aventurero

bicycle power

This is Bryam. He is an electrical technician trained by AsoFénix in the rural community of Cuajinicuil. This community was a beneficiary of AsoFénix’s first wind turbine project in 2010. AsoFénix worked alongside the community providing technical and financial support as they installed a windmill which generates 1kW of energy, enough to supply 14 homes with basic electrical needs.

When AsoFénix enters a community to assist in installing renewable energy projects, their aim is to have the community to take ownership of the projects. One tactic for accomplishing this goal is to train local technicians from the communities and provide them with working skills and knowledge to build, maintain and repair energy systems.

Bryam was one of three community members to raise his hand at a planning meeting, expressing interest to be trained by AsoFénix and learn how to construct a wind turbine and then wire houses with lights and light switches, batteries and outlets. So when he was 16 years old, Bryam helped wire all 11 houses in his small community to the wind turbine that he helped build.

Bryam now lives in Managua and assists with projects in the communities as well as odd jobs around the office.

In his spare time, Bryam has used his electrical skills to build up a bicycle that was gifted to him. It’s my favorite bike in the world. I would like to give you a brief tour…

The bike is built up almost entirely from salvaged materials. This little motor connects to a small battery which powers all the bike’s electronics. It is powered by energy harnessed from the spinning wheel.

Bryam mounted a small solar panel on the handle bars which also connects to the battery, helping out with supplying energy to his vast array of lights, and his radio (which he blasts as he rides to and from our offices).

Radio and christmas lights…

The battery also sends power to this outlet, which Bryam can use to charge his cell phone.

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beisbol

So, I’ve been playing on a baseball team in Managua for over a month now…we play in a dirt street and we demand to be taken seriously. But if not, well that’s fine too.

I think this baseball league encompasses everything I love about Nicaragua…

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Half Way

onion flowering

Last week, I submitted the last of my paperwork to stay in Nicaragua and continue my internship for an additional three months. I will now be working here until June. The last four and a half months have flown by, and so I anticipate the next four and a half to do the same.

In the meantime, there is a lot to look forward to with our organization and the farmers we are working with. One of the main goals of my internship is to connect the farmers with educational resources inside the country. I have been working on this under the direction of both AsoFenix and Green Empowerment. It has been the most satisfying aspect of my internship so far. We just completed our second workshop with the farmers and professors from the National Agrarian University.

Our first meeting was in Managua, where the farmers were driven in to meet the professors and begin a discussion about some challenges they have been facing.

They also took a tour of the University’s organic garden and composting operations.

Last week, the professors came to the farmers. This was a chance to see the farms and help the producers identify pests and discuss some basic, low cost, organic pest management techniques. 

Each professor had prepared a presentation for the producers based on their discussion from the first meeting. The picture below is of a presentation about the development of a tomato plant.

With access to the Internet, (or even libraries for that matter…) this is the type of information that I so easily take for granted. It’s crucial information for farmers, but it doesn’t exist where they live. Only a few of the farmers even know how to read, so when experimenting with new crops or methods of agriculture, there is no real opportunity to do any research.

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Last time I was in NY, my great Aunt and Uncle scanned some great family photos for me, like this one: A picture of my mom with her grandparents celebrating her first birthday, 57 years ago today.

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would you like to nerd out about compost with me?

Where I was living in Seattle, I was more likely to throw something away in the compost bin than the garbage can. Seattle is a composting city. The compost containers outside of homes and apartment buildings often tower over the garbage cans next to them. Some people are more meticulous about sorting their biodegradables than others, but even among the people who don’t compost, most have heard about it.

Here, the farmers I have been working with had never heard of compost, but they didn’t really need to. They grew their staple crops in the rainy season and after harvest, horses and cattle would graze the land leaving rich excrements that would decompose and fill the soil with nutrients over the dry season.

But for many, leaving the land fallow comes at the price of migration. It is not a practice to help the land, but rather, the only option for farmers without access to water. With no water, there are no crops to produce and no money to earn. For most, maintaining a livelihood during the dry season involves leaving Nicaragua to pursue agricultural work in Costa Rica.

AsoFenix aims to keep communities intact. The organization believes that through education and the assistance of technology, communities can grow both socially and economically without sacrificing the environment. Technology like the solar powered irrigation systems AsoFenix and Green Empowerment have installed, have made an enormous impact in keeping community members living in the community. But AsoFenix recognizes that technology alone will not suffice.

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