Today I´m in Boaco on a very finikey keyboard with not much time, so i´ll make this short and sweet. Yesterday we met Heime (founder of Groupo Fenix)who explores remote regions that need water and installs solar water pumps. More complicated, of corse. We went to Horca, Candelaria, Potraditos, and El Brama Dero... all in the region of Testepe and close to eachother in very, very remote Nica. All 4x4 roads of craziness, we´re in a toyata land rover 4x4 that I hAVE NEver appreciated more. Its like what we like to do on the dirtbikes, except the only route to these places. The people are w onderful. In Potraditos they already have a 12 panel solar pump installed, but the electric pump broke last december so they fixed a rope pump on top of it instead. Now the rope pump has broken which is why Heime has gone. Horca has 42 families that average 11 people per and has one water pump that is solar electrified upo to a tank on a hill and then gravity fed to the town. It costs each family 30 cordobas a month to have water and each house has their own fosit. This is typical of the other projects we´ve seen as well. THe last town of El Brama Dero we went to is the next project they will be working on. Seeing it before water is very interesting. Girls carry buckets of water on their heads from who knows where...
Boaca is a much bigger town than I expected. They´re about 20,000 people in the area and its a city-type town. In Boaca the pipes are so old that the water is only turned on every 3 days and in the summer, every 5.
BTW, life in Managua is cleaner than when I was here in 2005 but the water situation there is riduculous...THey turn the water off whenever with no rhyme or reason to it and life is out of buckets that have to be filled dilegently. We saw children burning tires in the middle of the street to protest it, stopping up traffic. Awful pollution and smell, but I´m glad to see that there is a sense of democracy among children. That said, with the Sandinistas in power you already see and hear about change. Venezuala is sending over 65 million dollars (I think that much) to help the infrastructure and the streets have already been cleaned up and there are many trenches for sewer systems (to replace their lack of sewer system). Education is now free (before it was 130 US dollars a year.. hefty for the poor to afford) all the way through the collage level, which is wonderful!! and many medications are now available to everyone, in which they expect all healthcare to be free soon to everyone as well.
We did meet with the factory the other day, btw, and I will tell that story another day. Things went really well, better than expected even! And it looks like it will be no problem getting a solar system installed with plenty of help` . Phillip (who helped fund projects like this before) and Mike ( CDCA) have old friends together they´ve found, and the CDCA is a very worthy cause.
Enough for now, I need to get out and see this place before we leave for Mulukuku. This trip is fabulous so far!! And while I´m not on the usual adventure for me, its leaving nothing to be desired.
Much love!!
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