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.