Conclusions & New Beginnings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need a ladder to kiss you

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Kitten Had Kittens!

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

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

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

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

A rewarding experience

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

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

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

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

Ometepe and Katie´s Visit Pictures

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

More Costa Rica Photos

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Costa Rica is Rica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our secret weapon

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

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

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

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

Mortifying

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

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

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

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

Vacation (Adventure) in Ometepe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

another solar installation adventure

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.