another solar installation adventure

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

View Photos

Sometimes it’s hard to pay attention

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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!!!!

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

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

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

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

What have we been doing?

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?!

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

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

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.