Hola de Montecristi!!!

This is where I am living, a two story pink house in the community of "Montecristi." It is a quaint little upper-middle class gated community, no bigger than about 4x4 city blocks I'd say. For the parental units and others concerned, there is a security guard at the gate and during the night other guards walk around blowing whistles so that I know they are there and on patrol! We also have, as you can see, tall iron fencing around the house, as well as big heavy wooden doors with locks.

Above is the view from my room. To the left is my

bed- very basic and the pillows are made of a strange cotton/foam material. Not the best, but fine! To the right is the other side of the room. Pink, cozy, and well lit.

Yesterday I met all the staff of the Nicaraguan NGO I am working with, called "Asofenix" and took part in (or listened and tried to understand) their weekly staff meeting. They discussed each of the 15 or so projects that are up and running in the communities- what they need in terms of equipment, where the community management is lacking, and new projects on the horizon. The meeting took place here:

I had a little orientation about what I'll be doing, which will include:

• Assisting the "periodistas," or journalists in English, with their journalism skills. This means answering the very basic questions of who, what, where, when, and why in order to adequately report back to Asofenix and Green Empowerment. I'll help them sort out good "stories" that would be useful or interesting for the team to know about for technical reasons, as well as to report back to donors.

• I will also be in charge of planning a renewable energy event sometime in December or January, in a town called "San Juan de los Remates" - a central hub the mountains to many of the communities we work with that are further up in the mountains. The event will be a good way to showcase how helpful the technologies can be and how they work, so that we could possibly start more projects!

• In addition, I'll also make educational materials to hand out to the communities, explaining how a solar panel system works, for example, or why it's important to protect the water or soil.

I am very much looking forward to getting started, though enjoying these couple of days to adjust :)

Of course, in Nicaragua you can expect to see things like this little creature tied up, like a household pet, on the patio of the house across from us:

Pretty cute, eh? I asked some kids on the street what kind of animal it is, and they said it is a racoon...but I know that's not what it is. Anyone who might know, let me know! I have looked it up and so far can't figure it out.

Well, I have got to get to some work now...and surely the next posts will have more exciting adventures and stories to speak of!