day? He said 15,000 people were working at around 30 locations. Once we got to a site we got our gear and got to work. Scrubbing and scrubbing rocks to get the oil off, using cloth that had been donated. Yes, this is how we had to clean, scrubbing the oil off each rock at a time. The oil sits underneath the sand and rock so you would dig up and find rocks just covered in oil, it was awful. People walking by would say thank you to us and would what to take our picture with them. After working on Saturday we stayed a very nice place on the bay side, that night. Then, the next day we worked at a different site. It was nice to see two different prospectives. On Saturday we got the major production and on Sunday we got the smaller production. We took alot of pictures. It was quite the expereince and we are glad that we took the trek and that so many others are too. One rock at a time but when there are thousands, that mean thousands at a time. We need to, "heal the world and make it a better place for you and for me..."(MJ)
So hope all is well wherever you lay. Keep in touch! We love feedback so don't be shy. PEACE e