Apparently books aren't as common over there as they are here, and Tom says that there's not much chance of 'checking' any books out of their library. Frank suggested that Tom take a picture of some of the books, so we can get a sample of their writing, but Tom just grabbed a pen and notepad (of course, it was an engineering pad because we were standing at Frank's desk having the conversation). Tom waved the pad around and said that he was just going to have the town chief write something down. Frank certainly has an engineering mindset; Tom just gets things done.
Tom says that he's certain that the chief would be willing to write something for him because he is a really friendly guy. Remember that I said his name was Shess? Well that's just the nickname that Tom gave him. His full name is Shessiteros; see why we call him just Shess? Tom tried coming up with a nickname for the school teacher, but Zhahmonichas wouldn't go for it. He's a really uptight kinda guy. I guess that's to be expected of anyone who has to deal with kids all day long.
Well, I guess next time we send Tom out, we'll have to give him a whole stack of pens and paper. If the natives were so interested in how books were made, I'll bet that they've never seen entire pads of paper, already lined and ready for writing. Then again, if books are so rare, I wonder if writing is very common. It might be that only the politically connected or school-teacher-type folks can write. We'll have Tom check into that.
We don't have much for Tom to do on his next trip out, so if you have any more ideas, just let us know in the comments. See ya next week!
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