Maya went to Managua with G in order to buy stuff not available in Bluefields, and meet with a bunch of people before returning to Bluefields with the instructions to gut and renovate one of the INATEC classrooms into a new office for blueEnergy’s base of operations. Since bE has developed a plan to build CERCA (Centro Ecologico Regional de Capacitacion Ambiental) on INATEC’s campus, we’ve been working on both convincing INATEC that it’s the right move, and developing a design for the building and what it will represent. Maya’s main business here in Bluefields is to create CERCA in all its glory. Step 0.01 was to build the office on the campus so that it can be used as a conference room, offices, library, and whatever else it will need to be while CERCA is being built over the next couple years.
Anyway, so there was Maya, back in Bluefields, with explicit instructions to have everything done within two weeks. Getting the key to the soon-to-be-office only took four days, so suddenly she was down for 10 days of crunch time. G instructed me to put my water project efforts on hold, drop everything, and run to Maya’s aid. Here's a pic of the room when we got it. Those are typewriters on each desk, which apparently are super-high technology and needed to be guarded with our lives as we simultaneously ripped out everything else in that room.
Working in construction has always been especially fun for me. That’s why I gravitated towards Habitat for Humanity in college. Besides, who doesn’t love using power tools? And demolition? Don't even get me started. The situation becomes infinitely more interesting, however, when you and your counterpart are a) the only women involved in the entire operation, b) the only two that barely speak Spanish, c) the only ones with a clear picture of everything that needs to be done, as well as a ridiculously high standard as to how it should be done, and d) the only ones with 1/10 the construction experience the rest of the crew has. We very quickly learned how to use the imperative form and how to yell things like “stop!” and “good job!”, but cultural issues ran much, much deeper. Since Maya was the designer of the project, she was essentially the boss, but being a woman with limited Spanish abilities made her job exceptionally difficult. She and I spent hours at the end of each day discussing how we’d best schedule the workers the following day, organize the timelines for each person, figure out where they’d work best, what tasks they were capable of, how quickly they’d get it done, how to best approach each worker, what to say, how to say it… the list was endless.
Another issue we dealt with daily was the need for more raw materials. We’d make lists of things we needed for the next day, but since we don’t have the authority to use bE money to buy stuff, we had to send it through Ismael, the INATEC liason, who would run around town buying stuff all morning. The difficulties were that that half the stuff on the daily lists weren’t available in Bluefields that day (who knows…) or were simply forgotten or ignored, so getting ahold of every necessary piece of equipment was a challenge. Simultaneously, we had Felix working on all the furniture (since he’s the resident wood expert) but since the wood that comes into Bluefields is wet (due to the unrelenting rain and impossible panga rides), we couldn’t use any of the stuff we bought. Maya eventually designed an entire furniture design out of plywood since that was the only dry wood available, and Felix pulled off a monster feat of actually accomplishing everything within the allotted time.
Anyway, what must have been 14-hour days ran together. As Maya and I sprinted past each other issuing orders, following up on each of the workers (we had a team of 17 for most of the week – each of which was working on something different), making sure they hadn’t hit a snafu, and checking on quality, we simultaneously threw in efforts to paint walls, hang doors, re-panel ceilings, etc. Phew! Sunday night at 1am, we pulled up the last drip of paint off the floor and secured the new door with the recently installed lock. Meetings for CERCA and the soon-to-be newly-installed curriculum of Environmental Studies at INATEC could now begin.
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