Grupo Colavito - Volunteer Adventure in Nicaragua

Conclusions & New Beginnings

2010-12-10T06:48:00.009-06:00

It has been pointed out to me several times over the past two years, that the Grupo Colavito blog has no conclusion. It is like a book with the last chapter missing. I was thinking about our old blog today, so I figured I'd give an update to any stragglers out there wondering what ever happened to us.

First of all... our blogging took a backseat to job searching near the end of our volunteer experience. C.J. started a full blown job search of the solar electric industry on the East Cost, mostly focused on MD and VA, all remotely from Nicaragua. I was intending to follow him, so I didn't really start looking yet. I still wasn't blogging much though, partly because C.J. told me that some of my earlier blogs resembled suicide notes... they were too depressing. C.J. became the primary blogger pretty early on.

Oh so, one thing that I was focusing on during this time was figuring out how to get Virginia home with us. I did a bunch of reading online and learned that Nicaragua has a bunch of rules for exporting cats, but the US really doesn't have any restrictions on importing them... strange. The first step was to get her a cat carrier that wasn't just a round laundry basket with a towel tied on the top... which is impossible to find in Nicaragua. I even went to the upscale pet store in Metro Centro in Managua, Escasan... no airline approved bags. Fortunately, I started looking early enough that I was able to buy one online and have it shipped to Pete from Daton, who brought it down with him when he came for the summer. Yay!

So, with the bag taken care of, I had to focus on shots & paper work. My local, Ocotal, Vet helped me figure out which shots were required - as I recall it was Rabies and a tri-feline shot. Well, the Tri-feline was a refrigerated injection that they don't have in Ocotal, only in Managua, a 4 hour bus ride away. I wasn't too thrilled to cart my cat on a 8 hour round trip bus ride, so my Vet suggested that he could arrange delivery. Basically, delivery involves multiple taxi and bus rides for my little vile, all personally arranged... craziness. Surprisingly enough, the vile made it and Virgina got her shot. The next step was to actually take her to Managua to be seen by a particular Vet (I guess he was certified or something) and to get all the paperwork filled out.

Meanwhile, Virginia was the mom to three adorable kittens that we called Sean, Sean Black, and Emilia. They were the cutest little things ever! All the locals were fighting for who would get to keep them. Pretty early on, I think before they were even born, we decided that their homes would be our host family, Frederlinda's family (next door, up the hill), and Reina's family (next door on the other side). All the kittens were going to be together! On our last day, we gave away the kittens, which worked out perfectly since they were about 10 weeks old. (Photo from left: Arele, Jeni, and Alex holding Emila, Sean Black aka Jackie Chan, and Sean aka Sol).

Also around this time, the gate that I designed for the Solar center was being completed. The installation was underway on our very last day there! Our host family threw us a little party the night before we had to leave and we had an emotional goodbye in the morning.

The trip home was pretty stressful with the cat. It was quite a journey. 4 hours on the bus, an overnight in Managua, a taxi ride to the airport, a flight to FL, an 8 hour layover, and a flight to DC. Included in the overnight in Managua, we had plans to take Virginia to the special Vet for examination and then to go the the Governmental office that would issue us export papers. When the Dr. was examining Virginia we realized that the Tri-Feline vaccine had been expired at the time of the injection, so it didn't count. In addition, it needed to have been given at least 30 days before departure, so there was not time to get another shot! Fortunately, the Vet took pity on us and just simply changed the date of the injection on her record... he was reluctant to make the change since, as he put it, there is so much corruption in his country, but he was compassionate about us not getting caught in red tape - THANK GOODNESS! Whew, we got all of her papers in order - but not without a great deal of running around and stress.

When we got to the airport with Virginia, the ticket agent told us that someone would come to review her paperwork. We waited... we waited maybe 20 minutes. The agent went to go look for the guy... he couldn't find him. We started getting really nervous. The agent looked stressed. "Well," he tells us, "they guy you need to see didn't come to work today." We don't respond. "So, you all can go on through to security."

What? All that running around and they didn't even check the paperwork! Sheesh. When we got to the US, we took Virginia through the live animals and agricultural line at customs and the lady just says, "What do you have in the bag, a cat? Ok." What? so easy? "Do you have any food?" "Yes," "You can't take that into the country" So.... the food was confiscated, but Virgina was no problem at all!

When we got home it was culture shock all over again. I remember being so amazed that the laundry could be washed, dried, and ready to wear in only a matter of a couple hours. I took a shower, a hot shower, and I thought "it's so luxurious, and I can take a hot shower every day if I want to, every day for the rest of my life." It was so strange to think that we weren't going back to the other life, we were back for good.

We stayed with my parents for a few weeks while C.J. went on his job interviews. He got a job as a project manager with Standard Solar in Gaithersburg, MD. He considered the position his dream job - he would be managing the integration of commercial and utility scale solar electric projects! We got a little one bedroom apartment in Gaithersburg. It was a small space, but we were used to our mud hut, so we were happy!

I contacted my previous employer down in Newport News and they were happy to have me back for a few months while I looked for a new position up in the DC area. I went to live with my Grandmother for that time, which ended up being about 4 months. I was home with my honey by Christmas, and started my new position with the FAA on the same day that President Obama took office.

Two years later, we have a town home with solar panels on the roof, C.J. is the commercial projects engineering manager at Standard Solar, I'm still at the FAA, and we have a six month old son Joey! He is the cutest baby ever! Thanks for all your love and support through this journey!

I need a ladder to kiss you

2008-06-15T12:50:00.007-06:00

A few weeks ago C.J. and I were joined by 4 new volunteers from University of Dayton, Ohio: Pete, Matt, Dan, and Anna. The Dayton kids decided that they were going to take a trip to Granada this weekend and we figured it was a good opportunity to go, since Granada is a must see tourist spot in Nicaragua and we enjoy our travels 10 times more if we have other people to hang out with besides ourselves. Even for our honeymoon, we made sure we went to a resort with lots of young, fun people (mostly other honeymooners) to hang out with. So, we headed off to Granada on Friday afternoon, picking up Vince, another Dayton guy, in Managua on the way.

We got in to our hostel at about six on Friday, and fortunately there was a private room available for me and C.J. - it even has a bathroom (without a shower, but hey... better than nothing). I am just not a fan of the dorm living, we´ve done it twice so far, and I am definately more than willing to pay the extra cash to not have to change in the shower and to be able to wear whatever I want to bed. I think it was like $4 bucks more, so really a no brainer. Our hostel is actually quite nice, after all it is called Oasis. They have free internet, free coffee and tea, a cool little pool, and lots of seating areas and hammocks in the courtyard. There are also tons of young people around to chat with if you feel inclinded. Those college boys like to take advantage of this feature, but I haven´t really. This is partially due to the fact that I started a cold on Friday and my voice is all scratchy. I just don´t like the sound of it, so I´ve been keeping it to myself.

Yesturday, Saturday, we took a bike tour of the city. Granada is right on the shore of Lake Nicaragua, so we rode through the park and along the lake which made for a quite scenic and idealic ride. We took lots of breaks for cervesa and mojitos and just enjoyed how awesome the weather is. Well, it was actually a little too hot, but I would trade that for rainy anyday. We had a few bike problems, namely C.J.´s chain kept falling off, so Matt, C.J., and I headed back a little early. That part was the most grueling because C.J. couldn´t stop pedaling or his chain would fall off and he was on a pretty hard gear. All three of us were drenched in sweat when we finally stopped for tropical fruit smoothies. Those were quite tasty.

As we were heading to the bike shop we noticed a cute little shop that sells cigars, hand made in Granada, and.... CUBA. We were pretty excited for the prospect of smoking Cubans, so we picked up a few for the evening. Strangly, the cigar shop did not sell lighters or cutters, so we went in search for those around the city. We found a really cool lighter that flashes red and blue lights whenever you use it, but we couldn´t find a cutter. As a result, when it came to cutting the cigars I mutulated mine in a way that is too disrespectful to the anyone who loves cigars that I can not even mention it in the blog. And then, since the tobacco was then spilling out the poorly cut end, I just decided to smoke it backwards. This was working for a while, but then at some point my cigar went out and could not be relit. I realized the magnitude of my error when I smoked some ofMatt´s and discoverd how much smoother it is when you actually smoke it right. So basically, my first attempt at cigar smoking was somewhat botched, but still fun and flavorful... after all, it was a Cuban.

After a late night of Flor de Caña and Cubans, the group rallyed for a mornining trip to the tobacco farms for a canopy tour. Since I´ve already done the canopy thing twice, I decided to just chill here and do a little shopping. I was in the market for a new shirt since I always feel like I have no cool clothes. Pretty much all I have are boring t-shirts and polos, because as C.J. told me when we were packing for Nicaragua "It´s not like we´re going to be going out." This has of course proven to be completely untrue. Unfortunately, I am a really bad shopper. This problem is enhanced by the fact that the shop owners in Nicaragua hover and stare the entire time you´re in their store. This, I cannot stand. The other problem today was that I was so sweaty from walking around in the heat that I couldn´t imagine trying anything on, if they even had a changing room, which is unlikely. So, I came back empty handed, which is typical. I have yet to buy a single article of clothing in this country.

The walking around was nice though. There are a lot of markets open, and in central park I stopped to pet some cute little kittens. The woman tried to sell them to me, but I quickly explained that I already have FOUR cats a home, and therefore do not need any more. Speaking of which, our kittens are getting cuter every day and have started running around and playing this past week. Anyway, walking around Nicaragua alone makes me an easy target to all sorts of cat calls and harassments. Depending on how they´re said, they can be amusing or infuriating. Normally, I think the stuff guys says is funny, though I have to pretend I don´t hear or understand what they say, because looking, smiling, or laughing just encourages their behavior, which to be honest is quite disrespectful. I guess I´m too light hearted because I get a kick out of it sometimes, especially when someone says something creative. I´m kind of used to the "mi amor" (my love), "muñeca" (doll), "chela" (fair skinned girl), "mi corazon, preciosa, bonita, guapa..." (my heart, precious, pretty, beautiful), but today I got one that really made me laugh (on the inside of course) -"Una escalara necesito besarte" which means "I need a ladder to kiss you". I´m sure he thought I wouldn´t understand, but 11 months has taught me a little español and I couldn´t help but crack a smile. Ah, well, I never did have much of a poker face.

Our Kitten Had Kittens!

2008-05-15T11:46:00.002-06:00

So about a month and a half ago Jenny and I were thinking, man Virginia (our kitten) is really growing strangely. She is really skinny in the shoulders but very pear shaped, fat at the bottom. A couple weeks later as she got fatter we decided to take her to the vet again to see what’s up. We couldn’t imagine she was pregnant because she was only 6 months old. The vet said she surely is pregnant and here we are now, on May 13th we helped deliver three healthy kittens, two boys and a girl. Its kind of shocking for both us and our cat. Our little kitten, still with her tennis ball sized head, only 8 months old, is now mother to three really tiny, squeaky, wiggly-tailed kittens.

So we figured out how it all happened. Jenny and I went to Costa Rica for a week to renew our Visas in mid March. We left our little brother Marcel to feed and watch over Virginia while we were gone. He did a good job, but when we returned they told us about how one night Virginia had a big fight with some other cat and they got inside the locked house and it was an all out brawl for about 10 minutes. How traumatic for our six month old kitten! So this sneaky tom cat got our innocent kitty pregnant in the first heat cycle of her life. I saw him sneaking around our house a few times at night and at least he was a good looking cat, had nice stripes like Virginia but more of a copper color rather than gray and black. The kittens are beautiful, two of them look just like Virginia with black and gray stripes all over and the other is bright orange and white striped. Since one orange one was a boy and one of the black ones was a boy Jenny had the idea to give them temporary names for the next two months until they are weaned from their mom and we give them away to our friends. So Sean, we named the orange one after you since he has your hair and naturally since he has a black brother we named him Sean Black, after our other buddy from college. The girl we named Amelia after our new volunteer friend Emily, who goes by Amelia in Spanish.

The whole birthing process was an adventure. Virginia had been especially more affectionate over the last few weeks and yesterday she was even more so. When I woke up she was stuck to me like glue. Where ever I walked she would follow and when I sat down she would be in my lap immediately. I was sitting having our morning quiet time when I noticed she was having contractions. This was a little alarming for me because I was afraid she might just start popping kittens out in my lap. Jenny had read up on kitty births on the internet and assured me that Virginia would climb down before they came. Jenny prepared a little nest of towels underneath one of our shelves and coaxed Virginia on in so that she could be calm and comfortable. She was in labor for over an hour when she couldn’t stand the pain any more and started running around the house with half a kitten hanging out. She had it standing up in the middle of the floor and scampered under the bed totally freaked and bewildered by what happened. Meanwhile Jenny was upset because the stupid articles she read said that the cat would know what to do and take care of her kittens with little intervention. I was watching this slimy sack on the floor with something inside it that looked like it came from the movie alien and I yelled to Jenny, who had retreated to the other side of the room to get the scissors and cut that kitten out. Jenny suddenly got her senses back and valiantly rushed back with the scissors and cut the kitten free, then began stroking it until it breathed for the first time. What a hero! By this time Virginia returned out of curiosity and her mother instincts took over. She quickly started licking her first born and he came alive with squeaks and wiggles. She laid down right there in the middle of the floor and began cleaning and nursing her baby. The other two were much less stressful since by then we were all experts. It was pretty gross at times but still amazing to see kittens born in front of my own eyes.

The plan is still that we will take Virginia home with us when we come back on July 21st. Now the whole name Virginia doesn’t sound so clever since we will have a cat named Virginia living in Virginia, o well. The same day I announced that we were expecting kittens I had found three takers so we will give away all three kittens just before we leave so they will have at least nine weeks to nurse. Until then it will be fun to see the furry rat-like kittens grow up.

A rewarding experience

2008-03-25T10:02:00.004-06:00

Our German volunteer buddy, Martin, lived with one of the poorest families in Sabana Grande. He lived with a middle-aged single mother, Dona Elia, and her 12 year old daughter, Alba Rosa. They were a little bit off from the main pathway of Sabana Grande and none of the houses on their path have electricity, except for Mauro, one of our solar panel experts and more recently Dona Ilda and her family of 12, who just got their own solar electric system a few weeks ago. All the other volunteers knew that Martin had it rough. He was the only one with a true dirt floor, the only one who had no form of modern lighting, and even more unfortunately he lived with the consensus-worst cook of all the Mujeres Solares. This was on top of all the discomforts that the rest of us deal with also.

To Martin’s credit, he stuck it out for the whole 5 months. He knew it was rough, but that is what life is really like for the poorest of poor, and the last thing he wanted to do was move because he was uncomfortable and deny Elia the $50 a month income he was providing. Martin made the best of it and kept a smile on his face. However, he did take the opportunity to escape when he could. He came over and watched corny telenovelas with us and our family every evening. When he wasn’t with us he would go over to Noel’s place and plug in to his outlet so he could use the computer. Martin watched our house for us while we were away in the states for a week. It was convenient for him because he could enjoy the lights, electricity, and even watch DVD’s on our laptop. It was convenient for us because he enjoyed it so much that he would stay nearly all night, which kept away the critters and mischievous neighbors. As a thank you Jenny and I brought back a LED crank lantern for Martin, which was a God-send for him.

As hard as it was for Martin to live with Elia and Alba Rosa for five months, I could imagine how hard it is for Elia and Alba Rosa to live like that their whole lives. Martin decided he wanted to do something really special for his family before he returned to Germany. He was working on a project with a Canadian group who ordered a bunch of tiny five watt solar panels to assemble into small LED home lighting systems for some of the rural families in Nicaragua who don’t have lights. Martin was able to convince his business partners to donate a system to Grupo Fenix. When he asked Elia if he could install a small lighting system in her house she told him it was her dream.

On Martin’s second to last day in Sabana Grande I got the honor to help him install the novel little solar lighting system. Martin purchased all the supplies with his own money and we installed the five watt solar panel and three LED lighting fixtures, which combined only consume 500 mA off a 15 volt battery, thats only seven and a half watts! Go look at one of our incandescent bulbs to see how many watts it consumes and you will understand what seven and a half watts means. Along with the lights we also put in a seven amp-hour battery, which allows all three lights to stay lit for nine hours continuously with no input from the panel. Needless to say it was a pretty rewarding way to spend the day. It was especially nice that I got to lend a hand because Elia and Alba Rosa are the ones who gave us our kitten, Virginia. They have three grown cats and who just had six more adorable kittens!

Ometepe and Katie´s Visit Pictures

2008-03-16T14:24:00.002-06:00

Sorry it took me so long to post these, but here they are.
VIEW PHOTOS

More Costa Rica Photos

2008-03-16T12:45:00.001-06:00

VIEW PHOTOS

Costa Rica is Rica

2008-03-13T09:52:00.012-06:00

C.J. and I just got back from Costa Rica on Monday. We needed to renew our visas (which were already 24 days overdue) and we figured we´d take the chance to have a little vacation. We would have gone sooner, but we´re so American that we feel guilty taking vacation from our volunteer responsibilities. We just can´t do it, Martin. (Martin is our German friend who spends more time vacationing than working... just kidding :-) )

So, we set off to Costa Rica last Wednesday. The plan was to take the express bus to Managua (3.5 hours) then the Tica Bus to Liberia, Costa Rica (5 hours), spend the night and then figure out how to take local buses to Monte Verde, our final destination. Tica Bus is supposed to be the quick, comfortable way to travel because it is a real express bus that only stops at the border, has air conditioning and movies. We were looking forward to a stress-free trip, but when we arrived in Managua to catch our Tica Bus, we found out that the guy in Ocotal never actually called in our reservation and we didn´t have seats! Fortunately, the boss got us on the bus with no problem but a little added stress our our side. It also turns out that the air conditioning was broken, but they wouldn´t let us open the windows because the air conditioning was on, so we cooked all the way to the border. How TIN.

At the border, we had no problem with our expired visa we just payed the $1 a day fine. The guy was actually very chatty, especially when his friend came in to show him the passport of the guy he swore was Jean Claude Van Damme. It clearly wasn´t him, but they were convinced. They went on and on, looking at the guy´s visas and saying ¨Look, he was everywhere that there was a Van Damme movie made.¨ TIN, seriously.

At the border we also met a couple who had a newer version of the tour book we were using, and it didn´t have any information about busses from Liberia to Monte Verde. We kind of paniced and decided to take Tica Bus all the way to San Jose (4 extra hours) so that we could be sure to get an express to Monte Verde the next morning. Fortunately the air conditioning worked for the Rest of the bus ride (how unTIN... ironic isn´t it), and we watched a Jim Carey marathon in Spanish.

When we got to San Jose, we shared a cab with a backpacker couple and we got unwittingly tricked into staying at a backpacker place with dorm rooms. Ick. I´ll never do that again, I´ll always pay more for a private room, thank you. The next morning we took the 4 hr. express to Monte Verde and arrived at our final destination only 28 hours after we left home! When we got off the bus we were imediately bombarded with people selling tours and handing out maps, but we quickly slipped away to the Tica Bus office to make our return researvations. We found out that you can take Tica Bus directly to Monte Verde (WHAT?!), well sortof, and so we faxed in our reservation, since they wouldn´t pick up the phone at the office.

Then as we were walking around town I suddenly realized we left our bags on the bus!! Ahhh! How could we have been so stupid, we were so distracted by all the people in our face that we forgot our luggage! Crap, we quick took a taxi to the bus station, where luckily our bus was still being serviced for the return trip and claimed our bags, and we only paid double the normal taxi fare. Whew!

The following morning we went for our zip lining canopy tour. Now that was awesome! We zipped from the top of a tree on one mountain, over the valley, to the top of a tree on another mountain. We saw the most gorgeous views of the rain forest and we had so much fun. We also have tons of pictures to share later. Zip lining wasn´t scary for me, it was an amazing experience that I would do again in a heart beat. We also took a walking tour over a set of suspension bridges in the forest, which was neat because we got to see the forest up close. One of the cool things about Costa Rica toruism is that everyone speaks English and since C.J. and I speak Spanish we get special treatment everywhere... just for asking nicely in Spanish we got to see the Hummingbird exibit for free!

Since, we were planning to take a more direct route home, we were able to stay another night in Monte Verde, and go on a canyoning tour - that is repelling down waterfalls! That´s me at the tippy top of the waterfall on the left! Now that, my friend, was scary! You have to really rely on your rope and you have to actually know what you´re doing... which is why I have a huge scape on my left shin. We went down six water falls, and after about two, I was like, ¨OK, been there, tried that, ready to go home.¨ But no, there were four more to go! I made it out alive thankfully, and I do have to admit that it was really fun. I would definately recommend it to anyone who likes adventure and adreneline!

The next morning we took the recommended 6AM bus to the highway to catch our Tica Bus. Our bus driver took his sweet time getting us there, he even took a five minute snack break at one point. That´s actually very unTIN, because the busses in Nicaragua are serious business. Anyway, we arrived at the highway at 10 minutes to 8, and apparently just after the first Tica Bus passed. We waited there until like 9:35, when the 2nd Tica bus came. We yelled, we held up our tickets, we ran after them and waved our hands like maniacs, but the Tica Bus passed us by, leaving us on the side of the road in Costa Rica with no plan an no more Tica Busses coming until 2PM.

Ok, 1, 2, local busses to the border, then an express to Managua. Not actually that bad, if we had been planning for it. Unfortunately all the time we wasted waiting for Tica Bus got us to Managua too late to get home, so we were delayed until the next morning. We stayed near the Tica Bus office so that we could give them hell in the morning... which we did and we were reimbursed for our return ticket. We were still ticked though because we had spent twice that to get to Managua and to stay an extra night, plus we were stressed beyond belief.

So in summary... travelling was horrible, but the activities were fun (yet ridiculously expensive). We´re glad to be back in Sabana Grande and we have lots of pictures and videos to share later!

Our secret weapon

2008-01-26T13:26:00.000-06:00

Jenny and I reached our limit. The mice and bats have been invading our house on and off since we got here. I had the mouse on the inside of my sweatshirt (while I was wearing it), Jenny found that a mouse had eaten a bunch of holes in our dirty laundry, and the bats have been swooping through our house every night, between 2:30 and 5:00 am. We tried using some rat poison to get rid of the mice that would make mi casa su casa. That didn’t go so well. It killed the mice alright; it just didn’t get rid of them, then after a week or so the stench would reveal a favorite hiding spot. I have been in the process of putting up some plastic screen material between the top of the wall and the roof around the house to prevent the bats’ nightly squeaky visits. This idea was good, but the screen cost me a fortune (in nica money) and it has taken me hours to put up, still not totally done. We noticed that it cuts down on the number of bats, but there are some areas that I just can’t seal off and we are worried that one will come in and not be able to leave so easily. Short story long, as I like to do on my blog here, Jenny and I have been pushed to the edge and it was time for a secret weapon.

Our secret weapon is a cute cuddly 4 month old kitten. She is adorable, and very effective. The day before we got here we were being taunted by a little mouse that was running around the top of our walls; now we haven’t seen a single mouse, or found evidence, in a week. I have never had a pet before, aside from the goldfish Spike for 2 weeks. I always thought I was a true blue dog lover, but I never knew how cool a cat could be—especially a little kitten. She doesn’t even have to kill any mice, she just showed up and they are gone. Her innocent little meows and purrs are all it takes. Or maybe she has already killed tons and completely eaten them with out a trace, but I doubt it. And the bats, they were pure bonus; they just don’t seem to want to fly through our house any more with the ferocious 4 lb kitty we have hanging around.

We named our snuggly little weapon Virginia, pronounced in Spanish as Veer-hin-ya, because we only speak to her in Spanish. I figure its only fair since we will probably not take her back to the states with us and she needs to be used to Spanish. We decided this name was perfect since she would make our home more like it was in Virginia without mice. Virginia loves to be pet and cuddled, which is great for us because both Jenny and I love cuddling her. She especially loves it if you tickle her under her chin, she will move her chin forward following my finger if I try to pull it away. The other day she jumped up on Jenny while she was in the hammock, then curled up and napped with her; lets just say Jenny is totally won over.

Even though she is small and sweet Virginia is total force to be reckoned with. She is very curious and loves exploring all the nooks and crannies of the house, where she would find any lingering intruders if they are around. She also climbs up on top of the walls and patrols around the top of the house and outside like a sentry. She will go after spiders, moths, and especially ping pong balls. Ping pong ball + kitten + hard concrete floor = fun! I gave her a ping pong ball the other day and she loved it. She will smack it with one paw and then follow up with other as she chases it around the room. Its really bouncy on the concrete floor and she totally shows off her ¨cat-like reflexes¨. She will play with it for 20 minutes straight at full speed sprinting around the house. If she gets lost outside in the evening when we want her to come in all we have to do is open the door and bounce that ping pong ball; Virginia comes darting in the house like a torpedo and the poor little ping pong ball never even had a chance. I think our mouse problems are as good as over.

Mortifying

2008-01-20T14:14:00.000-06:00

I had an experience a few nights ago that I don´t know how to describe except as mortifying.

It gets chilly in the evengings here during this time of year. By chilly I mean 60-70 degrees; I know, we are total wimps but that´s cold when you are used to mid 80´s and no a/c all the time. We were getting ready to head down to the main house to have dinner with our family so I figured I´d throw on my sweatshirt. My sweatshirt was hanging from a wire that I strung across the ceiling so that we could put up towels to dry and hang a couple jackets and sweatshirts for easy access. I pulled down my favorite VT hoodie and threw it on. I walked across the room to put away a few things before leaving and I noticed that it didn´t feel quite right. I quickly noticed it was my right shoulder and when I reached around to adjust it I felt a soft lump on the back of my shoulder inside of my sweatshirt! I totally freaked and instantly knew it was some kind of animal. Instinctually, I clenched it with my left fist so that it couldn´t scurry across my back or bite me. While still squeezing the fist-full of soft lump and sweatshirt I threw it off of myself and onto the floor as fast as possible. I stared hard at it waiting for something to come crawling (or flying) out of it. Nothing happened. I poked and jabbed at it a little but still nothing. Then I carefully shifted it around and pulled one arm inside out. Still nothing. Then I shifted it some more and saw a furry brown and white mouse tucked into the folds. It was already dead. I had crushed it with my bare hand in the heat of the moment.

I still can´t believe a mouse got on the inside of my sweatshirt while it was hanging on a line in the middle of the room. The little rascal had nibbled a good sized hole in the left arm pit and then cuddled right up at the top of my right sleeve. He had to crawl up a vertical wall then across a smooth metal wire about 2 mm diameter to get to my favorite sweatshirt in the middle of the line. Of course it was my favorite one. He had good taste, it is the coziest. Even Marcio and Alejandra shuddered a little when I told them what happened. Marcio consoled me with a little advice: He went into his room and came out with his jacket in his hand and said when ever I take clothes off the line I give them a good shake (snaping his jacket in the air) before putting them on. Thanks alot for the tip.

Now I have a new chore; I have to shake out Jenny´s sweatshirt whenever she pulls it off the hanger. It was pretty freak having a mouse on the inside of my sweatshirt with me; but I figure I got the better of the deal than him.

Vacation (Adventure) in Ometepe

2008-01-19T17:37:00.000-06:00

Jenny’s sister Katie came to visit us for New Year’s and to participate in the January solar culture course given by Grupo Fenix. She came a week early to hang out with us so we decided to take the opportunity to go some place cool, la isla de Ometepe. Ometepe is an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It is in the shape of a figure eight because it was formed by two volcanoes, one of which is still active. Our travel book said it had beautiful beaches and tons of cool outdoorsy activities so we figured we should check it out.

No matter what kind of traveling you are doing in Nica, it can always be a challenge and an adventure, our little vacation was no exception. Katie flew into Managua at 9pm so Jenny and I took the second to last bus out of Ocotal to Managua, it was at 2:30 pm. We packed up our stuff that morning, and left the house at 12:20 pm, we walked a mile with our bags to the bus stop, took the 12:45 bus to Ocotal (20 min ride), then we got on a 4 hour “express” bus to Managua. Upon arrival to Managua we negotiated with the taxi drivers trying to give us gringo prices to take us another 30 minutes to the neighborhood where we stayed with some nuns which was arranged by Grupo Fenix. Then we had a little luck, my friend Douglas who takes me on the solar panel installations, has a pick up truck and offered to drive us the last 15 minutes to the airport to meet Katie. It didn’t hurt that we told him she was a cute single muchacha in her 20’s. It just so happened that Douglas had just returned from an installation with 3 of our other volunteer buddies so we all piled into the pickup together. On the way to the airport we got pulled over, not for having 3 dudes riding on the highway in the back of the truck—that’s legal, it was for having 3 dudes riding in the back incorrectly. We finally arrived back at the nuns’ house with Katie at about 10:30pm, what a day. If we were to take that trip in the states it would have taken about three hours instead of ten. We capped off the day nicely by going through all of Katie’s luggage, which was full of gifts and goodies from the states for Jenny and I.

We woke up at 5:30 am to get a jump on our next day of travel from Managua to La Isla de Ometepe. We had a wonderful breakfast of huevos rancheros cooked by the nuns and paid only 300 Cordobas ($15) for the 3 of us for the night and breakfast, it was also the nicest home I had been to since leaving the States complete with a modern bathroom and running water—what a deal! Traveling was the same drill as the day before. We cabbed to the bus stop, then “express” bus for 2 hours (standing up in the aisle) to Rivas, then bus to San Jorge, then Ferry across Lake Nicaragua to Ometepe, then cab to the hotel (because busses don’t run on Sunday on the island). When we got on the first bus to Rivas it was totally packed and the three of us took our positions standing in the aisle, I told Katie that it was about a 2 hour ride and she was like “yeah right C.J., quit messing around”. Well, I said, this is Nicaragua, this is normal; and our bus ride actually took nearly 3 hours. Our acronym of the vacation was birthed from that moment TIN(This Is Nicaragua), which is pronounced tin, like the metal, because Nicas all like to say all their acronyms like words, which is kinda fun. The TIN theme carried on throughout our whole trip, but it was good for us to have the mindset of TIN, because that way we were more prepared for all the new experiences and silly screw-ups that are part of vacationing in the third world.

We stayed at the Villa Paraiso, which means paradise villa. It was the nicest, most expensive hotel on the island, for US$63/night. Not bad. The hotel pretty much lived up to its name. We were in this cute little cabana right on the beach with electricity, a/c, running water and a modern bathroom, and direct TV, totally sweet. (Thanks Mom, Dad, and Grandma!) Taking a real shower was totally glorious. It was kind of a let down that they didn’t have hot water, but it was awesome none the less. I butted heads with the owner at the front desk until they gave us a discount for not delivering on the hot water, which they advertised, but TIN. The Direct TV was also a total crock, it only had 6 channels, and they were direct TV feeds, but only 6 channels and all in Spanish, TIN. The hotel restaurant was great. I had some delicious spaghetti bolognese with actual meat sauce made with real tomatoes, not ketchup and mayonnaise. The ladies sucked down some margaritas and I had so-cold-it-will-give-you-a-headache beer, again, it was glorious.

Our vacation consisted of hanging out on the beach, eating good food at the local restaurants and partaking in the outdoor activities. On our first day we decided to start the day off by doing a zip line canopy tour that was nearby, so we figured we should walk. We had a leisurely breakfast and then got to hiking at about 9:15am because the lady at the desk said that the canopy tour place opens at 9. We ended up walking for about 2.5 kilometers in the wrong direction before turning back and we realized it was only about 100 yards from the front door of our hotel. It turned out that it was just a small booth, and we arrived at 10:30 but it still wasn’t open. We went into the hotel next door to ask about what activities they had and we ran into the two guys that run the zip line. They were like “oh, you want to ride it? I guess we will open then.” TIN. The zip line was cool, but kind of anticlimactic because it was only 4 lines and it took all of 15 minutes to do. For the afternoon we decided to schedule a personal horseback riding tour for the 3 of us to see some of the Nicaraguan petroglyphs, which are 800 to 1200 year old carvings in rock that have been preserved. The ride was pretty cool, it was the first time I ever rode a horse. My horse was a total ego maniac and he would refuse to let any of the other horses get in front of him the entire trip. He even got to the point where he would break into a full speed gallop just to keep the other horses behind. Unfortunately due to this being my first time on a horse and that I had no freaking clue what I was doing, I pulled a muscle in my back that still hurts. It was still a pretty fun 4 hour excursion though. Katie said she was unimpressed with the petroglyphs because other civilizations had been writing books already and these were just stick figures carved into rock, my response was ¨TIN¨. Later in the week we went kayaking with all 3 of us on a 2.5 person kayak to a small island off of Ometepe inhabited by monkeys. Katie and I paddled while Jenny got a free ride and took some pictures. It was ok, but we couldn’t get too close because the monkeys are apparently aggressive and would even go as far as jump in your boat from overhanging branches if we got close. We rented mountain bikes one day and rode around the area of Playa Santo Domingo and stopped off at a natural watering hole in the forest where a lot of the locals like to go. It was called Ojo del Agua and it was beautiful and even had a cool rope swing that you could get to from climbing part way up a tree, then swing into the deep water. Jenny and Katie were like the only women there in actual bathing suits and there was plenty of staring going on. I felt like the lucky dude but it was a little awkward.

New year’s eve was pretty cool. Our hotel had a big party that they planned for the guests and anyone local that wanted to reserve a table. They had a late buffet and live music all night with a cash bar. We learned about the Nicaragua tradition that when you want a rum and coke you don’t just get a glass with some coke and a shot of rum. They bring you a 375ml bottle of rum with some ice, limes, a shot glass, and 355 ml bottle of coke. Lots of rum, not much coke. It was a good night. Being that I am a total light weight now and Jenny and Katie always have been, the bottle of rum along with a few other drinks had the 3 of us ¨happily¨ celebrating the New Year.

Our original plan was to book 3 nights at Ometepe, then decide if we wanted to stay for a 4th night or head back to main land and go see Granada for our last day. We were enjoying Ometepe so much that we opted for a 4th day there. Unfortunately our hotel didn’t have any rooms for us to stay in so we got bumped to another hotel two doors down. Everything looked nice, the rooms were big, had modern bathrooms, a/c, TV, and all that, but the price was 50% less and we couldn’t figure it out… until later. Our last day was so windy that going to the beach was torture; we would get pelted by sand, our towels blew all over the place, and tossing around the frisbee was out of the question. We kept ourselves busy by taking a bus ride into the nearest town to tour around and have dinner; I even caught a little bit of one of the bowl games at a bar. When we got back to our hotel for the night we discovered why it was so cheap. We were the only ones staying at the place so they had made special arrangements for one of the staff members to stay in a guest room for the night in case we needed something. We did. When we got back to our room I felt something fall onto my shoulder, it was a really small baby frog. Then I looked at the wall and it was covered with them. I pointed it out to the girls and they freaked. The frogs were inching their way up the walls, and when one would get almost to the top, it would slip and fall all the way to the floor. This made Jenny scream, because she thought they were splatting on our floor, and occasionally they would fall off the wall near the bed and land on it. This was unacceptable; I had to go wake up the staff guy. He moved us to another room, that was frog free, but it had a large ceramic frog lamp on the table--weird. The frogs weren’t all of it. There was a TV in the room, but I turned it on and they didn’t have a single channel, suddenly 6 channels of Direct TV Spanish looked good. Why in the heck did they even have a TV in the room if they have no channels? I looked outside and could see that the room next to us where the staff guy was staying had a hole cut in the screen window with a wire running out of it that went up the wall and was wrapped around a make-shift antenna on the roof. TIN. Also, the water in the bathroom didn’t work and we had to ask them to turn it on. The reply was that we needed to wait 20 minutes for the pump to kick in and fill the tank. There was also no hot water here, there was a hot water knob in the shower and on the sink, but they didn’t do anything. Only in Nicaragua.

Remember how I said that it was really windy on our last day? Well it was still really windy the next morning, but we didn´t think anything of it until after our expensive cab ride to the ferry port 30 minutes away. We got to the ferry to find that there was a ton of people and other tourists all waiting at the gate to the ferry. We heard from some of the people in line that none of the ferries had left all day due to the wind. A ferry came into the port full of passengers after about 30 minutes of waiting, and we all boarded the boat. We waited for about an hour an a half, then finally got official word through the gossip channels that the authorities were closing off the ports for the rest of the day due to wind. I had never heard of this before, its not like we were going in a sail boat, or like we were going to cross the sea, it was just a 1 hour ferry ride to shore. We luckily caught a bus that was passing by as we got off the boat and headed back to the same town as the night before. We stayed the night and I went back to the same bar so I could watch the VT bowl game. It was great that I could see it live, but pretty depressing that we lost our 4th BCS bowl game in a row—the last two being by only 3 points each. The next day we got up at 530 and hustled to the bus stop to get the first bus back to the ferry and when we arrived we found out that they had already cancelled all boat traffic for the second day in a row. We took the 1 hour bus ride again back to the town of Altagracia to get an available hotel room one more time. We found out that we could skip the one hour bus ride the next morning if we took a 6 am ¨lancha¨ out of the local port about a 20-30 minute walk from town. We stayed the night again and got up this time at 4:30 am to check out of the hotel and get to the port in time to catch the plantain lancha. We walked about a mile and a half with our bags, which were heavy as heck by the end and happily found a small boat loading up to leave. We were the only gringos around and they spent the next 45 minutes loading plantains by hand. When they were done the boat was chock full of plantains. They only took about 10 passengers and we set off. It seemed just as windy as the two previous days but for some reason the ports were opened again. The ride on the lancha was 3 hours of the rockiest boat ride I have ever been on. I would look out the opposite side of the boat and see nothing but sea, then I would see nothing but sky, sea, sky, sea sky, ugh… Lucky for me I was smart enough not to eat breakfast that morning; I had nothing to barf up. We had already spent 2 extra days in Ometepe and Katie had missed the first day and a half of her solar culture course in Sabana Grande. So, we took a cab straight from the ferry port for 2.5 hours to the bus station in Managua, then we took another ¨express¨ bus to Ocotal and finished off our 13 hour travel day with a 1 mile up hill walk from the bus stop to our cozy mud home in the mountains. It was a fun vacation but maybe a little too heavy on the adventure. At least we got a chance to show Katie the real Nicaragua.

another solar installation adventure

2007-12-22T11:59:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday night I got word from my German volunteer buddy that Suni Solar (a solar panel company that is affiliated with Grupo Fenix) had called up to ask if we want to join them on some solar installations the week before Christmas. I got the call at about 8pm on Saturday night and decided that it was a great opportunity to learn about solar panel installation from the pro´s, even though they wanted me to be ready to leave by 5 am the next morning.

They told me that we would be traveling to a small city called Quilali, still in the north of Nica but farther east. Suni Solar was working with a farm cooperative who was financing their member´s systems. Suni worked it out with the co-op that they would come for the installs when there was enough to do at once to make the shipping and travel economical. Well, they got it right because Suni had 25 solar installations to do in 6 days with only 2 teams of 4-5 people. I planned to go with them for the first two days, then return on the third day so that I could attend a Grupo Fenix meetin in Managua on the following Wednesday.

So Martin and I were ready with our backpacks and tools to meet them at 5 am, and we left at 5:40, because this is Nicaragua and we are lucky they were less than an hour late. We arrived in Quilali at about 11am where we met at the cooperative´s ware house and stocked up our beastly toyota deisel pick up truck with several panels, deep-discharge batteries, tons of wire, compact flourescent bulbs, and all the works. We also picked up two more team members. The truck was packed to the brim, we had our driver/manager Douglas in the front, with both Martin and I crammed into the passenger seat, yes both of us are 6´3¨, and the two technicians, Larry and Emilio somehow both found space in the back. This time we drove only a hour and a half deep into the mountains to find the first installation.

The first instal was for a small young family that was running one of the ventas (small convenience store) for their community. We put up a simple 50 watt panel with 4 bulbs, a power inverter and a charge controller- very typical for Suni Solar. I have to say Suni banged it out fast. Emilio and Larry are total pros, they went to work mounting the panel on the roof, putting up bulbs, switches and wiring it all together in no time, while Martin and I slowly learned how to mount and connect the charge controller, inverter and battery. We had it all done, including a full personalized training session in 3 hours. It was 4pm, and we headed off to install numero dos.

Coincidentally, the next one was his next door neighbor. Unfortunately, that doesn´t mean much in the mountains of Nica. We drove for about 10 minutes down a much rougher, bumpier path, which shocked me because I didn´t think it could get much rougher. After the short 10 minute drive we were met by the next owner in the road. We were all like, yeah we are here already - sweet! I jumped out of the truck, grabbed the 75 pound battery for the system and started walking to the house just to the right of where we stopped. I started entering gate and the man who met us said, no es, esta mas adelante, hasta alli no mas (thats not it, its farther ahead, just over there, no more). I was like, where? I don´t see it. He put his hand on my shoulder and pointed to the top of the mountain,¨arriba, hasta alli no mas¨(up there, up to there, no more). I couldn´t see anything, i was thinking you have got to be kidding me. The path was so bad that even our 4 wheel drive primo truck couldn´t go any farther. I started walking and one is his sons met me on the path. He pointed again to a place at the peak of the mountain and said just up there, no further again. I have been here for 5 months now, I know that ¨hasta alli, no mas¨ is pretty much a bunch of BS, so I hunkered down for the long haul. We walked for 20 minutes straight up hill, me with the seventy-freakin-five pound battery until we arrive at the house, completely hidden by trees, just below the peak of the mountain. I was completely drenched in sweat, it was already starting to get dark and I didn´t even have my tools or my water yet, so I headed back down.

This install was for a much bigger house and had 6 bulbs instead of 4, plus it was almost pitch black by the time we got started so it took a little longer. In these remote locations you work until its done because you can´t afford to go back to the hospedaje to sleep and return tomorrow. We finished at about 9 pm and as a thank you the family gave us a huge ayote, which is a gord-type of thing. We hiked back down to the truck, realizing that the path was much more slick because it had been drizzling nearly the entire time- dry season my butt! This proved to be a really bad sign. We packed up and got in the truck to only get stuck 5 minutes later. We couldn´t get up this one hill. It was pretty steep and had these huge gouges cut in it from the water during wet season. One was right in the middle of the road and was about 2x our tire width and 3/4 its depth and became our nemisis for the next hour. Afer more tries than I could remember we got past it by digging up the ground with our hands (because we forgot the shovel) and racing across the ditch to get across with a little momentum. Douglas lost control just after crossing and crashed into a tree, which left a big dent in the front driver side door. Luckily we were up the hill and ¨thats what trucks are for, yeah!¨ So, since the speeding over the gouge in the hill worked the first time we continued this method as we came across more in our path through out the night. We went over this one big one and as we crossed it at break-neck speed both Martin and I yelped simultaneously from the passenger seat; 20 seconds later we heard Larry banging on the truck yelling ¨parre! parre! Emilio se cayo!¨(stop! stop! Emilio fell off!) We looked at each other and all thought ¨aw $*&t!¨ I got out the truck and shined my light down the path to see Emilio stumbling to his feet about 50 meters back. He had a smile on his face and he was totally fine, thank God for the rain to soften the ground. Emilio was a really good sport about it and the next morning he wasn´t even sore, but you better believe that every time we got back in the truck he sat really low and held on tight.

We didn´t get in until about 11pm so the whole team slept in until 7. While we were checking the inventory and reloading the supplies for our next day of installs Larry realized that we forgot to take the copper ground cable with us from the last install. Result: Martin, Emilio, and I sat on the curb for 3 hours while they drove back through the path from hell to recover the wire, which is really expensive valuing at about US$200 for the reel they left. The entire systems we were installing were worth about US$650, so I understand why it was a big deal. That typifies what working in a 3rd world country is like.

We spent the rest of the day driving between the ¨cities¨of Quilali and Wiwili. Once we finally got to Wiwili at about 4pm we realized that we had to get across a large river called the Rio Coco in order to get to our next instal. We had been searching all day during our trip for a place to cross but everytime we got close we would get word from the locals that it was impassible because the river was too strong or the water was too deep. Once we arrived at Wiwili we realized it was our last chance, if we didn´t cross here we would drive 4 hours out of the way to get to the closest bridge. We pulled up to the river banks and saw a bus (see awesome picture above) and we asked the driver if we could cross. He said no way, and we sat around while Douglas made some phone calls and we contemplated on what we were going to do. Then another local came by and said that we could cross a bit farther down stream. We arrived and it didn´t look any different from up stream, but the local insisted that it was fine and that we could make it in the truck.

I looked at the rushing river and I asked Douglas if he thought we were actually going to cross that, because I thought it was crazy. He talked to the local again and he said no problem, so we went for it. We entered the water and it was pretty deep, the water went about half way up the door of the pick up. We rumbled over the rocks of the riverbed and it was a little freaky to see the water rushing past us, but we were moving. We were about dead center, then we got stuck. We got stuck good. I thought, O my God, I can´t believe we did this, we are going to lose the truck and the thousands of dollars of solar panels and equipment in the back. Douglas was calmly, but urgently revving the enging and shifting gears. The water was getting higher on the door and began rushing in the cracks. The cab was filling up, past my ankle, then finally the truck jolted loose and we got moving again. Then I breathed. We made it the rest of the way with no problems and when we reached the end I opened the door and water poured out of the truck for a good 30 seconds. It was one of the scariest and most exhilarating experiences of my life, and the best part is I got it all on video with my camera! I have to admit, I was so freaked out when we got stuck that my camera work was horrible and I pretty much was just filming my legs, what can I say, I am a rookie. I´ll see if I can load the video sometime, but no promises because it is huge and our connection is, well, Nicaragua.

The install was another 2 hours drive after crossing the river, but it was probably less than 20 miles. The guy at the local cooperative office told us it was only 20 minutes drive. It was deep-mountain-woods-up-hill-perfect-for-a-truck-commercial driving. There were places that tough toyota truck climbed that I still can´t believe we got up. We were lucky this time because there was no rain and the paths were nice and dry. There are no real addresses out here and all along the way we kept stopping for directions to make sure we were still headed to the right town. I kid you not, every single person from about an hour and a half away would say ¨hasta alli no mas¨ We were expecting a 20 minute drive and every person Douglas asked for directions he would interrogate to find out how far ¨hasta alli no mas¨ really was.

We finally arrived at the house and it had already been dark for an hour. We were so far from the rest of the world that our arrival in the truck was the biggest event of the century for the neighborhood. I couldn´t even count how many kids were running around the house, looking over our shoulders, and helping out holding flashlights for us. I guessed it may have peaked at 20 kids, but I gathered a good group of them for a picture. (above) They stole my hat and a couple of the guys´ sunglasses for the picture, they got such a kick out of having their picture taken, which is why some of them are going nuts. We had another late night, but made it back to a hospedaje for the night.

The next morning I left the group to take the bus back to Sabana Grande. What I didn´t realize was the ride I was in for. I got on the bus in Wiwili at 8:30 am and I arrived at Sabana Grande at 5:15 pm. Thats right, nearly nine hours on the bus, a school bus, 3 per seat crammed packed with people, so packed that they had about 20 on top of the bus at one point. Keep in mind, that the bus only passes some of these places once a day-if they are lucky. So I got home feeling dog tired and every part of my body hurt from being folded up into that bus, but I feel pretty good because I helped give light to three families just in time for the holidays.

A little update

2007-12-01T15:18:00.001-06:00

Our trip to the States a couple weeks ago was great. I am so glad we went, it was a much hended break and worth every penny. Sean and Kate´s wedding was a throw-down as expected and the Hokies are still marching on. (I am listening to the championship as I write on commercials)

Comming back to Nica has been good too. We are finally getting to where I want to be; I have tons of useful projects going and I have been busy all day every day since my return. This is great for me but a little bad for you all since I don’t have nearly the time I used to for blogging.

We have plenty going on. The big inauguration for the Noble workshop for solar production on December 12th and we are all working like maniacs to get ready, because as usual none if the Nicas were interested in getting anything done until the red alert goes on 2 weeks before. I am working on repairing and tuning up 12 solar cookers so they are ready for use and display at the inauguration. There also a big project that we are all working on to build a gravel paved path way from the highway to the center, which is only about 50 yards but a TON of work! I totally respect the guys who build new roads. I just spent three days under the Nica sun with a pick ax digging ditches. We are also planning all the details of the celebration and all that stuff, which I really don´t like, but its necessary.

My scholarship program is in full swing now, we have finished all our policies and rules and are now receiving applications from the students. We are hoping to pass out between 8 and 12 full scholarships for secondary school to the kids of women in the Mujeres Solares de Totogalpa group.

Along with all that going on Jenny and I decided to join our fellow volunteer buddies Julio and Martin on a crazy overnight full moon hike up the volcano Telica, near the pacific city Leon. The hike deserves its own blog, so I won´t ruin all the fun until I have time to get it down.

Gotta go, Hokies just took the lead! Go Hokies!

Van Dame doesn’t speak English

2007-12-01T14:36:00.000-06:00

Our host family has a dog, Van Dame, I can only assume that they named him after the action movie star; for some reason the Nicas are all about the violent movies with plots no deeper than 2 Pac’s lyrics. Despite the goofy name Van Dame is a great dog. He is so excited whenever we come home. He is partially trained as a guard dog by Marcio to protect the chickens and to ward off nighttime intruders. Needless to say, Van Dame is damn smart. When we come up to the gate he knows instantly that we are friend, not foe, and greets us with his tail wagging. When we get home after dark often times by the time we get to the top of the hill he is already waiting for us at the gate and he will escort us for the 100 yards to the house. Sometimes he runs ahead of us and takes a lap around the house before we get there; checking things out to make sure it is all clear. Marcio just has to make this squeaky kissy noise to Van Dame and his ears perk straight up, his head pops up and he will run out sweeping the property doing for unwelcome guests.

I have always wanted a dog, but with out any responsibility or pain in the butt early morning walks, shoes chewed up, or poop in the house and now I’ve got it. Now its great, Van Dame will come up to our house and visit us every morning to eat our stale bread or what ever we dropped on the floor at breakfast, and sometimes a special treat. At dinner when there is something I just don’t like (like slimy cooked plantains) I can just slip it to him real quick so no one will notice. He knows when I want him to take care of it fast so we don’t get caught and he’ll sneak up next to my chair real slyly and gobble it up in seconds.

The funny thing is that when talking to Van Dame I still have to deal with the language barrier. He doesn’t get “sit”, “come”, “stay” or any of those things; actually, I don’t think he understands them in Spanish either. He only responds to “veni” “afuera”, “si”, and “no”. Sometimes I forget and I tell him sit or hold on in English and he has no idea what I am saying, I change back to Spanish and he responds right away. Its interesting because its just something that you never think about, but all the dogs here only speak Spanish.

Speaking of dogs, there is a totally different dog culture in Nica. All of the dogs roam free all the time. They have TONS of land and open farm area to play around in. None of them have tags or collars or anything though. Basically the only way you know if it’s a stray or not is if you know the dog or who it belongs to. They have a pretty good life. None of them are spayed or neutered, which was kind of weird for us at first because we aren’t used to seeing dogs with all those extra parts. They all have pretty much complete free roam of where ever they want to go, but they always come back home. Its like they have their own social network, Van Dame even has a couple girl friends; although at times that seems like the only social interaction aside from fighting with each other. So, its totally not weird to just pass a dog on the road walking the other direction; you just look at him and he looks at you, just like as if you were both people and we continue walking by.

Most of the dogs pretty much pay no mind to people coming by except if they think you have food for them. At night they get pretty territorial and seemingly more aggressive near their own property. Even if you are on the path, they will bark like crazy and some times run out at you. Luckily they are all a bunch of chickens though and all you have to do is turn around and yell back at them—just make sure you do it in Spanish though!

Cleaning Shoes

2007-11-03T12:28:00.001-06:00

You will be happy to know that the rains have stopped. I was getting pretty sick of it for a while there, but now we are enjoying beautiful weather. I hardly ever smell mildew anymore… except when I walk near the shoe rack. To combat that, today I’m soaking my sneaks in a bath of bleach water to get them ready for the States. C.J. doesn’t want to clean his… he is planning to buy new ones in VA and just chuck the old.

I have recently realized that the Nicas clean their shoes a lot. I could never figure out why my clothes soaking bucked was always full of really muddy water when I went to wash the clothes, but then last week Alejandra ran ahead of me to dump it out and mentioned that Jeni was just washing her shoes. Of course, she may have told me this 20 times before, and I just didn’t understand until now. Either way, it makes sense... and all the Nicas probably think the gringos are really gross for wearing their muddy shoes. I kind of take the approach that ¨well, they´re just going to get muddy again,¨ but you can always say that, I guess. I’m just glad that the rainy season is over and that the roads, and my shoes, get a chance to dry out.

Two weekends ago, all the volunteers were thinking of taking a trip to somewhere new in Central America to have an adventure and renew our Visas. We ended up canceling the trip, because of the hassle and especially because of all the rain we’d had lately. Instead, C.J. and I went to Estelí for the day. We had read in our tour book that there was a really cool museum called Estelimar which has dinosaurs made out of car parts that are operated by solar energy.

Well, after 4 or 5 sets of crappy Nicaraguan directions and 45 minutes of walking, we found ourselves with our shoes and pants caked in mud up to our ankles and with Estelimar nowhere in sight. Finally we gave up and flagged a taxi who charged us about 10 times what he should have to drive us two minutes down the road to the museum (gringo pricing!) When we finally got there we found 6 or 7 rusty old dinosaurs with rinky-dink simple machines that ¨operate¨ them. And let me tell you about the solar powered one… yeah, it was a triceratops with a solar panel on its back and lights for eyes. When you turn it on, the eyes light up… freakin´ fascinating!
So that was a waste, fortunately, on the way back we were able to hitch a ride in a truck bed and avoid the massive road lakes. That was really nice, but then it proceeded to rain the rest of the day. My shoes still haven´t recovered… thus, the bleach bath.

We Won a National Award!

2007-11-01T17:03:00.000-06:00

I think I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs that I was working on a paper based on the project I worked on for the 22 solar cookers we built for the mayor of Esteli. The paper I wrote was for a national competition in the use of renewable energy and energy savings projects sponsored by Eurocentro, a division of the European Union. The challenge for me was that the paper was totally in Spanish and I had very limited help from the Nicas because it was such a busy time. Anyway, we got a phone call last Monday and we were invited to take 10 members from our organization on an expenses paid trip to the award ceremony in Managua. I was also told that only the winners get invited.

It was a really exciting opportunity for the women because they are all pretty poor and don’t get the opportunity to hop on a bus to Managua for a trip or get all dressed up for a high class formal event like this. The award ceremony was really nice. They held it in the auditorium of the Central Bank of Nicaragua. There were ambassadors, tons of organization leaders, news cameras, and journalists attending. They started with the honorable mentions and gave a presentation on each winning project along with a short slide show of a few pictures from their work. We won second prize, which sent us home with a big trophy and a check for C$8,000! (about US$430) First place was another solar cooker project that had been in the works since 1993, so I didn’t feel bad about being second place to them since it was more of a lifetime achievement award and our project had only been over the past few months.

All the women were really excited and winning the award was a great motivator. I have to say that I am really proud of myself too. I worked on the winning project for a month, wrote the paper with some help on grammar, and took all the pictures used in the slide show. Even though I am a dumb gringo with broken Spanish, I think I made a worth while contribution to the community.

Its been a month

2007-11-01T17:02:00.000-06:00

I know its been a month. I haven’t posted and its all my fault. So I am just going to use this entry to catch you guys up on everything that has been going on. I am probably notorious for my long blog entries, but I think this one will take the cake, so get a comfy chair and read up.

Its been pretty busy and my trips to the internet café have been fewer. I also got into the habit of trying to write my blogs in the café while I was on the clock and that’s a bad thing. I was finding that I just wouldn’t have enough time to write after I got all my other work done. Ok, enough excuses, I guess I just mean that I am sorry to our blog fans, now back to business.

Where to begin? I think I wrote about all the big organizational meetings we had in Managua to plan for the next quarter of projects and the 2008 annual plan back at the very end of September. Out of this meeting came a lot of excitement and forward momentum on the projects. Since that meeting it has been very busy for the leaders and volunteers, which is a good thing. If there is anything I hate it is not knowing what I should be doing and being bored and unproductive while I am here donating my time for a year. We are finally getting organized and getting things done, which I have learned is completely out of character for a sustainable development NGO, especially one on such a tight budget. Hopefully we can help turn that around.

The biggest project is the Solar Center, which is the one Jenny is helping to manage. We have $8,000 left on the grant for the project and a million things to do with it. Basically all the volunteers and leadership team is involved in executing this project for the next quarter. We have finally finished a beautiful building now complete with a ceramic tile teja roof (these are the tiles that are somewhat characteristic of tropical places and look like halves of ceramic pipe lined up next to each other.) The Solar Center has a gorgeous maroon tile floor and beautiful hand made solid wood doors and windows – all made by my expert carpenter host Don Marcio.

Now that we the building is done you would think that we can blow the $8,000 on all kinds of other good projects, wrong! There are so many details left to consider. One is that we have to build up the earth around the foundation so that we can create a reasonable slope away from it and prevent water from pooling at the base. This means that we will have to truck in dirt from somewhere. We need a permanent pump house instead of just a hastily built wooden shack. We need furniture for the inside, a front gate, money for taxes and permits, fix the entrance ramp, and save some money for the big inauguration on Dec. 12th.

We also realized that security is a big deal and our building has none, except for doors and windows that have dead bolts. In Nica, its important to have security, the polices are few and far between, especially out here in the country. Anything that doesn’t have bars in front of it has a good potential of being kicked in or broken into, expecially if there are valuable items inside. We are hoping to use one of the rooms for an office, which will have computers and such. We will also have one room as a stock room with all the wood and other supplies for the work shops. Another thing that we decided is that we will have one room designated for the PV panel workshop and assembly. This means that we could have thousands of dollars worth of PV solar cells and equipment such as batteries and charge controllers in the building as well. Long story short is that we need good security.

I have been put in charge of the security plan along with another volunteer from Canada, Noel. The challenge is that with the teja tile roof, it is very difficult to have a secure building. The tejas are just set up on the roof one on top of another and the bottom row is cemented in. The rest can easily be lifted up and someone could descend down from the ceiling into which ever room they choose. The other volunteer couple here (Charlotte and Johnathan) have already been a victim to this; they had a laptop, mp3 player, and camera stolen while they were away on a weekend trip. Noel and I are the right guys for the job and we have got a great, crazy security system all planned out. First we are going to have motion sensor spot lights on all four corners of the building. This should deter most approaching people because it is something very uncommon for Nica. We will also have a simple alarm system with a couple motion sensor lights inside that will be set off if any one enters the building. I have no idea how this is all going to work with the bats, large bugs, and stray dogs passing through the perimeter and occasionally inside during the night; hopefully we won’t drive the neighbors nuts with our lights and alarms. In addition to the motion sensor systems we will also put up the ever so popular berja, which is fancy metal bars, over the windows and ceilings of two secure rooms. The secure rooms are the office and “bodega” or stock room. The other problem with the teja roof is that it is like all other adobe buildings in Nica and it has a 6” gap between the top of the wall and the roof. Also, on the sides of the roof, where there would be a large triangular opening if you didn’t fill it in, there are huge triangular openings. Anyone with a ladder can just climb up the wall and jump in. So to combat this problem we are going to install a matrix of welded rebar over our two secure rooms, which will appear much like a drop ceiling made of a metal grid. It should be relatively unnoticeable and it won’t contradict the classic adobe architectural intent of having an open aired breezy building that is naturally cooled. I have to say that this building is sweet to sit in. It is easily the coolest building around, which is a big advantage when the temperatures get to mid 80’s daily and higher in April and May. The solar center also already has a chest high barbed wire fence around the perimeter of the whole property. We will be putting a large locking iron gate, big enough for a truck to pass through, in the opening of the fence along with a small door for people to enter. Our final security provision will be a guard shack on the front corner of the property. We plan to install all of our systems as soon as possible, then once the solar cooker and PV workshops get up and running with a stable source of income, we can pay a company for a professional security guard every night. The reason why we are so worried about security is that before I arrived they had already installed a solar panel with a pump for the well to help them get enough water to make the adobe bricks. The PV panels are very expensive and the one 75 watt panel was mounted on top of the pump house, which was stolen one night. This was a huge setback for the community and we can’t afford to have that happen again. I forgot to mention that the entire solar center including all the power tools and saws that we will have for the workshops will all be run completely off grid exclusively by solar PV electricity. That means we will be hooking everything up to 12 Volt DC power or a 120 Volt AC inverter. In the end the plan is to have as many as twelve 75 Watt PV panels outside. These PV panels and their support equipment have their own security strategy as well. The 2 PV panels that we currently have are mounted on a stand alone frame that is at the roof height. The panels were contrarily mounted onto the North side of the building solely for the advantage that the nearby neighbor, and member of the Mujeres Solares de Totogalpa, would be able to keep an eye on them from her house. We are planning to have every mounted panel be permanently welded to the frames, which are cemented into the ground so that they cannot be taken. Also, the batteries and charge controller will be placed inside a solid wood locking box inside the office, with venting for hydrogen off-gassing, of course. That’s our security plan, it will cost us about US$1500 to implement, with the biggest ticket items being the metal bars in front of the windows and above the secure rooms. I hope it works!

Along with the security project I have also been working with one of the local leaders, Nimia, on the Solar Production project. The Body Shop from England donated US$9400 to the women a year ago to help them start up their business of making and selling solar products such as solar cookers, solar driers and the products that can be made using them; like solar cooked food, and dried medicinal herbs. We have used about half of the money and I have to turn in a report in English (thank God) to the Body Shop on how we used their money and what we are planning for the rest of it.

One of the things that we have done recently with the money is carpentry training sessions for a small group of the women who will be building solar ovens and solar driers in the workshop. The course was taught by none other than our host Marcio. I attended the sessions to take photos and I also ended up unexpectedly learning a few things about carpentry. One thing that is very different here is that they don’t have a Home Depot where you can buy all your wood. The wood is all purchase directly from the guy who cuts the trees and prepares it. First of all the wood comes in very rustic fashion, its rough and in big blocks with no standard sizes for the planks. Everything has to be cut to size. If you want a 2x4 you may be cutting it from a 10x6. Also all the wood has to be shaved, smoothed and squared with a planer before you use it. I am so used to the wood coming all smooth and pretreated, and cut to standard dimensions straight from the store. I learned out to properly use a planer, which is definitely a skill that is developed over years of practice. In the end the women built two benches and two stools for the workshop at the solar center. All beautiful natural pieces made from solid pine.

The Solar Production grant has about $4,300 left in it and we also have a million things to do with a limited amount of money. Both type of solar production, agricultural and carpentry, need completed tool sets to be successful. We have planned to spend $630 on tools. We also are planning on having a series of classes for all the women to learn how to pack their dried fruits, herbs, and toasted coffee correctly. Along with learning how to pack correctly we also need the equipment to do it, so we have budgeted for a bag sealer, vacuum packer, and a label printer. We need to use some of the Solar production money to extend the telephone and cable lines into the solar center so that we can conduct a legitimate business with internet access for research and a land line telephone, which will set us back about $2000. We also need to use the money for research, design improvement and prototyping, more seeds to plant the herbs and fruits, and some money to move all the equipment we have from the personal houses of the Mujeres Solares to the solar center. So I have been working on this report and budget plan for a while. Another challenge we have to deal with is bureaucracy. For anything that we buy, whether its goods or services, we are required to get three written quotes before the money is sent from the office in Managua.
In addition to my involvement with the solar center security and the Solar Production grant, I have also been working on several other smaller projects. The summer volunteers from Cornell left some money behind for several projects around the community that they were unable to get to. One project is the reparation of the 28 solar cookers dispersed around the community. One problem that many women have with using the solar cookers is that some of them are old and damaged and others have broken glass tops that just don’t retain heat anymore. So I spent an entire week traveling from house to house to review each and every cooker individually and taking detailed notes on everything that wasn’t right. I also made a budget for the items we will need to purchase, including the three written quotes for every darn thing down to the replacement hinges. We have assembled a solar cooker reparation team and once the money is sent in from Managua we will buy the parts and probably spend two weeks repairing the ovens, just in time for the sunny season.

I am also still working on the scholarships for secondary school with a small committee of the women. We have written up a set of fair, objective selection criteria, complete with required activities for the recipients. Along with the new scholarships that will start with the new school year in February, the Cornell volunteers also left some money for a separate scholarship. So I have also been administering an essay contest in sustainable energy. If anyone is interested in donating to the secondary school scholarships please email me (cjcolavito@gmail.com) and I can tell you how to do it.

I know that being busy is no excuse for neglecting the blog, but its true, I actually do work hard here in Nica. The great thing is that even though I work hard, don’t get paid a penny, I have never been less stressed in my entire life. The occasional surprise tarantula crawling down the wall at night gets my heart going, but that stress is only momentary.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2007-10-12T10:47:00.000-06:00

So it´s been raining for days and days and it is starting to put me into a bad funk. Our laundry has become an insurmountable pile, but even if I wash the clothes, they won´t dry and will mildew. I hate mildew and I smell it everywhere. I have dreams about clean apartments with bathrooms and washing machines. Well, on the good days I do. On the bad days I dream that there are snakes in our bed and I wake up screaming. C.J. says that I talk a lot in my sleep now - mostly stressed or anxious babbling. I´m sure I´m probably grinding my teeth too, but wearing a mouth piece is just so unattractive.

We´ve been trying to make our home more comfortable here. We bought a hammock, which has been a big improvement, but we didn´t get the nice one that we really wanted. When we were in Managua (the last two times) we never had a free minute to buy one, so we settled on a plastic one, sold in Ocotal for 50 cords ($2.50), which Noel said is quite comfortable. He was right, and I was enjoying our hammock until I sat on Charlotte´s again. Now I´m back to really wanting a soft rope hammock.

Around here it just rains and rains. The roads are horrible and my feet are perpetually wet and muddy. I can´t wait to visit the States in November. I´m so excited to see everyone and to enjoy all the comforts of home. It´s going to be hard to come back.

The Real Rain

2007-10-06T19:04:00.000-06:00

Jenny and I got to Nica at the very end of July, which is right about mid-way through the rainy season. I figured that we were right in the meat of it and any rain we have seen in the last 2 months is a good sample of the rainy season. Wrong! I have recently learned that just before rainy season turns into don’t-rain-for-6-months-season, it gives one last good shot. Apparently October and the beginning of November are the last hurrah of rainy season and it really kicks up a notch. Before this shift rainy season was really no big deal. We would get rain nearly every evening with out fail and every once in a while there would be a down pour, but usually nothing special. The paths all through Sabana Grande are dirt and mud and of course after a good rain the “roads” would get much muddier and we have a few large pool areas that are hard to pass through, but all in all its reasonable.

Now let me tell you about the real rain. Our first indication that the season was changing was about a week ago. Jenny and I left on a Friday afternoon for Ocotal around 1pm, we did our usual thing, then returned on the 5:45 bus. Another thing that I am noticing this season is that the night is coming sooner and on this day it was pretty much pitch dark by 6:00 instead of 6:30. I realized that it had started raining while we were at the internet café but didn’t think much of it. By the time we left the café it was a drizzle and when we arrived at our stop the rain was over. We started our hike back and dealt with the normal sloshy muddiness that is typical right after the rain. A few minutes into our trek we just stopped and stared. I wish I had my camera. An area that was bone dry with a track of grass in the middle that was about 6” high was completely under rushing water. We couldn’t see the grass; it had turned into a river sometime between when we left at one and when we came back. Usually there is a rock, a dry patch, or a shoulder on the road that you can use to pass the really wet muddy parts or the large pools of water that gather. This time there was nothing, just a rushing river. You could see the water pouring in both sides from the neighboring fields joining the river running down the middle of the path. Not a single rock or patch or grass sticking up to at least indicate where it was shallower. So we stared. We were just amazed that this path that was completely bone dry when we left had turned into a river in just a few hours. The river was kind of cutting through the path way and we could see land again about 15 feet ahead, muddy land, but better than a river. It was too far to jump with a full back pack so I decided to take a couple huge steps and try to get out of it with only one wet foot. Jenny did the same and we continued through the mud.

A few minutes ahead we came across the same thing, only this time it was in an area that was usually a little muddy. Now, I like to tell a good story, but this is purely factual. If the last one was a river, then this was nearly worthy of rafting. Well, at least I wish I had a raft. We couldn’t see land on the other side. It was bigger, deeper, and flowing faster. There was no way around and I was actually pretty nervous about just walking through this one because it looked so menacing. We stood there and stared again, discussing back and forth about what we should do. While we were standing there baffled, a small old Nicaraguan man passed by, paused, and then started walking right through the river like it was something he expected. I figured if he can do it so can we. The river lasted for about 40 yards of pure rushing water; it was as deep as half way up my shin, I estimate between a foot-foot and a half. We crept through carefully, occasionally stepping into a really deep spot where a normal puddle would have been, until we finally reached higher ground. When we arrived at home our host family thought it was hysterical how wet we got and then mentioned that they meant to warn us about this time of year. Marcio said that we shouldn’t come home in the late afternoon or evening because that’s when it’s flooded the worst. He said next time skip the bus and pay the 70 cordobas for a cab to get home. I have no idea how a cab would drive through that, but Marcio insists that they will do it and I am happy to pay less than US$4 for it. It took my shoes 4 days in the sun to finally dry out. In the end it was actually kind of fun; Jenny won’t admit that she liked it but she was laughing the whole time.

We´re Comming Home!

2007-09-28T10:39:00.000-06:00

I have been toiling over the thought of missing my best friends wedding (Sean McC) for months since I learned he was engaged and planned the wedding for while Jenny and I are in Nica. How dare him not to check with me before proposing! I wasn´t expecting it until early next year. But seriously he is getting married to a beautiful young lady named Kate and Jenny and I could tell from the very beginning that they were a great match. So to my point, we are coming home to attend the wedding, and I even get to be a groomsman!

We will be coming home late on Nov. 6th into DCA (Washington Reagan), then returning on Nov. 12th afternoon out of DCA. It will be only 5 full days at home but I am sure we will cherish every minute of it. I just couldn´t miss Sean´s, Seany Bawny´s, Bon McMarfney´s wedding. Oh yeah, I think its Kate´s too.

I did a last minute flight check and found $100 each way/person tickets with Spirit airlines out of Managua. So we got a crazy deal and I said if I get a crazy deal, I am there, so here we come. You know me, there is no way I could do it with out a crazy deal. I can´t believe I found one this late in the game, damn I am good!

We also get to be home for Katie K´s birthday and hopefully we will see our adorable neice and nephew too. I can´t wait to be taking a real shower and stuffing up toilets again. I also am already dreaming about Mom´s cooking, and maybe even a night cuddled up on the couch to watch a movie (with Jenny of course). I´ll also be stocking up on all kinds of supplies and donations to bring back to the community with us so we will be posting some needs to give you all a heads up when we have some details.

Sorry for all you C.J. Colavito fans who won´t be in NOVA during this time, the chances that Jenny and I will travel anywhere else are about zero. I still love you all and appreciate your support.

Hermanos Locos

2007-09-26T14:24:00.000-06:00

A couple weeks ago our brothers and sister took us on a hike to the mountain top behind our house. We knew it was going to be an adventure when Marcel and Jeni showed up for the trek with a sweat towel and a water bottle. Usually, they just have their flip flops and nothing more! The hike was a lot of fun, but definately tiring - even Van Dam was tired by the time we got to the top. It was worth the hike though; we were rewarded with amazing views of the village. The kids also had a lot of fun hanging out at the top of the mountain. Above is a clip of Harold jumping off a cliff. Enjoy!!

Pictures of Cooker Course in Esteli

2007-09-26T13:44:00.000-06:00

Here are the pictures that C.J. took at the Solar Cooker training in Esteli.

View Photos

Sometimes it’s hard to pay attention

2007-09-22T14:31:00.000-06:00

It’s Hard to pay attention in la iglesia (church) to be specific. Mom, you will be happy to hear that Jenny and I have been good Catholics here and we have been going to the local service on Sundays. It is sometimes very hard to pay attention though. Of course the obvious reason is that it is all in Spanish and I easily get lost, especially during the homily, but there is a lot more going on there than just a guy rattling off God’s message in Nicañol. First of all it seems like the women of the village use church as their forum for the weekly breast feeding contest. I don’t think there is a week that goes by where less than 7 or 8 women breast feed during mass. I am not just talking infants here either, there are kids that barely fit in mom’s lap who are chowing down. Also, last time I checked, it wasn’t necessary to breast feed your baby more than once an hour, but some of the women will go a few rounds during one service. The only explanation that I could come up with is that it must be the weekly contest.

The breast feeding is a little weird and I guess just a cultural difference, but all in all not that distracting. What is distracting is what some of the kids do during mass. So I know that sometimes there is a stray kid or two back home at church that gets loose and makes a dash up the aisle, but that is more the exception than the rule. In Sabana Grande it seems like everyone just lets their kids have free roam around the church. Most people just focus right on the service as if there is nothing going on, unless one of them jumps in their lap. The community here is so small and close knit that all the kids feel comfortable with everyone. Sometimes I can’t tell who the parents are because the kids have bounced between so many laps. The other week there was this one little boy that must have been about 2 ½ was bouncing between his grandmother in the seat directly in front of me and his family, a few aisles back. He started off by just switching back and forth like 10 times during the readings. Then he returned once with a small bag of chips that was torn open so carelessly that it was torn all down the middle and the chips were precariously balancing in a little pocket. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, just waiting for the chips to spill all over the floor. Sure enough he crashed into grandma’s lap and left a pile of chips in her skirt with out her knowing. Grandma noticed the chips in her lap and was thoroughly ticked about it, then gathered them up as carefully as possible and put them back into his broken bag and sent him on his way. Just as I was thinking what was going to happen to all the chips on the floor underneath the seat and in the aisle, a stray dog roamed in and took care of the mess for us—how convenient. Then a few minutes later the boy returned, this time chewing something that I figured was gum. Then grandma suddenly got really mad and upset and tried to wrestle the gum out of his mouth. Then a lady one aisle ahead joined in and shoved her finger in his mouth. The little rascal wiggled free and ran away laughing, still chewing the gum. I then realized why they were so upset; none of them had given him gum. He must have found it on the floor or stuck to the bottom of another seat. At this point I just couldn’t contain myself and I started laughing, which got Jenny laughing and it took all I had to keep quiet and not draw attention. Imagine all that this one boy was doing, then add 3 or 4 other kids acting the same in a small church of about 100-150 people. It’s hard to pay attention. Add to that a bat or two hanging from the rafters trying to sleep, but stirring every so often, just enough to keep Jenny worrying that one might dive bomb her.

Another thing that makes it hard to keep up is that even though they say you can always find familiarity in catholic mass around the world because the same readings are used every where, I doesn’t seem like mass is the same each week here. There is always something a little different. For example, many times I definitely notice that they never consecrate the Eucharist and we sometimes skip the Our Father. Some weeks we say the Creed, others we don’t. A couple weeks ago mass went on for over 2 hours and we spent a chunk of 30 minutes straight kneeling on hard stone floor alternating between prayers and singing. We learned that its hard to tell when mass has officially ended because most people don’t get up and leave. They just chat amongst each other for a while, then sometimes start back up into singing and praying for another hour. Since the week of kneeling Jenny always tries to get us out before we get pulled into “extra innings”. I never know what to expect each week.

Aside from all the distractions the mass is beautiful. They don’t have a normal preist anymore because in our second week here he actually passed away from a heart attack at 4am on a Sunday morning. Mass was pretty sad that week, though I didn’t realize why until Alejandra explained it to me afterwards. Usually they have one of about 6 different guys take over as the “MC” who reads the gospel and gives the homily. It keeps it interesting with different styles each week and new faces. They also have a lively music group, which includes an electric guitar, and a couple acoustic guitars. The congregation is very active and there is even a Southern Baptist feel with Amens and responses during the homily. Most people sing too, though I haven’t figured out the words to their most common songs yet. I think I am slowly understanding more and more of it each week. I hope by the end of the year I’ll actually know a few of the songs.

A place to chill

2007-09-22T14:30:00.002-06:00

At the beginning of football season Jenny and I found our favorite post game spot. There happens to be a pretty decent sports bar in Ocotal that serves an awesome steak, beers at temperatures below freezing, and delicious fries. Finally, a retreat where we can eat some American style food and watch sports! They even have ESPN and ESPN2. Unfortunately, ESPN here runs different programming than the one in the states. Uncle Dan, you would love it, they seem to have a Yankees game on nearly every time we go there. Baseball is the big sport of Nica, everyone around here is always wearing MLB hats. Sometimes I wonder if some of them even know what it means. It’s just the cool thing to wear so many people just randomly have an Atlanta Braves hat or Marlins, but most commonly the Yankees. The bar owner is a Yankees fan too and he’s all about it. The great thing is that a little American culture can be found in a pinch when we really need it. The best part is ESPN2 runs the same program as the states, including college football highlights and everything is in English! Heck yeah! The agenda for every Saturday is hit up the internet café to catch the game on yahoo radio, then the good ‘ol Deportivo for a steak, chicken strips, and some Hokie highlights. I have to say, thank God for Tyrod Taylor. Hokie Nation can look forward to a bunch more offensive highlights this year.

Another place worth noting is that we found an Italian Pizzeria in Ocotal!! Yes, that’s right, after 2 months of no pizza we found a place that knows how to find cheese that melts. I don’t think I have mentioned the stuff they call cheese here. It’s awful. It is sooooo salty that you need a whole glass of water with every bite. It’s chunky and crumbly like feta but doesn’t really taste anything like it. It tastes like salt, funky moldy salt. It also doesn’t melt. I didn’t know it was possible, but there is such a thing a cheese that doesn’t melt. I would say that I miss cheese a lot, or should I say missed cheese a lot. Now we have our pizza place. Cos, if you ever have to make a tech service call to Ocotal, you are in luck, they have pizza with chicken. They also have Hawaiian style and salami and others that I haven’t tried yet. The only bad thing is that it’s not at those loveable dirt cheap Nica prices; it costs about 3 nights stay in a crappy dorm-like hotel for a pizza pie ($8).

Business trip to Estelí

2007-09-22T14:30:00.001-06:00

This week I got to travel with some of the women from the Mujeres Solares de Totogalpa to help out with the 1 day training session that accompanied the delivery of the 22 solar cookers for the mayor of Estelí.

Let me start off with saying that business trips with Grupo Fenix are quite a bit different from the business trips I used to take with Printpack. With Printpack I would usually fly with a preferred airline, and because I used them so much I would get special treatment like upgrades, exit row seats, priority security line and all kinds of little perks like that. Then I would stay in a pretty nice hotel like Holiday Inn or something and they would also give me special treatment for being a frequent guest. I would get the nice big room with the fridge, couch, mini-bar, and of course the king size bed with a decent TV to catch some ESPN highlights before bed, even sometimes a candy on my pillow. Don’t get me wrong, business travel with Printpack was often really stressful and had long hours of work and travel, but at least you were treated well.

“Business travel” with a non-profit NGO is a totally different experience. With my travel experience I started off with carrying my bag and my back pack (heavy because they were full of painting and cooking supplies) about a mile walk to the bus stop. Then I took the public bus to Ocotal and waited for my transfer to Esteli. It’s nothing like waiting for your connecting flight in the airport. There is no fighting for a seat next to an outlet so you can charge the cell and plug in the laptop. You just fight for a seat that doesn’t have soda spilled all over it or a stray dog sitting next to you. Of course while I waited I got all kinds of attention from vendors. I started getting self conscious about my shoes when a third guy offered to shine them for me.

Next we got onto the “Expresso” bus to Esteli. There are two types of buses, the “Expresso” and the “Routeado”. The Routeado is basically the version that stops at every bus stop and makes a one hour ride into 2.5 hours. If you accidentally get on a routeado and intended to take the expresso, you are in for a ride. The expresso surprisingly has assigned seats just like the airlines, except instead of a lighted placard to tell you the number, it is scribbled in sharpie on the wall. Also, if you thought the plane seats were cramped, try riding the same bus you used to take to elementary school as an adult. Yeah, so I remember not being able to fit my legs into the seats when I was in 6th grade, they really don’t fit now. The expresso isn’t really that bad beyond the tiny seats; we ride with the windows down taking in the fresh mountain air and some of the best landscape views you can see.

The hotel is by far the best part. A reasonable deal on a room while traveling in the States is about 100 bucks. Our budget for this trip: $6 each. We found a “hotel” for $2.50. Yes, that’s right $2.50 a night can buy you a place to sleep. Amazing. Unfortunately, I have learned being wise beyond my years is that price isn’t everything—unless you are a non-profit NGO. There were 3 middle-aged women and 2 señoritas with us, and at first the hospedaje owner wanted to put us all in one room. We finally talked him down to a room for the women, one for the señoritas and a closet sized thing for me. My room was pretty small. We had to wiggle the door to get it open because the bed was partially in the way. The room was about 3 single beds wide and had 2 single beds in it. There was an isle in the middle exactly the width of the door. The length of the room was exactly the length of the twin beds. Unfortunately, I am longer than the room was, so I curled up for the night. There was no mint on the pillow; actually there was no pillow case on the pillow, or sheets on the bed. The bathroom was in the hallway. There was one bath room for the whole hospedaje with one toilet and one shower and a sink outside in the hallway. I asked for some sheets and a towel and he promptly brought me something that looks like the rag for drying your car that I used as a towel and a top sheet, nothing else. I also asked if I could turn on my fan so that I could try to dry my clothes, which were soaking wet from walking 6 blocks in the pouring rain to get there. He said “no problemo Senor!”, and quickly returned with a piece of cord with a plug on one end and nothing on the other. He stripped with wire with his teeth, twisted them together with the wires of the fan, and then taped them up with masking tape. The real problem was when he went to plug it in the plug was one of those safety ones that had one fat prong and one skinny one, which didn’t fit. He tried his hardest to jam it in, and then left and returned with a grinding stone. He made the plug fit. He didn’t have much to work with, but darn good service! I had the fan on all night, which dried my clothes and provided a little white noise so I could sleep. I actually slept pretty well and the bed was more comfortable than the one I have in Sabana Grande.

The next morning I was relatively refreshed and ready for our solar cooker training class. Teaching about solar cookers is pretty cool. It’s a technology that has been around for a long time but not a lot of people know about it or understand it. It’s kind of feels analogous to spreading the word that Jesus came from heaven to save us. We’re telling these women, look, you don’t have to spend 15 hours a week looking for wood anymore, you don’t have to drop 15% of your income on gas; these things can fully cook chicken on a cloudy day! It’s a cultural shift because you have to prepare lunch by 9:30 or 10 am and get it in the oven, but if they are willing to make a change these wooden boxes can actually cook just about anything. So we gave our class with demonstration and food tasting to about 30 people who come from 13 different area schools where the 22 cookers will be distributed. The cool thing is that these schools are starting their own programs to teach the students and even bring in their parents to show them how solar cookers work. If this catches Grupo Fenix could be making a lot more solar ovens. Apparently the mayor of Esteli is known for being pretty liberal and on the cutting edge of these types of social movements.

After the training we took a taxi to the bus stop. We took the first bus that came by that was headed back to Ocotal. It was a routeado, but no big deal; I’d say it was all worth it. I didn’t even feel stressed for one minute the whole time.

More Pictures

2007-09-15T14:28:00.000-06:00

Two links to more photo albums.

They include pictures from the pulsa, my wild solar panel installation, and the secondary school parade for the Nica independence day. The second album is pictures from a solar cooker training course done in Sabana Grande for the local women. enjoy!

view photos

second album

Who’s Felix?

2007-09-15T13:30:00.000-06:00

September 13, 2007

One thing that I haven’t discussed in the blog is the weather. And since I’ve had a lot of questions regarding Felix, this seems like a timely topic. To start with Felix – he didn’t affect us at all. We live in the north-west part of Nicaragua, very close to the Honduran border and the hurricane only really affected the east coast of both countries. We wouldn’t have even known about Felix except for the e-mails from the consular and our families – plus we watched the evening news after the fact. It rained of course, but it rains everyday, so we didn’t notice a difference.

Right now is what the Nicas call invierno, meaning winter. It isn’t really winter as we know it in the states… it is just the rainy season. Here in Nicaragua, there are only two seasons: wet and dry. During the wet season, the mornings are usually sunny and in the 80s, and the afternoons are usually rainy and much cooler. Right now it is 5:10PM, raining, and 73 degrees. People keep asking me about the heat here, but it really hasn’t gotten that hot. If you’re out working in the sun, then yeah, it’s hot – but not unbearable. The only time when the heat is uncomfortable is under the tin roofs on a sunny afternoon. We had a spell of mini dry season during our solar culture course, and it got pretty hot in the afternoons. But, out where there was a breeze, in the shade or under a clay roof it was quite pleasant. I guess the worst heat was when we were in Managua – it was really hot at night. Here in the Mountains though, we have to cuddle up to keep warm.

The interesting thing is that winter (wet season) is during summer and summer (dry season) is during winter, as far as the Northern Hemisphere knows it, and Nicaragua is above the equator. So, when summer does come around, it is actually winter, so it won’t be as hot as it would be if summer was during summer. You may doubt my logic, but Marcio said that it gets pretty cold during the nights in December, which is summer. Of course, my other theory is that since there is a 6 mo. drought, the air must be dry, and if you’ve ever been to the desert, you know that it is hot during the day but cold at night.

3 hours into the Nica mountains

2007-09-15T12:29:00.000-06:00

The other day I got to go on my first solar panel installation trip. I kind of thought that I knew what I was getting into but, as with all Nicaraguan adventures, you can never plan for everything. I got the opportunity to fill in because one of the other volunteers that normally go wasn’t going to make it so I was all over it. I was told to show up at the solar work shop at 5 am en punto, which is the Nica way of saying don’t be late. I don’t know about you but 5 am is pretty early, even by Nica campo dwellers’ standards. I got all ready the night before, got to bed by 8:30 pm and woke up well before the crack of dawn at 4:15, about 45 minutes before the crack of dawn to be exact! I showed up so ready that you could swear I was a boy scout—but I wasn’t. I had my backpack with a water bottle full of agua pura, I made up a peanut butter and guayaba jelly sandwich, I did the Colavito thing of packing a million snacks for the trip, I had my wind up flashlight, my rough and tumble jeans, my mountain hiking sneaks and even remembered sunscreen and bug spray- just for you Mom!

I was told it was just a day trip, so no big deal, we will be back by mid afternoon and in plenty of time for dinner. Well, the day started off slow, but this is Nicaragua so no surprise. I got to the workshop at 4:55 am and the whole area was completely dark with not a creature stirring. A minute later I saw Marcos, the head dog of the solar panels, creeping through the darkness to the latrine. I was reaffirmed that the truck would be here any minute to take us and our freshly assembled solar panel to the installation sight. The truck showed up at 6:30, we were on the road by 7:15 am. I didn’t feel too bad because the other volunteer, Julio, was waiting at the bus stop for us since 5:15. We drove to Ocotal, about 20 minutes away, and we stopped at the house of the truck driver for some unknown reason. After 10 minutes of waiting a taxi showed up and I was informed that one of the guys was taking it back to Sabana Grande to get the compact fluorescent bulbs that were forgotten. So they estimated he would be back in 30 min, he was back in 50. We finally got on the road for real at 8:40am—why did I wake up so early?!

The fun started once we got on the road. It was a beautiful sunny day, like it is just about every day here, and there were 5 of us riding in the back of the pickup truck with all the solar system equipment. Pretty much standing room only going about 50 mph down the highway because that was as fast as the truck could handle. So about 45 minutes down the road and we make a sharp left onto a really narrow, REALLY bumpy, dirt mountain road, then we drove on it for nearly 3 more hours. It was actually pretty cool. The weather was just gorgeous, sunny, breezy and getting cooler as we drove deeper into the mountains. We would drive for 30 minutes and see maybe one house with nothing more than mountains and farmland, then we would pass through a small town, lasting about 30 yards, and it seemed like every single person that lived there was on the side of the road staring at us like we were from mars. A big smile and an “adios” would crack the stone looks and I would receive an equally large smile and “adios” in return. We probably passed through 5 or so towns like this. Another cool thing is that the whole way along the road was mostly farm land and all along the sides were many different kinds of fruit trees like jokote (ho-coat-ay), orange, coffee bushes, guayaba, lime, banana, plantain, and probably a bunch more that I just didn’t recognize. You can bet that everyone standing in the back of the pick up truck was leaning and grabbing fresh fruit right off the trees anytime the driver got close enough. It was pretty neat, I don’t really eat fruit and all but I tried a jokote—they are really sour and bitter and taste like crap so tossed it after the first bite, at least I tried it. I think its kind of an acquired taste because the locals love them.

We had been driving for a while, and as far as my mental map of Nica goes I was thinking that Ocotal is only about an hour from the northern border with Honduras and I didn’t think it was possible for us to be driving for another hour an a half after leaving the highway and still be in Nicaragua. I was a little worried because I didn’t have my passport or anything so I sure as heck was hoping that we weren’t crossing any borders. I asked one of the other guys and he said we were still in Nica and then pointed out at the next peak we reached how a few mountain peaks away you could actually see Honduras—cool. So maybe about 30 minutes after I was worrying about crossing the border we come across two guys dressed in full army fatigues and heavily armed with what looked like semi-automatic AK-47’s. They were standing on opposite sides of the road and signaled for us to stop—sh*%! My heart instantly began racing. One of them leaned over to the passenger side window and spoke to Marcos while the other one eyed us up. The conversation took about 20 seconds and then they gave us the big Nica smile, waved us on and said “Que se vayan bien”, which means good travels.

We continued on our ridiculously bumpy path, I just can’t call it a road, and were blessed with some of the most breath-taking country mountain views, which I tried to take pictures of largely unsuccessfully. You should check out our walmart pictures link again to see a bunch of new photos. Another little surprise we had was as we passed around a long curve in the road that dipped down really low we came upon a small stream that we crossed and I looked off to the right to find two women huddled together covering themselves who appeared to be bathing in the stream. No, I did not take a picture; I actually turned away out of respect, and was impressed to see that all the other guys did the same.

We finally got to our destination, which was a small town with a paved road and we stopped in front of a pretty nice looking office; then I realized it wasn’t our destination, we were just there to pick up a couple of people that I think were associated with some group that was helping to pay for the system. So then we had 7 people in the back of the truck with all our equipment and standing room only and got back onto the even bumpier dirt path. We drove for another 10 minutes and coincidentally passed by the guy whose house we were headed to walking with his son. What did we do? Pick ‘em up of course! We then had 9 people in the back of our pick up with 2 in the front, all the equipment and standing room only. We arrived at the house a few minutes later and were greeted by what looked like a whole neighborhood of kids, but I think were all his. I really don’t know how many there were, but I think it was somewhere between 7 and 12. The only reason that I don’t doubt that they all belonged to the owner and his wife is that they all looked just like him.
Edwin estimated that the installation would take about 2 hours, we spent 4. Its nica time baby! We put up one 75 watt PV panel on the back of the house, installed a single deep discharge battery, a charge controller and 4 independent compact fluorescent lights. It was a pretty sweet little system that put a bulb in nearly every room of their house and is now giving night time light to a family for the first time in their lives. I actually thought that 4 hours wasn’t bad considering we assembled the mounting system, put up the panel, mounted the charge controller and wired up for lights throughout the house and had everything hooked up to the system and working before we left. It was a pretty rewarding experience and when we were finishing up and testing the system the little kids were running around yelling “Tenemos luz! Tenemos luz!” (We have light!)

The ride home wasn’t nearly as fun as the ride out to the site. Less than 10 minutes after we left it started down pouring. We found a large sheet of dirty, stinky, black plastic full of holes in the back of the truck and unfolded it and draped it over all of us to minimize the soaking. The rain continued for about an hour, and then finally let up. After it rains in the mountains it’s really cold. It’s also even colder once the sun goes down, and it was pitch black out before the rain even stopped. I didn’t even think about bringing a jacket because, hey, its nica we have temperatures in the mid 80’s every day. We all froze for 3 hours in the back of the truck driving home and the worst part was the 45 minutes on the highway at the end. Just think 50 mph in the back of a pick up truck, 65 degrees out and nothing on but a damp t-shirt and jeans—not cool. I finally got home around 9pm and I wore a sweatshirt to bed all night just to get the cold out of my bones. That was one heck of a one day business trip. I thought Printpack sent me on some boondoggles. I tell you one thing though; I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Only next time I’ll bring my rain jacket.

Tienda Verde

2007-09-14T14:43:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to let everyone know about one of the neat projects going on in Sabana Grande that C.J. and I are not directly involved in, but that Charlotte is heading. It is called Tienda Verde, which means Green Store. The idea is that the women from Mujeres Solares de Totogalpa can use their volunteer hours to purchase donated items. The Tienda Verde is set up once a month with clothes, shampoo, sports equipment, solar ovens, and tons of other great stuff for the women to buy. Most of the items were donated by past volunteers, but some of it comes directly from Grupo Fenix.

The women´s hours are valued at $1 for Tienda Verde purchases, which is actually better than most of them would make at a real job. By tracking and giving value to the volunteer hours, it gives the women motivation to keep working towards their dreams. In addition, the donated items are not given away, but are earned by the women, which gives the items more value.

C.J. and I attended our first Tienda Verde on Saturday, and it seemed to go really well. Our family was able to buy a backpack, shampoo & conditioner, and a new flashlight with some of Alejandra´s hours. It was pretty neat!

Our project got in the national news paper!!!!

2007-09-14T14:18:00.000-06:00

I am so excited, the project I have been working on for the past 5 weeks got in the national news paper: EL Nuevo Diario, this week. Here is the link to read about it! http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/2007/09/10/contactoend

It is about the 22 solar cookers that we constructed and sent to Esteli, which were ordered by their mayor to help promote renewable energy. I actually helped build the ovens in the background of the photo! Sweet. I think it can also be found in English by some organization called the Nica Times, but I couldn´t find it, maybe you will have better luck.

What´s been going on lately

2007-09-14T13:48:00.000-06:00

At the beginning of our volunteer stay, for several weeks, C.J. and I helped construct the 22 solar ovens for Estelí, and then the cooker stands that the group from Cornell left for us. But, once those projects were completed, we would often times find ourselves unsure what we should be doing any given day. Our roles just aren´t that well defined, so we´ve been working the past couple of weeks on figuring out what we´re supposted to be or could be doing.

I think that C.J. has more easily found his place working with Nemia on the oven project and writing scholarship guidelines with some of the women in the community. My job, which is to help manage the solar center project has been a lot more challenging. The main problem is the language barrier - I am just not good enough or confident enough in Spanish to communicate with the right people. Plus I´m a lot more timid since I don´t really know the people I need to talk to that well. This is particularly hard for me because, even in the states, it often takes me a while to feel comfortable approaching people for the things I need - now add Spanish. It has been hard for me to approach the problem because the things I know I have to do are way out of my comfort zone. This has become the biggest challenge of living here - bigger even than the latrine.

Fortunately, Susan is helping me out by setting up some meetings for me, and Charlotte has promised to help with translation. I am going to Managua on Monday to meet with some of the Fenix staff, and hopefully get the rest of the picture of the center that I´ve been missing. I will also have a chance to buy a hammock while I´m there - which I am totally excited about!

In the mean time, I have been helping out with some manual labor at the solar center. Most of it has involved sifting various types of dirt. Depending on which type of dirt, and which type of sifter you are using, this can be real back breaking work. All the sifted dirt is for the repello - which is basically the stucco type stuff. To get a break from the sifting, we did have one job that C.J. really liked, which was using a hand pick to scuff up the edge of the foundation for the application of some sort of repello or cement mixture. We were wondering why we were chipping away at the foundation of a brand new building, but it was kind of fun all the same.

Most recently, I have been helping hoe up the field for the planting of papaya trees with a big group of high school students from Utah who came to Nicaragua this week. Charlotte and Jonathan also helped them repello the latrine. I think it has been really good for the students, I can tell they are learning a lot about the world.

So, the center is coming together and so is my role in this community. I just need to get more comfortable with the language and the people. Hopefully that will come. I have decided to spend more time studying Spanish, but that´s hard without a class or instructor. I think we need to re-look into lessons.

Life goes on... I´ll keep you posted

To the Pulsa

2007-09-04T10:32:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, after church, which thankfully was only an hour (not an hour service and then an hour knealing like last week), we decided to check out the ¨pulsa¨ that Marcel keeps talking about. From what we understood of Nicañol, it is a lake or swimming hole of somesort that we can hike to and swim in. Apparently they took their last volunteer there, and it has been a big attraction for other volunteers as well. Marcel said it would take about an hour to get there on foot, so we packed our backpacks with pleanty of water and snacks for the journey. We were suprised to see that Marcel and Harold were ready to go in just their flip-flops and regular shorts. Alejandra said that the can´t swim, so they don´t have suits... which made us wonder why they love the pulsa so much.

The hike started off with about a 15-20 minute walk along the road, and then we headed down a small path - all down hill, with lots of rocks. We were thinking, ¨this is easy, but what about on the way back?¨ When we got to the end of that path, we walked though a small opening in a barbed wire fence and arrived at a little house with lots of children running around. One of which was a little albino boy, about 6 or 7 years old. He was totally excited to see me, I think he thought I bas albino also. He kept saying ¨¡Chele, chele! ¡Blanca, Blanca! ¡Como mío, como mío! ¡Su pelo, su piel, como mío, como mío!¨ (Literally that means ¨Milky, milky! Whitey, whitey! Like mine, like mine! Your hair, your skin, like mine like mine!¨) We saw him at church a few weeks ago, but I guess he only just noticed how fair I was because I was wearing shorts... and my legs never get much sun. C.J. thought it was pretty funny that my skin was the same color as the albino.

Anyway, after stopping to say hi to that family we headed to Marcel and Harold´s grandmom´s house, where we saw cute little Angelito, their 18 month old cousin. I tried so say hi to him, but he just screamed and cried and called for him mama. I figured we had made enough trouble, so we headed on tward the pulsa. That´s where the really hard part began...

After walking through a few corn fields, we arrived at the river bed where we were apparently supposed to cross over a few large rocks and then arrive at the pulsa. Marcel and Harold took of their flip-flops so that they could more easily navigate on the rocks. We thought we were really close, so we asked Marcel if we should take off our shoes too. He said yes, but as soon as our shoes were off we realized our mistake. We had a 30 minute rock climbing and hiking adventure ahead of us, and it would have been impossible for gringos without shoes! Marcel doesn´t think of these things, he and his brother were like little spidermen on those rocks.

I think I have offically confirmed that rock climbing and extreme hiking are definately not my thing. I was definately wishing I had opted not to come, like Jeni, once we go to the hard rocky part. I was constantly scared of slipping and falling... and I didn´t really consider any of that part fun. Finally when we arrived at the pulsa, we had to climb down a 15 foot (essencially) cliff to get to the water. Marcel said we should just jump off... that is what the other volunteers did. LIKE HELL! We had no idea how deep the water was, or what was in there, because it was pretty murky.

C.J. finally got the courage to shimmy down the rocks to the water - he walked around the and then waded in on the oposite shore. I stayed up top for a while, until this middle aged woman cam buy and walked down the cliff with the ease of a mountain goat and made me look like a complete chump. I actually did make it to the bottom to swim, and we even convinced M & H to splash around in the shallows too. The pulsa is actually very deep... I don´t know how deep because I wasn´t about to put my head under... but too deep to touch amost everywhere except near the shore, if there happened to be a rock to stand on.

Once we had swam our fill, we climbed up the rocks again with incredible difficulty. The trip back was also full of many obsticals, that stopped us up for several minutes trying to climb up. Even Marcel and Harold had trouble in a few spots. The strangest part was when we came accross a bunch of cattle in the river bed... I think C.J. has a picture somewhere. By the time we saw the cows, I was just happy to be near the end. The rest of the trip back went by pretty fast, and wasn´t as tough as we though it would be, although I did cut my leg on the fence post of one of the many barbed wire fences we had to cross. It wasn´t bad though.

I was so happy to be home by the end. Like many of my other adventures in the past... the views were beautiful, but I don´t think I´ll ever do that again.

Pictures

2007-09-01T17:11:00.000-06:00

Here´s a link to a bunch of our pictures from Nicaragua: View Pictures

What have we been doing?

2007-09-01T12:32:00.000-06:00

Ok so not a single one of my blogs has said anything about what we are doing here, I just pretty much complain and joke about how many nightmarish critters we have and how pooping down a hole can be fun. We actually are doing some serious work here and I’ve got a sore back and some fresh calluses to prove it. I’ll start by giving you a synopsis of our first month, and then I’ll tell you what we think we are going to do for the next eleven.

We started off our time here by attending Grupo Fenix’s Solar Culture Course, which is a 10 day cultural experience mixed with some cool solar energy activities and sustainability awareness. It is intended to be kind of an “eco vacation” for some and for volunteers it serves as an orientation. Grupo runs this course usually 2 times a year, once at the end of July during what the Nicas call “little summer” and again in early January during dry season. “Little summer” is a two week period at the beginning of August during Nica’s dry season when it just doesn’t rain. The weather is beautiful, warm, sunny, and dry for 2 weeks and it comes every year like clock work, up to the point that Grupo Fenix can even plan their course around it. So, the solar culture course was pretty cool. We met some really interesting people from all around the world who attended with us. I could write a whole article about our new acquaintances but for now I’ll just tell you that we had two Australians from Germany who work with the UN, a Uraguayan Italian New Yorker, a Harvard boy from California, a Georgia Tech EE student, and another fellow volunteer, Julio, who Spanish, has a PhD in Physics, is fluent in English and came from Ireland for the course. It was a great group and we had some fun together while we worked. So during the course we did some pretty cool stuff. We started by visiting the for profit solar panel manufacturing company that was founded with the help of Grupo Fenix, called Suni Solar. They are located in Managua walking distance from UNI (Universidad Nacional de Ingenieros). Next we took at 4 hour bus ride to northern Nicaragua where Sabana Grande is located. We spent the rest of our time in Sabana Grande doing the fun stuff. We worked for two days building a solar oven out of wood, roofing tin, glass, and wood shavings as insulation. It’s pretty amazing what these ovens can cook; from plantains to chicken to cakes and cookies, all with only the power of partially sunny day. We also spent a day building adobe bricks for the solar center. The Solar Center is a dream of Grupo Fenix, which is slowly being realized. The solar center is eventually going to be a small campus of buildings and land that will contain a manufacturing facility or solar ovens run completely off of solar energy, a small store where natural remedies, organic foods, and solar products are sold, a small eco hotel, and a community center. Currently the solar center is a large beautiful adobe building that is still in the process of construction. This first building is slated to be a temporary community center and meeting facility and eventually an office for CIPPER (center for research, promotion and production of renewable energy) and manufacturing facility for solar ovens. So we made adobe bricks to help contribute to the construction. Adobe bricks are pretty amazing, they are pretty much just mud and pine needles formed into a brick shape and then dried. There are thousands of buildings in Nica built with this construction, including the house Jenny and I live in. We spent another day building solar battery chargers, where we even got to solder and assemble our own miniature solar panels for the chargers. It actually works, just hook up a few batteries and put the charger in the sun and you can charge up regular alkalines 4-5 times. On our last days we built a solar panel mounting frame, installed it at the solar center along with 4 fluorescent lights, a charge controller, batteries and a 75 watt solar panel to run it all.

Since the solar culture course we have been working on various things every day but staying plenty busy. Like Jenny mentioned in one of her earlier blogs, the mayor of Esteli has ordered 22 solar ovens that he plans to distribute to some select women in his community. This is a big deal for Grupo Fenix because it means paid work for several women for 2 months, it means good publicity for what we are doing, and it means that others are taking to this solar culture. So the women had been working on the ovens for a little over a month before we showed up and for our first 3 weeks after the culture course we have spent the majority of our time doing good ól manual labor constructing the ovens. We just completed the ovens this week. We have also spent one day a week working with the crew at the solar center doing some real manual labor. We are talkin´shovel in hand, sweat on the back under the hot Nicaraguan sun for 8 hours a day. Our first day the foreman pointed out three large mounds of dirt and told us to move them, spread them out and create a nice gradient from the base of the center away so that the heavy rain water would flow away. That was a good days´work! We have also done some sifting, wall preparation for ¨repello¨stucco and lots of fine material sifting for repello mixes. All hard work and is much harder than it looks. After a few days I am really glad that its only once a week so I have time to heal. Of course I am sure they are giving all the hard work to the gringos to see if we will quit or come back next week. So far we are 3 for 3 so take that! Also from speaking with our host family I realized that they have a solar panel and a small 12Vdc pump to run their well water that isn´t working, so I am working on this also. I hope to help get them the right pump and design a system so they can feed a tank on a 8 ft stand and enjoy running water for showers and washing.

Jenny talked about defining her role some so I guess I´ll talk about my offical position too. Last week we had about 2 solid days of meetings with the Grupo Fenix staff and Sabana Grande community leaders. As a result of all the meetings I have found myself working on a couple long term projects. My main assignment is to work with one fo the community leaders, Nimia, on the solar oven research, design and development. This will include cooker design improvements, manufacturing process improvements, and continuing research from some previous work as well as new efforts. Throughout the whole year I will be working closely with community members on projects to help improve their project management and problem solving skills, the whole idea here is sustainable development. I hope that when our year of service is complete and we return to Virginia, we will leave a capable group of leaders rather than a void. I am also working closely with a small group of women to develop policies for a new secondary school scholarship for children of the village that will be funded by a former solar culture course participant. All in all I feel like I am getting to do some interesting stuff and I think what I am working on will make a real difference.

Does anyone know what this week is?!

2007-09-01T11:33:00.000-06:00

First of all, two days ago was Jenny’s 24th birthday. We celebrated a little before leaving for Nica because I knew there was no way I could buy her any good birthday presents here, plus my family was all over it and they had a little “Jenny’s birthday gift shower” the night before we left. I even got her the new Harry Potter book before we left and kinda tolerated it for 2 weeks while she read it every free moment possible. All that aside, I still feel crappy about it because it wasn’t much of a special day at all. I remembered it was her birthday first thing in the morning and greeted her with a happy birthday kiss when she woke up (at 5:30 am)—mad points for me! But after that I think her day pretty much went down hill. She got 3 birthday cards in the mail ahead of time, which is pretty sweet because that means our mailing address here works and Jenny has some thoughtful and on the ball family. Anyway, back to the downhill part. We started the day off with a nice breakfast of fried chicken, rice, french fries, and cucumber & tomato slices, with fresh orange juicy drink. Not bad, but then she spent 2 hours doing laundry by hand, then joined the rest of us as we spent 8 hours painting solar oven stands with the really nasty paint ultra diluted with paint thinner. This time I wore a bandana as a mask and it worked like a charm. We had a lunch at noon of rice, a dry bean cake thingy, and some cucumber and tomato slices. Then back to work painting. The good news was that we finished in time for us both to take our “shower” before it got dark at 6:30 pm. We had dinner with our Nica family, then we went to bed drowsy-eyed by 8:30pm. No birthday cake, no happy birthday song, no presents. I could have taken here to Ocotal for dinner, but last time we were in Ocotal after dark just about everything was closed already, by 6:30! Also it take 15 minutes to walk to the bus stop, 20 min bus ride, then another 10 min to walk into town. The last bus back to Sabana Grande comes sometimes at 6:45pm, sometimes never. So if you don’t leave by 3pm, you have to pay a taxi to take you home, which cost 10x or more what the bus does. And we had work to do with painting, so no Ocotal for dinner and icecream. :o( Sorry for your crappy b-day honey.

So now to the second point of my entry, Do you know what week this is?!! It is opening week of college football season!!!! YEAH!!! Wooohoo! Go Hokies! Ranked # 9 preseason by both poles, picked by all the experts to win the Atlantic division and the ACC championship, and slated to play #2 LSU next Saturday in what is rumored to be a preview of the national title game. O hell yeah its going to be a good year!! So I did some research and found that there is a local sports bar just down the street from the internet café that opens at 12:30 and has ESPN, our first two games are on ESPN, sweet! Unfortunately todays game starts at noon eastern and in Nica we are 2 hours behind you there so I have to go to the internet café to follow the first half or so of the game. Here is the plan: logon to ESPN and watch the game on gamecast, while being logged into my new ESPN insider account which gives me access to a streaming scoreboard update realtime, in addition I found that Yahoo broadcast offers an online subscription for only a few bucks a month and they cover all the VT football games!!! Sooo sweet, I can listen to even the most worthless games this season (like VT vs. William and Mary) on live radio from Nicaragua! So I am really hoping that this sports bar thing works out because that means that I’ll get to watch VT vs. LSU live next week if I can get them to stay open late enough (kick off at 9 pm eastern 7 pm Nica) otherwise we are headed to Managua to find some venue to see this awesome game. I hope all you jerks have fun flying to Louisiana to watch it live.

So in spite of Jenny’s birthday being pretty sucky, this isn’t such a bad week. Now we are in Ocotal awaiting kick off and all decked out in our Hokie gear. After the game we plan to do some double celebrating, and if we are lucky we will be able to get our hands onto something that resembles a steak if the sports bar ever opens, then finally some ice cream and special birthday treatment for Jenny. Happy College Football Season everyone, and Happy Birthday Jenny!

Staying Healthy & Getting Cozy

2007-08-29T09:52:00.000-06:00

Well, I said that C.J. and I were alternating days being sick... it turns out that we had parasites. In fact, all the international volunteers (who were tested) had them, even if they weren´t feeling sick. Fortunately it´s easy, although quite discusting, to get tested and very easy to get medication. We are on the mend, and we are planning to follow up with another test to make sure we got it all.

We´re not sure where they came from, because we only drink purified water, but we suspect that food preparation and dish washing may have been the culprit. We have started adding a cap of bleach to our shower/dishwashing water as an added precaution, but we are still eat 2 meals a day at a local home that doesn´t use bleach (we have reduced our meal plan to lunch and dinner only, so that we can have american style breakfasts). The other volunteers have suggested that we get tested every 1-2 months, and we are planning to stick to that, because being sick is pretty miserable.

The worst part about being sick in Nicaragua is that there is no couch to lie on. All we have are plastic chairs, and then our bed. Our bed is like the only cozy place there is - and it´s no that cozy with like 25 thread count sheets (mom is sending some better ones - yay!). We are in desparate need of a hammock so that we can have a cozy place to hang out and read or just lounge. Unfortuantely, we have been unable to find a hammock in Ocotal, but Charlotte, one of the other volunteers, has two really nice ones that she got near Managua. Hopefully it won´t be too long before we get one!

Along with making our house more cozy... we have ordered a bookshelf / storage cabinet from Marcio. We just ordered it yesterday, so it may be a little while before he has time to make it. Once he starts though, he is really fast. He made a table for Julio in 2 days, and that wasn´t the only thing he was working on!

So, little by little we are getting used to everything. Although, I don´t think I´ll ever get used to the latrine. I really hate that thing!

No Money Mo problems

2007-08-25T10:39:00.000-06:00

So now I am officially a volunteer worker and I´ll make no money for a whole year and I would like to say that Puff Daddy is totally wrong. I feel like even though I am making no money I have tons of new problems. So lets just say for the record, this is my venting entry.

Lets start with the illnesses. Since we got here it seems like Jenny and I have been nearly alternating from day to day who is not feeling well. From stomach aches, to head aches, lack of sleep, colds, etc. As for me I started with the typical indigestion problems associated with living in a new country and eating all new foods that I am not used to. No big deal, I was expecting that. Then, I was starting to feel like I am getting into a groove and the food doesn´t bother me any more. So I was working on painting all day Monday which was the last step in our construction project of 22 solar ovens that Grupo Fenix was contracted to make for the governor of Esteli. Well, here in Nica they use paint thinner very very liberally to stretch their paint and it turns out to be about 50/50 in the end. At first the smell bothered me some while I was painting, then eventually I got numb to it. But I also thought that it was no big deal because we are outside and theres plenty of air flow, right? WRONG! I started feeling bad on Monday night, then tuesday morning I woke up with my nose and throat burning and the stuffiest nose I have had. One of the other volunteers noted that a stuffy nose is the bodys reaction to bad chemicals being inhaled, which I think makes sense. I figured it was obviously due to the paint thinner and since tuesday was day 2 of painting with no masks I decided to sit it out and recuperate. Now it is Saturday and I am still coughing a bit and my nose isn´t unclogged yet.
To get to my next illness I have to give some background. Just about all the other volunteers, who all have been here for only about a month also have gotten sick. On our solar culture course one guy left early because he felt so bad. Another guy got Denghi fever and was out of commission for 2 weeks, then decided he didn´t like Grupo Fenix anyway and high tailed it out this week. The latest is that two others were feeling sick and tested postitive for parasites. Great. So the day after I hear about the parasites I start feeling sick too. Lemme tell you these symptoms make you feel so disgusting. Burping and farting for days on end with nothing to provoke it. Constant churning of the stomach and actual noisiness. Then as you could expect all the diarreah you can handle and vomiting. So I figured after all this I probably have the parasite too. So now I am in the internet cafe waiting for the clinic to finish my test results and tell me what I have to take to kill it. I also figured while we are at it we should get Jenny tested too since all the volunteers have been eating the same foods prepared by many of the same people all this time. And thats not all.

Now I can get to the real no money part. My wallet got stolen last week while I was here in Ocotal with some friends at the patron saint festival, which is a big fiesta the whole city has once a year. The party is so big they have like 7 live bands and they charge everyone a hundred cordobas to get in, which is expensive for here. We were all in line and one of our Nica friends has and idea on how to get to the front quick and get us all our entry bracelets. So she takes the money from all of us, smooth talks the dude at the counter and next thing we are pushing through the crowd to get our bracelets stuck on. At this moment I am thinking dang its crowded I really need to watch my wallet. So I switched it from my back pocket to my front left where I kept my hand in it all the time to keep guard. Well it just so happens that to get my bracelet on I had to reach over a row of people and stick out my left hand for the desk lady, and during the short 10 seconds I had my left hand off my pocket and reached out for the bracelet some creep picked me clean. I didn´t even feel anything or see anyone. I turned walked out of the crowd and felt for my wallet, I kid you not, only 30 seconds after it was stolen I noticed. And it was already too late. We called over the cops, they could do nothing and I just turned in a police report. It had about 45 bucks of equivalent US money, my drivers license, an ATM card and a credit card. I was at least smart enough to clean it out and only have my essentials in it. So I went back and got my bracelet cut off, took my 100 cords back and used it to pay a taxi to take me home. What a crappy night. So I learned my lesson, but I am not too sure of what I could´ve done better. I guess sometimes they just got your number.

So now I am done venting and I am going to take my broke parasite breeding butt back to the clinic to see what they have to say. I knew all this would be hard and there would be some obstacles, but for goodness sake! I am praying to the Lord it gets better because we are only just starting.

poco a poco

2007-08-24T17:33:00.000-06:00

We have been here in Nicaragua for nearly 4 weeks now and I am finally getting the hang of this “poco a poco” thing. Poco a poco essentially means little by little and it seems that almost everything here tends to come about in this way. Poco a poco I am getting used to going to bed at 9 and waking up at 5:30 am with the rooster crows. Poco a poco my number 2’s are turning solid again. Poco a poco I am beginning to decipher the enigma of Nicaraguan Espanol that is so different from other Spanish that they call it Nicanol. Where “adios” doesn’t just mean goodbye, it also means hello; where half of the vocabulary I learned in Spanish class is completely foreign to Nicaraguans and therefore useless. Poco a poco I am getting used to responding to “chele”, which is what the Nicas call light skinned people. It is actually a slang word derived from “leche” and basically means “milky” if you translate it literally. Poco a poco I am learning to express myself in Nicanol without a dictionary in my hand. Poco a poco we are learning to do things the Nica way, like washing our laundry, bathing, drawing water from the well, walking in the pitch black night without stepping in the mud, and even how to keep our floor clean. Poco a poco our relatively new, previously unused latrine is stinking more and more. Poco a poco I am falling in love with 70-80 degree weather all the time and a daily rain shower that you can count on. Little by little Jenny and I are getting used to how to deal with all the thousands of bugs and critters that just love sharing our space with us. I actually saw my first live tarantula today and it was just as big and hairy as I imagined it would be, but I haven’t run all the way home screaming and I am actually sitting here quite relaxed afterwards writing this blog entry. Through trial and error day by day we have learned clever ways of how to use the lights in our house without drawing in what seams like half the gnat and moth population of our village. Speaking of moths, I just have to go on this tangent; they have some moths here that are literally the size of bats! They are huge; just as dumb and disgusting as a regular moth but like 20 times the size. This brings me to my next point: poco a poco I am discovering every freaking critter in Nicaragua; from bats to mice, to scorpions, tarantulas, snakes, and just about every freaky insect that I have ever seen on fear factor including those big tree spiders that look kinda like crabs and giant 4” cockroaches. Its amazing I ever get any sleep at night, and poco a poco I am realizing how right I was when I said our mosquito net is our most prized possession.

But there’s also a lot of other good things like we are finally starting to see our roles in the community begin to define; poco a poco we are earning the trust of those we came here to help and behind our broken Spanish they are realizing our suggestions really do have merit. Little by little I am learning to love the thrice daily serving of beans served all different ways. Little my little I am realizing that there isn’t an ailment that Alejandra can’t fix somehow with one of the plants she grows in her garden. Each day I am seeing how our new little brothers and sister cherish every moment we spend with them and they can’t wait until after dinner for us to teach them a new card game.

I have to say that amongst all the difficulties, lack of amenities, chloroqine induced nightmares, and incessant creepy crawlies; I am seeing that the life and culture here can be quite pleasant, poco a poco.

Beans and Rice

2007-08-24T17:30:00.000-06:00

It turns out that despite what the books and volunteer materials say we don’t actually just eat rice and beans here. We actually get to eat a pretty good variety of foods. I have found that as a middle class American with all that processed food, I wasn’t eating as good as our Nicaraguan host family who live off of about $150 a month. It is amazing how mystically fresh watermelon is on the table for breakfast every morning, fresh avocado every day, chicken 4 times a week, unlimited beans, 60 eggs a week (I don’t eat them all myself), fresh off the vine fruit juices, and the best darn fried plantains I’ve ever had; and they all come from the ¾ acre piece of land the seven of us are living on. Even more amazing than that is Marcio is a carpenter and Alejandra has 3 children to take care of and is involved in just about every organization in the community, so they aren’t even farmers! But the variety doesn’t stop there, they have offered us mango, papaya, (which I don’t really eat), tomales, french fries, and tomatoes and cucumbers are a staple along with potatoes and corn tortillas. We get to eat a pretty good amount of foods other than beans and rice but it is definitely a carb loaded diet. Sometimes I have pasta, refried beans, crunchy homemade tortilla chips, and potatoes for breakfast. Needless to say, we are still taking our vitamins every morning—so don’t worry Mom. The funny thing is that amongst all the variety that we are offered I can honestly say that one of my favorite things is the signature beans and rice dish called Gallo Pinto, and we get to have it daily.

Defining our Roles

2007-08-24T17:21:00.000-06:00

For the past two weeks (since the solar culture course ended) C.J. and I have been assisting with the construction of solar cookers with the ladies from Sabana Grande. The mayor of Esteli ordered 22 cookers, and the women have been working every day to get them finished. They are all done now, and are awaiting transport to their new owners. In the future, the cookers are expected to be a major product of the Solar Women, but they definitely have some problems to work through first.

On Thursdays, we also help out with construction of the workshop at the Solar Women´s Center. In the future, the Women´s Center will have a store, a restaurant, and other ecotourism attractions, but the workshop is where they will make their solar ovens, dryers, and other products. The workshop is made of traditional Nicaraguan Adobe and is a very open, free flowing space. There is a lot more work to be done there, so all of the volunteers have been helping out.

After several business meeting this week, Susan and I have started to define my role for the upcoming year. For the most part I am going to help with the management of the Women´s Center workshop construction. Right now, they are having trouble keeping the plans, budgets, and schedules accurate and aligned. So, I´ll be able to help out, and teach the current PM some of my management and tracking techniques. Hopefully we´ll get it all organized and the construction will be completed the way we need and want it - on time and under budget (ha!).

Making a Home

2007-08-24T16:53:00.000-06:00

I haven´t written to the blog in a while because I didn´t have anything positive or witty to say. The honeymoon portion of the culture shock has passed, and I´m am starting to feel very pessimistic about everything. With that being said, I will try to look on the positive side of how we´re making Nicaragua our home.

Our house, as you have heard before, is full of spider webs, spiders, bugs, lizards, mice, and bats. Well, thankfully the bats are gone, and no mice actually live in there... I´ve just seen a few. Alejandra thinks that I´ll get over my fear of critters after a few months and I´ll just stomp ´em, but it hasn´t happened yet. All the mujeres get a huge kick out of hearing me squeal when things come across my path. I know ¨No hace nada¨ but I´m still freaked by all the critters.

Anyway, C.J. and I have been working to make our house less of a bat cave and more of a home. We cleaned out a few old drawers from a falling apart piece of junk, that was at one point some sort of dresser or armoire, and are using them to put our books and other odds and ends in. We also bought a plastic table from the ex. volunteer coordinator, who also gave us some other misc. items she left behind. The best improvement to our house though, is the gas stove! Alejandra and Marcio had an old gas stove from a previous volunteer that was just collecting dust. We cleaned it off and it works great. Now I can have oatmeal in the morning instead of all the fried goodness that Alejandra makes. We also found out that you can buy American cheese here (C.J. was so happy), so I made him a grilled cheese sandwich and Ramen noodles when he was sick.

Speaking of being sick, C.J. and I seem to alternate days of being sick, with neither of us being healthy at the same time. Right now it is C.J.´s turn - he has a bad cough from inhaling too much paint thinner while we were painting the solar ovens. On Wednesday, I got to find out what it´s like to puke in an outhouse. I don´t recommend it. I didn´t want to stick my head in the hole, which smells like you-know-what, so I hovered about 18 inches up. That was a bad plan... half my lunch ended up all over the seat, my pants, and shoes. To add insult to injury, this was during a business meeting, so I had to quickly clean up and return to the meeting with wet pants. How embarrassing.

time to be real.

2007-08-11T15:34:00.000-06:00

What up everyone. I said to myself that I would only post when I am feeling cheery but I haven´t posted in a while so whatever. I´ll try to keep it fun anyway.

So I am ticked with blogger because I haven´t been able to upload any pics since my first time. Instead, since this is my grumpy entry, I am just going to describe some of the luxuries we have in daily life in Nicarauga.

Our toilet. It is a green metal latrine house the size of a phone booth, 20 yards outside our house. it has a plastic toilet seat with a plastic lid that goes overtop to keep critters from going down the deep dark disgusting hole. Its like 12 feet deep and stinks as badly as you would expect. Its only about 5 foot 10 inside and I have to stand like a hunch back in there. The inside is littered with spider webs and the only thing that keeps me from worrying that something is going to come up and bite me in the but is that I am religious about closeing the lid every time. I do have to say there are some really cool parts about having a latrine. Number one cool thing: It will never clog up and I never have to plunge it. This is so cool for me because I have the rare talent of finding a way to clog any toilet you can throw at me. Number two cool thing: If you have a really nasty stinky one, no big deal. It already stinks and is totally open air with huge gaps in the metal walls at the top and bottom so it airs out with one gust of wind. Number three cool thing: you don´t have to flush. I don´t know why this is cool, but I kind of like it. Although every time I leave I feel like I am forgetting something.

Shower. Our shower is an adobe shack attached to our house. It was orginally intended to be a kitched with a wood burning stove, but we don´t need to cook for ourselves (so awesome!) so we use it as a shower so we don´t have to give a show to the whole village when we bathe. The ¨shower¨is a large plastic barrel with probably 15 gallons of water sitting on the floor. Another component is a medium sized plastic bowl which is used to scoop ¨clean¨water from the barrel and dump over one´s head. After the initial wetting down I then dampen my shower puff thingy and then get it all soapy and lather my self up. I complete the cylce with more bowls full of ¨clean¨water dumped onto myself. This method of bathing reminds me much of washing my car back home. Its not all that bad. The water feels freezing cold in the scourching hot nicaragua weather, but I found that if i shower in the late afternoon it is amazingly refreshing.

Laundry. our laundry machine is a bumpy rock sitting on a stack of old tractor tires. Much like showering, we have a big barrel of ¨clean¨water and some medium sized bowls for scooping water with. i think I hate this more than any of the others. It takes forever to wash clothes. We also let ourselves get way behind because we avoided doing laundry for the first two weeks. So now we have a mountain and it takes like an hour and a half to do a small load. The good news is that Jenny has created her own system for doing the laundry, which consists of a soak period, some scrubing and soaping up, then a series of rinses. It works pretty good and she has gotten good at it with little practice. I help by being the rinser, ringer outter, and hanger while she soaks and scrubs. Even though Jenny does the hard work I still hate doing it. I want to take up one of the locals on their offer to do our laundry for pay, but there is just something weird about having a stranger wash your dirty underwear. I am so lucky to have lovely Jenny here to help me out.

I have to go cause my cafe time is racking up at 2 hours. I´ll post more about our little joys of daily life later.

ajo stinks

2007-08-11T15:06:00.000-06:00

So I wasn´t totally honest with you when I told the bat story. I said we just ¨got rid of the bats¨but that wasn´t totally honest. My host dad Marico eagerly showed up at our house the morning after I told him we had a problem. He took a quick look at the situation and scurried back to the main house for supplies. He reappeared in like 2 seconds flat with a long flat stick, a ladder and a giant knife we all affectionately know as the Machete. I was shocked to see the knife that we perceive as a weapon, but they think of as a tool, and I asked him what it was for. He replied with the ever present smile on his face ¨para matarlos!¨ which means to kill them. I then yelled to Jenny to get out of the house and she scurried around the corner and tried really hard to concentrate on her Harry Potter book. So what actually happened was that I held the flashlight while Marcio skillfully stabbed the bats with the machete through the rafters, then finished them off one by one. We didn´t just get rid of the five bats, we bascially hacked them up with a machete. And I might add that I was totally not in support of this, but I wasn´t about to refuse the service.

The reason why I am letting you know the details here is because we didn´t actually get all 5, one smart bat actually flew away out the space in the roof where they entered. And the ajo did work for about 5 days, but it dried up and the night before last we had our mercielago friend back as a roomie. Marcio was away so my new siblings and I worked as a team to shoo the bat out, then saturated the area with fresh ajo. But aho stinks, yes, it stinks like very strong garlic smell and our whole house smells like an italian restraunt, which is totally cool for a little while. But this morning, guess what, our smart bat roommate came back: with fresh ajo and all. So now I am beginning to understand Marcio´s methods, I think he has experienced this before. He has been asking me every morning for a week if the bats came back. And now the answer 2 days in a row is Si. So I´ll be holding the flashlight for the carnage again this evening and right after this entry I am leaving the cafe to buy some mesh screen to cover whatever gaps in the roof I can. So I am not totally in favor of hacking up all of our pests with a machete, but this bat is like that cat that keeps comming back. I won´t be posting any pics of our bat because that wouldn´t be cool, but I will try to get some up of our amazingly porous house.

Somoto Canyon

2007-08-08T12:08:00.000-06:00

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Today we went to Somoto Canyon for some touristy fun. This was our first chance to take a local bus, which is quite different from the express bus we took from Managua. The bus to Somoto was a converted school bus, which basically means that they took an American school bus, slaped some bars on the top and sides, and incorporated a speaker system so that they can jam to their tunes, which sound surprisingly like 90’s pop – kind of a Latino Billy Joel. The bus attendants are quite interesting as well. They man the front and back doors to make sure everyone pays, and let the bus driver know when it is time to get going. The interesting part is that once everyone is on board, or at least partially on board, they whistle and then run to catch the moving bus, grab one of the handy bars and pull themselves up. It looked like a pretty fun job, plus they get cheat the customers out of a few bucks.

When we got to Somoto, our group, which consisted of Tony, Sharelle, Nadia, Craig, Roberto, Karen, Edwin, C.J. and me, wandered around for a little to pick up some lunch and refregerios before taking a taxi to the Canyon. The taxi was actually a pretty sweet deal; since we wanted a ride there and back, we didn’t have to pay until he picked us up at the end of the day. This was all included in our course dues though, so we let Karen handle the logistics of it… I think she may have struck a deal.

After he dropped us off we hiked down a pretty steep road to the mouth of the canyon. Then we crossed a few streams by stepping every so carefully on the river rocks, saw a man bathing himself in the river, and passed some cattle that appeared to be unaccompanied. We reached a small covering where there were a few ladies selling snacks and a pathetic looking dog begging for treats. From that point we took a couple little row boats down the river to where we could start our rock climbing hike. I wasn’t really sure why we were trying so hard to get over these rocks, because we were already pretty deep into the canyon, but we trekked on, and found a nice high rock where we could hang out on for a while. Karen and Edwin waded in the river and somehow convinced Nadia and me to join in. It was really fun though, there were some neat lagoons that were quite deep - more than 6 feet, although I didn’t check lest I get my hair wet.

The way back seemed to go a lot quicker, although the steep hill we went down was now quite a workout to get back up. We were rewarded for our hard work with a classic Nicaraguan downpour, which was quite refreshing after being out in the sun all day. We got back without any added adventure and were able to have our evening free.

Our Family

2007-08-08T12:06:00.000-06:00

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Our host parents Marcio and Alejandra are both incredibly sweet and they are always smiling. They have three children, Marcel Antonio (13), Jeni (12), and Harold (10). They are all incredibly loving and really go out of their way to make us feel welcome. Alejandra is a great cook, and Susan said she is the most adverturous of the moms in the village. We have been very satisfied so far with the assortment of ways she serves the eggs, beans, fried bananas, fruit juice, rice, and tortillas. Pretty much every meal contains those six things, but they are all very different and tastey. She also gets quite a kick out of our lack of Spanish skills, and C.J.’s humorous antics. Marcio takes really good care of us as well. He is our main man for getting rid of critters - always with a smile on his face and a very sweet disposition. He is also a very talented carpenter and the whole house is basically and extension of his workshop. You can see the fine doors and windows he makes on our cute little casa.

The children are unbelievably adorable and well behaved. When Jeny and Marcel helped us carry our bags home from Marco’s the first night, Marcel took two trips back and forth on his bike AND carried one of the heaviest bags up the hill on his back. And of course he smiled the whole time, showing off his adorable dimples. Jeni helps out her mom a ton around the house, especially with the laundry. When she saw me struggling with ours, she offered her services, but I’m not sure I’m ready to give up my personal items to be hand washed by someone else. Susan says I’ll break down eventually, because it is a lot of hard work. Jeni also keeps us stalked with water for “showering”. She carried two five gallon buckets up the hill on her head yesterday! She didn’t even give us a chance to do it ourselves. We felt kind of bad having a 12 year old girl carry our water for us, but she is eager to please. Little Harold, who’s name we didn’t know for our first three or so days is also adorable, but the shyest of the children, who are all pretty shy. C.J. taught them Yatzee! last night, which gave us a chance to interact with them a little more. They caught on really fast and we all had a lot of fun.

I love ajo

2007-08-08T11:57:00.001-06:00

I’ll tell you why I love ajo. The first night in Sabana Grande was trying. We live in a little house that is separate from our host family, about 50 yards up the hill from them. Our house has 2 rooms; one small bedroom and a good sized main room, which I don’t know what to call yet. They call it la sala. The house was originally intended to be a house for the mother-in-law of the family, but after it was all complete she didn’t want to leave her own place deep in the mountains. I’ve gotten the feeling that the house has sat vacant for a good while. The walls and ceiling were covered in spider webs, there was an old beat up piece of furniture that must have been a dresser in the past, a bed and basically nothing else. I guess it was what we were expecting but none the less it was a bit shocking for Jenny and me. Marcio, our host dad, brought up a table and two chairs for us, which made it a little more homey. After dinner Marcio reluctantly offered us a moskitero (mosquito net) and I accepted, once I deciphered what we were talking about. At the time Jenny and I had no clue how important a moskitero is. Our first night we found out. Thank God I said Si to the moskitero! It was all too similar to that hotel commercial where the guy imagines that he and his wife go to a hotel with a mosquito net and they wake up in the middle of the night to find that it is just covered in bugs. Yes, that does happen. I didn’t sleep well our first night. In addition to all the bugs, there were a few times when I swore that I heard, and felt, something like a bird swoop past me. Jenny dismissed it as nothing and I would turn my focus back to my “new food” stomach cramps.

The next night was even better. I was mentally prepared for the bugs our second night, and they did not disappoint, but that was no big deal, especially with our awesome moskitero. What I was not mentally prepared for what woke me up at 1:45 am. I heard a bunch of rustling and a loud series of chirps, gargles and squawks. I decided to get up because, amongst all the new noises, this one just seemed too close to be outside and I suspected that some kind of critter was getting into our bags. I grabbed the mega-bright manly mag light and searched the sala for the culprit but I found nothing. Then I looked up and there was a large clump of mercielagos (bats) hanging upside down from the ceiling. I had no idea what to do so I turned off my trusty mag light and climbed back into bed. Of course, Jenny asked me what it was, and I made the biggest mistake ever, I told her. I had no choice but to walk the 50 yards to my host dad’s house (with Jenny because there was no way she was staying in the mercielago house) and ask Marcio how to get rid of the bats. He said that they “no hace nada Jenny”, they won’t do anything Jenny, just go to bed and we will fix it tomorrow. We bravely marched back to our bat cave and after some consoling outside Jenny was ready to go back in and get what ever sleep she could muster. The bats actually behaved themselves pretty good for the rest o the night. None the less, Jenny and I were huddled together clenching each other under our most prized possession, the mosquitero.
The next morning Marcio told me that we would get the bats out of the house then rub crushed aho all over the area to keep the bats from coming back. Believe or not aho is garlic. Yes, I too thought that this was only for the vampire movies, but so far so good. We had a wonderful night’s sleep last night—the best I’ve had since arriving in Nicaragua and no more mercielagos. I love ajo.

Just Call me C-Yeh

2007-08-08T11:55:00.000-06:00

So the question was what the heck should I have everyone call me while I am here in Nicaragua. I already knew that it was hard for them to pronounce the hard J like in my name and Jenny’s name. I asked around and figured that I could try being Cris instead of C.J. This worked for about 2 hours. Most of the people around were already introduced to me as C.J. and most of them were other volunteers or bilingual people who could already say “J”. So I just ended up confusing everyone and besides Jenny was weirded about by it because she isn’t used to me being Cris at all. Next I thought about Cristobal, but apparently, as I learned from others around, the only Hispanic person to ever be called Cristobal was actually Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus as we know him). I could’ve been Juan but I just doesn’t feel right, I have never been a John my whole life and besides Juan is just too common in Nica. When Jenny and I met our host family we found out that their 12 year old daughter is name Jenny also! This brought me to the realization that if they can name their daughter Jennifer, then why can’t my Jenny just stick with “Jenny” and why can I just stick with C.J.? Well, it turns out that my original gut feeling was right, no one here can pronounce the hard J. Now I know what it feels like for all the foreigners in the States do when they get their names permanently butchered and “Americanized”. But in the end I’d rather be good ol’ C-Yeh than any thing else. Besides, I think its kinda cute that all the Nicas try so hard but it still comes out as “Yeh”.

The harsh reality

2007-07-29T12:47:00.000-06:00

I have gone from first class flying to realizing the harsh reality of what we are undertaking in a matter of hours. Last night we ate a good size italian meal at Houston, then steaks on the plane,(no not snakes on a plane, steaks) then we got to our host´s house and we were basically required to eat or it would have been extremely rude. Believe it or not, our host´s name for the frist 3 nights is none other than Don Juan. Yes, thats right Don Juan. He´s actually not as much the ladies man as I expected but hes a darn good cook. I have to say it wasn´t exactly torture to have to eat a third dinner. He cooked up(go ahead guess), beans and rice! We also had sweet white corn tamales and a type of hard salty nicaraguan cheese that I likened to feta, but harder. o yeah, and I tried the world famous nica coffee, i really don´t like coffee, but I drank it out of respect and considering I could take it down without making even the slightest face, it must have been darn good coffee. I think was made it work was that he had like a pound of sugar in each ounce. It is definitely nicaraguas equivalent to sweet souther tea back home. It will get you wired!

After dinner we went to the Suni solar headquarters, where Grupo fenix assembles solar panels for installation in the remote villages. There we got to sit with 2 other solar culture course participants and drink some good ol´Veronica beer. It seems all the nica beers are named after women. Veronica and i aren´t friends anymore. She didn´t sit too well with me, although I can´t totally blame her because I did eat 3 dinners and drink some highly caffinated coffee, then came veronica, but she is the scapegoat.

That was the beginning of a miserable sleepless night. Apparently saturday night is party night in Barrio Edgar Mangia. There was a party right next door blaring music until 1 am, then another party picked up and ran nearly all night until 430 am! It was kinda weird because at the end of the night, when I happend to be in the midst of one of the greatest battles my intestines and stomach have ever had, I got a little comfort from the party when they suddenly broke into religious songs, one of which just happens to be the same as we sing at St. Jerome´s back home. Shortly thereafter the battle ended and I won´t say who won. So I really didn´t sleep nearly all night due to Veronica and the partys. So to end on a humorous note, here are a couple pictures to show you how GIGANTIC I am in Nica. No, they definitely don´t sell size 13 sneaks!

Last Week in the U.S.

2007-07-29T12:18:00.001-06:00

Monday, July 23rd, 2007
Newport News, VA

My coworkers threw me a going away luncheon at Smokey Bones. Ed Kist organized the whole thing and presented me with 2 MREs, 2 rolls of toilet paper and a can of sausage... things people thought I would need. My office was also very generous with gift certificates to local resturants so that C.J. and I can eat well for our last few days in NN.

In the evening we worked to organize the rest of the misc. items and we started cleaning up a lot. There is not much left to do, but still A LOT left to do. We had a huge Ruby Tuesdasy´s feast, carryout of course, which was a great break from all the hard work

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

Rick and Melissa wanted to take us out for one last hurrah and to celebrate their recent engagement, but we had too much work to do. Instead, we invited them over to have Olive Garden takeout, again courtesy of my office :-) It was great to see them, and plus they helped us out big time with the cleaning.

After R & M left, we packed our "bring with us" stuff into our luggage for the first time. The books that Richard Komp (of Fenix) sent us completely filled C.J.s carryon, making it about 50lbs, and thats not to mention the tools and liquid items that made our other bags rediculously heavy. We decided we would redistribute the weight later and just went to bed.

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

We woke up really early to pack up the car and quickly realized that we had about twice as much stuff as would fit into my PT cruiser. I started to freak out, but C.J. suggested that we just put a car-load into Grandmother´s shed for Mom to pick up when she comes down next. Of course, both Mom and Gmom were happy to help us out, but I was stressed about the whole process and was feeling like a huge burden on everyone. I had a little break down, but the worst is over... at least I´m pretty sure it is. Moving has to be the worst part, right?

Once I got to work, an hour and a half late, C.J. called to tell me that the extra keys to his car, which he is leasing to Isabel Cadillo, are in Gmom´s shed. Crap. I went to get them during lunch, and it actually worked out nicely because Uncle Tom and Mike were there having lunch, so I got see them one last time! The rest of the day was uneventful; we made the drive up to NOVA with ease and spent the evening with my parents.

Thursday, July 26th, 2007
Great Falls, VA

Our main goal for Thrurs was to sell my car and our plan was to take it to Carmax. We cleaned it all up, and Mom even helped us polish the crome, which went from black to bling. Carmax found the car to be in good condition, but they only offered us $2500, which is practically a crime! With a huff, we went home and posted it online. Since we only had a day left in the US, we signed the title off to Mom, who agreed to sell it for us. It´s not the outcome I was looking for, but I am so grateful to have such wonderful parents who are always there to catch me no matter which way I fall!

We also bought Harry Potter (for my birthday), but I haven´t had a chance to start it yet!

Friday, July 27th, 2007
Great Falls, VA

Today we finished up our last minute preparations and shopping before flying out. I think we repacked our bags at least twice to make our weight limits... I was right about the tools. We had to ditch a few books Richard sent us, but the rest made it.

Our going away party was in the evening and we had a great turn out - even some friends we haven´t seen in over a year. We really appreciate that Mom C put the whole thing together and we had a great time talking to everyone. Unfortunately we had to leave early to repack the bags again.

Finally one from C.J.!

2007-07-29T12:18:00.000-06:00

Ok, so now we are Nicaragua so I can begin to let you all know what´s going on. Obviously since I am writing this Jenny and I arrived safely. Actually, our trip went so smoothly that I can´t explain it any other way than to say that God must have been watching us. Mom, the cake message Vaya con Dios really worked! So our trip starts in Dulles airport yesterday moring. We get to check in and the accepted all of our enormous bags (some slightly over 70 lbs) and I was able to persuade them to give us priority baggage handling! We got to our gate and had a scare, the connecting flight to houston before us was delayed by over 5 hours. I was supposed to be a 7 am flight and ours was 12:30 and we left before them. It turned out that the previous houston flight had a damaged engine and was grounded for repairs. I could have booked that flight but I decided to pass on it and take the later one so we would have more time. Worked out good because I don´t know if they ever left. (that´s 2 all too lucky things) Next, we get to houston and I had an old northwest $10 voucher for a miserable trip to Michigan last week that they managed to mess up. The voucher was supposed to be only good for the day of the inconvenience but there was no date on it and I saved it till now. The first restaurant we went to accepted it, so Jenny and I had lunch for free. You know how I love free. Now for number 4, Jenny and I got upgraded to first class for our 4.5 hour flight to Mangua. Oh baby, it was so sweet! We got hooked up with free drinks and a steak dinner and had those big cushy chairs and a row to ourselves. There´s nothing like going from complete luxury to the opposite in a few hours. The icing on the cake was that the priority baggage handling actually worked and we were one of the first people of the plane (cause we were first class baby!) then our bags were actually the first 4 to show up on the carousel. then we walked outside and Grupo fenix had 2 people and a pickup truck already waiting for us. They recognized us right away, from that handsome pic of the two of us on this page and we were on the road to a place we´ll call home for 3 days within 10 minutes of our flight landing. I couldn´t believe it, defintely the best flight experience I ever had. I have also included a couple pictures of Jenny and I living it up in first class. Not bad for day one.

Solar Culture Course

2007-07-23T08:15:00.000-06:00

For our first 12 days in Nica will be taking the Grupo Fenix Solar Culture Course, which serves as our orientation. Click here to see what we'll be doing: http://www.grupofenix.org/courses.html

Moving Day

2007-07-21T19:59:00.000-06:00

When I said that C.J. and I underestimated the magnitude of the packing & moving task, that was an understatement. Yesterday we had some friends come over to help load up the truck and (as is no surprise to anyone who's ever moved a house before) it pretty much took all evening. A big thanks goes out to Steve Smith, Ed Kist, James Desrosier, Jason Lenakos, Jay Gentry, Ashley Gentry, Joel Hartman, and Allan Abela. We all agree that Ed is a Tetris genius - he managed to fit a 22 ft truck's worth of stuff into a 16 footer, saving us about $600.

This morning C.J. and I headed to Massanutten to unload the majority of our furniture and boxes into the Colavito Mountain House. We were met there by Dad, Kenny, Tony, Nicole, and Chris, who were all a big help with unloading and organizing. Then the items that didn't fit at CMH were driven up to Fairfax. Kenny & Tony took a few items for their apartment, Grandma took a few, and the rest are still in the truck ready to be taken to my parent's house tomorrow morning. The great news is that we don't have to buy any storage! We are so grateful that are families are able to help us out.

Moving Stress

2007-07-20T07:10:00.000-06:00

Life is starting to get more stressful as we get closer to our departure date. C.J. went to Michigan on Monday of this week, and was supposed to fly home on Wednesday evening, but he got stuck there. He didn't make it home until yesterday at noon and then he was exhausted from lack of sleep, an oncoming cold, and pain in his neck. We are picking up the truck today, so we had to get everything in order last night. I stayed up pretty late packing, and I think we're ready to start loading - the big stuff at least. We tried to prepare for our move as much as possible well ahead of time, and that has helped a lot, but I think we underestimated the magnitude of the task. I know that we have it under control, but moving still makes me very anxious!

Packing & Anticipating

2007-07-16T22:51:00.000-06:00

We have less than two weeks left in the US! We've been planning for our trip since February (actually longer), but it still seems like there is a lot to do.

We spent all last weekend packing up the house, and I am amazed at the number of boxes we've filled. We made good progress though, there are just a few odds and ends left. We are bringing a total of 8 bags to Nicaragua with us: 2 checked bags, 1 carry on, and 1 book bag each. Fortunately C.J. is "silver medallion," so 2 of our checked bags can be 70 lbs. C.J.'s tools are really heavy though, so we'll see how that goes. It was really hard for me to narrow down my clothing selection - I really wanted to bring all my pretty skirts :-( C.J. had to remind me a few times that we won't be "going out" down there.

It is hard for me to explain my anticipation of the trip. I am just overwhelmed by the whole idea right now. It is kind of like when C.J. and I went sky diving... I wasn't scared when we spent all day waiting for the clouds to clear, I wasn't scared when we put on the gear & practiced our form, I wasn't scared when we got into that tin can of a plane, and I wasn't scared as we climbed to 10,000 feet. I thought I wasn't scared, but when I got to the edge of the door and it was time to jump, the instructor had to pry my hands off the doorway and drag me out. I don't know when it's going to hit me, and I guess I can't think about it now because there's too much else to do. Well, I guess you'll soon find out - keep us in your prayers.

Welcome to Grupo Colavito - Must Read

2007-07-09T10:28:00.000-06:00

Thanks for visiting Grupo Colavito! We will use this blog to document our year long volunteer experience in Nicaragua with Grupo Fenix.

While we’re in Nicaragua, C.J. and I will be working as members of a sub-group of Grupo Fenix called CIPPER, which stands for the Center for Research, Promotion, and Production of Renewable Energy. The center is based in a small rural village called Sabana Grande near the northern border of Nicaragua. This is the place where research and ideas are put into practical application. With our help, Sabana Grande will become the model village for a sustainable solar culture.

In Sabana Grande, we will be managing projects and acting as applications engineers to develop renewable energy systems that improve the quality of life of impoverished Nicaraguans. We will also be living with a family in the village and experiencing daily life in the same way that they do.

We are leaving the country on July 28th, and we are really excited, yet scared to be leaving! Please keep us in your prayers!