Getting back to Nicaragua

I want to get my blog functional, and I believe the best way to do that is start somewhere. Let me begin by discussing my experience since last week. I spent over a month in the United States before returning back to the wonders of Nicaragua. Everything, well many things are a wonder here to me in one-way or another.
In that time, I spent most of my time in Los Angeles, where I live when I’m not in Nicaragua, and Phoenix. In Arizona I visited Arizona State University to discuss some graduate school possibilities there. Turns out I really enjoy Tempe, which borders Phoenix. It has sun, good weather, and rocks as well as a college, which is really all I need. I’ve applied to graduate schools, perhaps too many, and I’m eager to hear back from them, but more on that later.
January 21st I returned to Managua, a horrible excuse for a capital city. Managua suffers from sprawl as bad as Los Angeles or Phoenix, but with a public transportation system (though I suppose Phoenix is trying). Still, it lacks any the charm. Instead, it’s a collage of depressed buildings, dirty streets and violence. I never feel safe in Managua. I try to spend as little time as possible there.
blueEnergy rents out a house in Managua, Casa Iban, named for the owner, for all of us to stay there in our goings and comings. As it is the only ‘city’ in Nicaragua we often have to travel there to purchase items, attend meetings, and of course travel out of Nicaragua. It’s a nice place, a cozy 2 bedroom house. Included in the package are Raphael and his Father, the Gatekeepers. They have the (actually) esteemed job of staying in the house all the time (in shifts) to guard the house and let any volunteers in who may pass by.
The night of the 21st I met Nico, a French volunteer there. We were to go to Ocotal the following day to visit another NGO named Grupo Fenix. So at 7 am the next morning we went to the Mercador Mayoreo to catch the 3.5 hour bus to Ocotal. The ticket cost C 85 (Cordobas are the Nicaraguan Currency, 1 US $ = 19.8 C). Ocotal is in North-Central Nicaragua, about an hours drive from the border with Honduras. It is also in Mountain country, which I always appreciate. We had to take a half hour bus ride from Ocotal to San Domingo where Grupo Fenix’s Solar Center is.
When we walked up to the center, located strikingly in the middle of nowhere, a bucolic fellow greeted us. Well he actually looked more like a surfer, either way he certainly had been a star in action movies in a former life. Paul, the New Zealander was the man we came to visit. Nico had informed me that he is working on a prototype for a portable LED solar powered system. This turned out to be a bit of an embellishment, it turned out Paul was conceptualizing such a device. This fact did not take away from the benefit of the experience.
There were seven volunteers at Grupo Fenix, all of whom were quite enjoyable and quirky. Grupo Fenix had the setting that I had anticipated working in with blueEnergy, and to get a taste of it was refreshing. The volunteers there lived in homestays, and worked directly in the communities the sought to assist. This is as opposed to blueEnergy, where we live within our own housing, and in Bluefields, 2 hours away from the closest community that we work in.
Several tasks were completed during our trip to Grupo Fenix. The first was the beginning of several discussions that I would have about the logistics of solar panel powered LED lights. Secondly, Nico and I made several contacts that would be beneficial. The first was with Dave, the Canadian from Guelph, who will be the volunteer coordinator for Grupo Fenix for the next year and a half. The great idea that he has is to start a website which would collect information on appropriate technology which NGO’s around the world develop and procedures of how to implement them. If I was more excited about web development I would help with that. The other good contact was Kathryn, from seattle, who will be working with AIDG in Xela, Guatemala to develop a new sister company. I really like the work the Xela is doing, and I believe that she made become a good inside contact for working with them in the future.