En Un País Ventoso

First the basics:

I'll be spending the next six months until July 2010 working for blueEnergy - link's over there on the right somewhere - see if you can find my bio!

So... I arrived here in Bluefields, Nicaragua, two weeks ago as one of seven new volunteers to join the fifteen already here. It's a mixed bunch, mainly French and American volunteers, but there is one other Brit, a Canadian, a Portugese and two Argentinians. I'm sharing a room with a top bloke from San Francisco called Ramin. Our room is in the main blueEnergy house, which is great as we have things that the other three smaller houses lack, such as Wi-fi internet and a well-stocked kitchen.

First week was spent on an induction program designed to bring us up to speed on the background, history, technology, and future plans of blueEnergy, as well as issues such as life in the volunteer houses, safety in Bluefields, and the ethnic composition of the peoples of the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. It's hard to imagine a more ethnically diverse place outside of a major city. There are six major groups living in Bluefields and the surrounding areas: Spanish-speaking Mestizos (largely immigrants from the Pacific coast) and English-speaking Creoles (descendants of people brought over from Jamaica), Garifunas (descendants of African slaves brought by the Portuguese), and three indigenous groups - the Miskitus, Sumus and Ramas. The language of business and commerce here is very firmly Spanish, but walking around Bluefields I've heard mostly English being spoken.

I am working on the Technical Team, officially as an Energy Project Engineer. For those who were asking exactly what I'd be doing, here at last a bit of detail: my first two assignments are to lead the design and development of the new 17' wind turbine, and to work with my colleague Pedro on a bio-gasifier for one of the communities on the coast. More on these projects in the next update!

For now, here's a link to a short video I made of Bluefields and some of our wind turbines in action.

On my next post, when I get round to it, look forward to some more details on what exactly blueEnergy is doing here, some reflections on that and my part in it all.

Hasta luego,

Felipe