RAIN!!

Woah woah WOAH! My definition of a summer storm has suddenly been ripped to shreds by giant bolts of lightning and earth-shattering strikes of thunder. Last night it rained so hard for so long there were times I wondered if we were experiencing a hurricane. Bluefields is famous for hurricanes, after all. I couldn't even hear any dogs!

But this morning, the day had settled itself into a pattern of heavy showers and occasional, not-earthquake-inducing thunder rolls. According to the volunteers, we've officially entered the rainy season. Between now and when I leave at the end of September, it will supposedly get more and more rainy. I'm not sure how that's going to happen seeing as this was the worst summer storm I've ever lived through... but we'll see.

Dancing Dominos

Tuesday turned out to be one of the coolest Bluefields experiences to date.  Somehow, for some reason, blueEnergy decided to have a party and co-host it with Bluefields Sound System.  It was especially interesting because we managed to figure out a way to get BSS to host the thing, so all we had to do was show up.

It turned out to be a really interesting crowd because we had all our extranjero voluntarios and a whole bunch of local BSS musicians and artists - the people BSS is trying to promote.  There was the occasional impromtu music concert, lots of beer, some local pharmeceuticals, and a set of Dominos.

Now, Dominos in Bluefields is like a religion.  People play it the way people in other countries play Chess or Go.  It's a delicate game of balance and manipulation.  When I saw the table of players in the corner of the balcony, I went over to watch a few hands, and quickly decided the game was kinda boring... but then I somehow got roped into playing, and suddenly the world of Dominos opened up.  There's a slow rhythm to the game - a pulse or beat - that you have to sculpt with a gentle hand in order to win.  The best way to play the game is with four players, where players sitting across from each other are team members and try to help each other out.  After a few hands, I started to catch on, and Moses (a local Rasta) and I became table champs for a good hour or so.

Whoo hooooo!  I've decided Dominos is my new favorite game.

Anyway, eventually we had to lose, and so I left the table to rejoin the rest of the festivities.  We danced and danced - I learned a few moves from Julie, who's been studying with the Spirit Dancers here in town (who knew your body could move like that?) and enjoyed being one of the three girls in the room (every time we go out I notice the distinct dearth of women out and about - there's something about children and staying home and cooking...).

The party was particular in it's chemistry, and I left that night feeling like I'd really felt what it was like to live in Bluefields like a local; local friends, local music, local dances, and local games.  Yay for Bluefields!

Laundry Day

I read nursery rhymes as a kid that talked about the different days of the week, and their specific purposes.  I remember one day was market day, and one day was bathing day.  One day was always laundry day too.  I never really understood why the days were delineated the way they were, because I would think about how you didn't really need a whole day to do each of those tasks. 

I never really understood, that is, until I suddenly found myself living it.

Today was laundry day for me.  The ladies in the kitchen here are also responsible for cleaning and laundry, but they're notorious for being a bit rough on the fancy materials, so we're encouraged to do our own laundry if we're particular in any way.  Since I'm obsessed with my underwear which is NOT on the cheap side, and I'm also picky about how stretched-out my cotton tank tops become, I figured it wouldn't be that much of an issue to just do my own laundry.

Well, laundry is done on a special table.  It's got a basin for clean water, and a little scrubbing pad to scrunch your clothes against as you pour soapy or clean water over them.  It is NOT easy getting stains out of your clothes that way - especially when you're like me and hopelessly trying not to ruin the stretch and pull of the materials your abusing.

Here's a picture of Barbara doing laundry...

Gualpatara

All this week we had training for the locals operators in the communities that we serve.  That means we shipped in all the people from Monkey Point, Pearl Lagoon, Set Net Point, Punta de Aguila, and everywhere else that we have turbines set up, and had them sit through a week-long class training them up on all that is the blueEnergy system.  This was a really cool to finally get off the ground - it's something that we've been talking about doing for several years, and finally Marie made it happen.  We even have an official operator's manual and everything.

Anyway, as a result of having all these people in Bluefields, we gave the kitchen staff a break and ordered in catering from INATEC.  The catering service was cool (albeit rather un-inventive) but they made us go to the workshop in order to eat.  As a result, there was an unprecedented amount of mingling between operators, volunteers, and local workers.  Since Maya, the newest addition to our volunteer corps, also happens to be a super cute female, the two of us have become fast friends (partly as a self-preservation / protection technique, and partly cause she's super cool).  We got to talking with a bunch of the workers, and discovered (FINALLY) that there's a little swimming hole hiking distance from casa blueEnergy!  Who knew?!?!

Well, obviously Maya and I were sold on the idea of being able to submerge ourselves in clean, running, cold water seeing as it's hot and sticky here ALL the time, and dusty to boot.  We made plans to go with a bunch of the locals, but plans never really materialize, and we ended up just going with Lâl (he said he knew the way, and we didn't wanna wait any longer for the workers... "Nicaragua time" sometimes means "never").

Well, the hike was interesting since Lâl had been there before - but not this year.  The paths change every year depending on who's build a new house, or where the hurricanes washed out the trail the previous year.  We managed to make it there eventually, but we were definitely REALLY hot and sticky by the time we arrived.  Never before had clean cool water been so appetizing.

I stumbled upon an interesting cultural experience while enjoying the water as well.  The women here aren't big on using bathing suits.  They tend to swim in whatever clothes they have on instead.  I don't think this is a modesty issue as often their clothes are white, and when wet, entirely see-through (boys, they wear underwear... stop getting ideas).  I think it's more an issue of just not bothering with buying/owning/maintaining swim suits.  Who knows?  In any case, Maya and I found ourselves to be BIG attractions and conversation points for all the other swimmers at the swimming hole.  When I was down to my suit and standing on a cliff preparing myself to jump into the water, I had about 5 different camera phones focused on me with both girls and guys pointing, giggling, and chatting.  I never thought I could be that interesting.  Lâl mentioned that maybe I should swim with my clothes on too, but I was too hot and sticky and dirty to want to do that.  Maybe next time, I told him.

Anyway, an hour of hanging out in the water, jumping off the cliffs, avoiding rocks, and getting scared by locals swimming up to us under the water and nipping at our legs, we were sufficiently freezing enough to begin our journey home.  Lâl wanted to show us some other parts of the city, so we took a different route home.  This was the first time I walked around the city away from the roads, and discovered how much of Bluefields I had been totally unaware of before.  Bluefields has roads upon which the taxis and trucks run, moving people and cargo around the city.  Cement houses and shops line the streets on both sides, causing the city to appear as if it's all visible from the street.  In reality, however, there are little pathways that cut away from the road towards large plots of little wooden houses built practically on top of each other.  Every several houses or so is a well that is used communally.  Laundry lines criss cross your line of sight, and pigs, chickens, and dogs run around freely.  What appeared to me to be a decently set-up, quasi well-off city suddenly showed itself to be substantially poorer than I'd originally thought.  I could suddenly see the deficiencies in sanitation and water purity I've been reading about, and see right into the one-room houses filled with 7 children playing with a bicycle tire.  I became really self-conscious of the two-story nicely-painted cement sky-scraper that I live in here.  Gosh, even my bucket shower is a luxury.

Los Cayos Perlas

"Tropical Island Paradise" only sounds more beautiful when you've actually experienced it in real life.  This weekend I went with a bunch of the volunteers to Los Callos Perlas (otherwise known as the Pearl Keys).  The Keys are little teeny tiny islands in Pearl Lagoon, north of Bluefields.  In order to get there, we had chartered a Panga to Pearl Lagoon (the "city), then took off again for a particular Key that Lâl had in mind (did I mention that Lâl, Maïte, Mathias, and other big-shot important blueEnergy people are here for strategic planning meetings, some face time, and general milestone marking?). 

We had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 5:30, which manages to be hot here anyway.  Then we set off to the docks, sat around for a bit, got in a boat, and were off.  We randomly met this Quebecois girl who fit right in with the rest of the group considering I was the only one there that wasn't either Canadian or French (and the only one, therefore, who didn't speak French).  Nonetheless, the day was perfect.  I got to take a nap in a hammock on a perfectly pristine tropical island, watch the others play bocce ball with coconuts or practice random synchronized swimming routines in the water, and eat tropical fruit all day...  Is there anything better than that?

Here are some pics:

Obviously tropical island paradises have coconuts and machetes... what would they be without them!?  I probably ate 6 coconuts that day.  Here's me struggling with one of them.

Hanging out in the hammock.  You can see the back end of the island in this picture.  The island was probably a 20 minute walk around the whole circumference.  In this picture, Mattieu is chillin with Maïte and Claude, the Quebecois girl we picked up on the way.  She was just a random backpacker we invited along.  She kept giggling about how perfect this island was, and thanked us a thousand times for inviting her along.  She was super fun - she even played underwater rugby with the boys when the rest of the girls were sleeping on hammocks.

Andrea teaching Max about synchronized swimming.  This was an absolutely hilarious spectacle to watch.  At one point they'd actually put together a little routine and performed it for us.  Take notice, btw, of the tranquility of the water.  On top of that, the sand underneath the water was super spongy and SO nice to walk on.  Aahhhhh.

Lâl and Francois playing Bocce ball with Coconuts.  Yup... I was surrounded by the French.

Did I mention it was a tropical paradise?  It seriously doesn't get more pristine than this.

In the chartered Panga.  From left to right: Lâl, Maïte, Francois, Maxime, Charles, Andrea, and two random driver people that we hired.

There are more photos available on Facebook if you're connected to that network

Water Filters Abound

After the craziness and stress of the UNDP presentation, I was allowed to partake in the water-filter training that we also have going on this week.  Andrea, a consultant for CAWST, a Canadian-based firm that trains NGOs on water filtration, sanitation, and creating a successful project, is here in Bluefields this week providing a seminar for a few blueEnergy volunteers, employees, and partners.  Andrea has turned out to be especially cool - she speaks four languages damn near fluently, lives in Calgary, and is super cute!

Anyway, I've had the chance to really get my hands dirty with the water filter effort.  Since Bruno is leaving on Saturday, he wants to transfer all his knowledge and make sure that his last 6 months of energy don't go to waste because his project fell flat, so he planned this seminar right around his take-off date to make sure the momentum was in place.

What we've been working on some more is really perfecting the process of creating these filters.  I've already posted pics of our attempts at our first filter, but that one only half-succeeded.  Since then there have been 5 more attempts, and each time we get closer - but still no cigar.

This is another attempt at a filter. We've put the cement in the mold, and now just have to wait for it to sit before extracting it.

After 24 hours of letting it sit, the cement is both solid enough to remove the mold and have it not melt into a puddle, but soft enough to still come out of the mold.  The trick is making sure not to screw it up.  Here Octavio, Danny, and Charles are flipping the mold over to put the filter upright.

The guys then attach the extractor which screws into the inner piece of the mold and should pull it up slowly with a crank.

Here they go, cranking away.  This is actually uber hard to do.  We need about 4 strong dudes just to crank it around a bit.  Once it gets far enough out, they can lift it the rest of the way - but just the weight of the mold is itself quite heavy.

So this filter got stuck to the inner mold, and we had to break it out in order to save the mold.  Unfortunately.  We were very sad, since this was the first amazingly formed cement.  Damn... the grease wasn't enough.

Yay! A filter that worked. We managed to get it out of the mold, fill it with water, and have the water come out - meaning that the water tube was also in good condition. Schwweeeeet!

After two days of drying, the filter was ready for us to add the sand column on the inside.  Here you can also see the plastic splash guard that will prevent buckets of water from disrupting the delicate eco-system that is supposed to develop in the sand.

Putting sand into the filter.  This sand had to be pre-washed... although not for the reasons you would think.  "Washing" sand really means just taking out the smallest particles of the sand.  We actually want the biology (whatever there is) in the sand to be there because it helps to eat up all the bacteria and parasites that will come into the filter with the water.  The only reason we wash the sand is to make it slightly easier for the sand to pass through it - this decreases the absolute effectiveness of the filter, but makes it more practical.  If it takes three days for the water to pass through the filter, no one will want to use it.

After filling it with sand, we have to test the water flow.  A flow that's too fast means that we washed the sand too much, and the water will not be filtered properly.  A flow that's too slow means the sand wasn't washed enough, and although the filter will be effective, it won't be practical.  The trick is to find the balance.

Clean water! Whoo hoooo!

Presenting to the UNDP

Tuesday was an uber high-stress day that was exactly how I had imagined all my days on the ground here in Bluefields would be like.  It was super crazy, but also exciting.  Sunday night we received word that our contact with the UNDP in Nicaragua had finally managed to convince the organization to take a look at our operation and figure out a way for them to help us.

Of course, that meant that we suddenly had to scramble to put together a presentation, a tour, and somehow simultaneously appear to be super organized, and effortlessly professional.  HA!  Well Guillaume, Ben, Julie and I sat in our little Bluefields Office Headquarters and hammered out a presentation (in spanish, I might add) that talked about where we've come from, what we're doing now, and our 5-year implementation plan, mentioning of course, that we need close to $7M to do it right.  Fun fun fun.

Tuesday night came around, and we were running numbers up until 3 minutes before the UNDP was supposed to arrive.  We managed to get the kitchen staff to put together a little coffee and cookies tray for the presentation (since it was happening at the workshop) before starting on their preparations for dinner.  Did I mention we had offered to host the UNDP for dinner too?  Also, the workshop was frantically being cleaned and polished in the background, and certain select locals were chosen to appear busy while our tour was going on.

Anyway, the event was a huge success.  We gave a tour where local employees gave an overview of their section of the workshop - what they were working on at that moment, and how it fit into the larger picture.  We showed off the turbines that we are using to provide energy for the workshop, and then we finished in our little classroom where Guillaume gave our banged-out presentation.  Whoo hoooo!

Then it was back to the house for a super-nicaraguan meal and lots of Flor de Caña (that's awesome Nicaraguan rum, by the way)... and the real substance of schmoozing.  Thank god Guillaume's so good at it.

Here are a few pics...

Here's a good chunk of the group during the tour of the workshop.  There's local employees, volunteers, UNDP peeps, random professors from UMich who happened to hear about us and were interested, and Guillaume all mixed in there together.  At this particular point in the tour, Seb was explaining the stators, and the actual electricity production inside the turbine.  And yes, that's me in the back, center there - and no, I'm not pissed, even though I look it.  Apparently I've developed a habit of giving this kind of pissy stare whenever I listen to Spanish really closely.

Dinner with the bigshots.  The kitchen staff even managed to throw together matching table cloths and everything!  We were also lucky enough to have Lâl here - the guy in charge of the French operations of blueEnergy - in time for the presentation as well.   He works full time for the civil service in France, but spends every other waking moment he has left over on furthering the vision of bE.  The next step for him and for the French arm is to open up a point of operations in Africa based as much as possible on the model we've implemented here in Bluefields.