Adios.

I had worked up the appropriate good-byes and well wishes in spanish but when it came down to "adios" just seemed to fit. Here just a few more shots of the Nicaragua I saw. I fly out in the morning and I don't know that I'll ever make it back. Well, Adios muchachos.

Maybe My Greatest Contribution

I've been thinking for 28 days of new technology, new business ideas, programs, etc., that could help out here. Well the hard thinking has come to fruition on day 29...Brownies. I spent a couple hours with a baker here in the ward. She bakes sweet and savory bread stuff and sells them around town. And success! We baked brownies from scratch (the box mix stuff is actually way better). They like them and if she does a little tweeking with the recipe to get it right with the local ingredients I think she could add a little something special to her products. She copied the recipe and asked for a few more goodies. I gave here some other simple yet winner recipes: Crepes, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and (a little more difficult but worth it) pie crust.

Briquettes

I remembered another technology for developing countries (those countries that still cook by setting a pot on three rocks over a fire) that has seen success around the world. It is using trash and biomass to make briquettes for cooking. The short of the simple technique is soak everything, blend it up real good, and then slop it into a cylinder to compress all the water out. Let it dry then use it for fire wood. The idea is that it still burns hot enough to cook and is much cheaper and requires less time gathering wood or even cutting down living vegetation. We've been working with a lady that cooks tortillas and wood is a big expense. I got some briquettes made and they burn but I haven't been able to spend enough time with them to know if they burn hot enough to cook the tortillas. If you've had any experience with this let me know.

Earning My Beans

We finally earned our beans today! We sucked water out of a 20' hole in the ground. After seeing and smelling the water we probably should have left it in the ground. But we were representing all gringos (foreigners) so we couldn't go out like that. Its been fun a fun project for the last month and we have definitely had our ups and downs but in the end we managed to piece together enough odds and ends from nearby warehouses to get the well constructed. Now we just finish up the sales packet show someone how to build it and voila a new technology and business!

Opening Day!!!

Who's the smoothie king now? We are officially up and running. We did our best to keep it simple, cheap, and cool. If you speak spanish you can appreciate the next part. The name of the business is Batidos Salvajes. Our 3 drinks: Negrita Rica, Lava de Chocolate, and El Pobre Chele (the locals love the names, they stop and laugh everytime). They love chocolate around here and we thought we'd throw in a little peanut butter for something exotic. We felt pretty strong about appearances and impressions and of course taste, so we trained our cooks and gave them recipes and we laid out a logo and sign and everything else you see in the pics. It looks like it works. While we were there today to check the place out and two taxi drivers stopped to read the sign and ended up buying (it could also be the whitie or "chele" effect). They sold 30 the first day, which brings in $7.50 profit for them, about a lower middle class wage. It doesn't sound like a lot but I'm ecstatic it wasn't a complete failure. Its all marketing from here on out--and we've got some great ideas for that. Post comments if you have some good additions to the business!

The Mouth of Hell

We made a site seeing trip to our local volcano just about 15 minutes away. It is still active, thus all the smoke. You'll notice the cross mounted at the top of the hill. The history behind goes back to the 1500's when Christians first came down here. Some preacher said this volcano was the mouth of hell and so he put up a cross, I guess to ward off evil.

Faith of a Single Light Bulb

I hesitate to write this entry fearing to sound cliché. We've been invited to a friend's house the last couple Mondays for FHE. Our friends are a girl and guy cousin both planning to head out on a mission this year. Their families are inactive and it sounds like there is only a mother at home. I should say I haven't always been a big fan of FHE (except for the year that I was the dad) and I probably won't be again when I return to BYU. The lessons are tedious and only tolerable because the games are even worse. Anyway, their house is on the edge of town. You can kind of tell by the sites and smells. There is always something burning anywhere you go in the city. In town I typically inhale melting plastic fumes from smoldering trash piles but moving out it turns more to a campfire setting. The sparsely scattered street lights disappear and wood burning smoke from the back yard flows through trees, past pigs and horses to fill the street. A few families meet at this house. We gather chairs around in a circle and someone leads the lesson. As I was trying to read in the dim light of the single light bulb I realized it hung from a corrugated metal roof which sat on a concrete mason block wall which ran down to the dirt floor my feet were on. A few kitschy decorations (I think Disney princesses or something like that) hung from the wall. The interesting thing wasn't so much the bleakness of the poverty. But that I honestly felt welcome in their energy and friendship. They used the Preach My Gospel manual for the lesson and they all just ate it up. I suppose the cliché here was that I was the one missing something. I left wondering why it was I was spending so much time trying to bring them more wealth. They seemed happy and really loving the gospel and that was more than I could say for me most of the time.

Cutting Cordobas

We've been working on the financial spreadsheets for our smoothie business and we need to cut costs or we need to raise prices. Raising prices here would be death to the business so we went to the market today. Up to this point we paid a white tax on everything and I've been happy to pay it but the free market has spoken and we're here to compete. So today we went into the belly of the central market to haggle with the old women over every nickel and dime. I should say this place is a huge labyrinth of stores and carts with shoppers and sales people (a lot of ladies with some product carried in a bucket or plate on their head) squeezing through the isles. We always get lost and at some point I have always gotten uncomfortable about the sketchiness of the whole thing. I can usually use my sense of smell to tell me where I am. They have produce sections (rotting mangoes, bananas, etc.), tortillas sections, they have touristy sections with wood carvings and woven hammocks (dusty/musty), and the big give away is the meat section, and only slight less (and surprisingly less) smelly the fish section.

Anyway the important thing is there are so many shops and vendors we just move on if we don't like the price. Also there are so many conditions and qualities of fruit and bad fruit makes a bad smoothie. But after some good efforts we found cheap and good fruit. And we found bulk for all our other ingredients except the secret ingredient...peanut butter. We've only found one store in another city about a half hour away. It looks like the average cost to produce a 0.3L smoothie is about 25 cents. We plan to sell them for about 50 cents. That doesn't pull in much but enough for a living wage here. Plus over time we should be able to find lower cost supplies and hopefully increase sales.

The Well

Day One (Saturday)

When God created every living thing that moveth in one day it must have been a day like today. I feel like I've been here all summer and it has only been one day. I suppose I've already got my money's worth then because I know somehow I soaked up at least 30 days worth of Nicaraguan sites, sounds, and smells all by noon.

Considering the scariness I saw last night coming in from the airport I should say things always look better in the morning and not having to use a flashlight to get a glass of water was a good step. The house is actually great. We have an open breezeway (courtyard sort of thing) along our house and tropical plants grow straight out of the ground and they don't wilt on the edges like mine always do at home.

A welcome site of Cartoon Network and Choco Puffs

A Trip to the Market

San Fernando vs Costa Caribbea

Day Two (Suday)

Pretty normal Sunday. I thought might be slow but with Church at 8:30 we were at it early. Met a lot of people made a few friends. They love music.





When we came home I did a little scripture study and these verses caught my attention.

“...thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them...and afterward shall they come out with great substance.”

“Give, and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over...”



I made a few goals.

Daily Goals
Make Fresh Tropical Fruit Smoothie
Make a Blog Entry with Pictures
Read El Libro de Mormon for 10 minutes
Read other scriptures for 20
Meet one new person

Day Three

First day on the job. I can't figure this dress code out. I thought we were in a tropical country sandals and flower-patterned shirts right? After the formal introductions I put on my church shoes...and the guys here are always wearing pants. Anyhow a little after that Eric helped me make my well presentation to our Jefe. That's really where my engineering experience paid off. You have to say everything as if you've been doing it for fourty years already and there is no other conceivable way it could be done. (And if there turns out to be a problem it must have been some error in translation.) I had to rely on that fast because I know nothing about wells and in our morning meeting Jefe, sitting behind his desk, paused, leaned into his chair and looking at me said, “we'd like to take advantage of your skills. Tell me what you know about wells.” Fortunately I did sit next to a well engineer on the flight from Salt Lake to Kansas City so he gave me a few pointers that I then relaid to the group.

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what material we'll need and where to get it. Sounds like we'll go out in a few days to dig a well.

Day Four

I'm convinced sweat shops do 90% of the world's work. I'm not sure how the guys in the office here know where all the industrial hubs of the city are but today we visited several little home-converted-factories where I found nylon cord, sheets of rubber foam, and pvc pipe. Each was stocked with all sorts of material and odd machinery and had some guy or several guys sitting in a back corner sweating away building something. When I had all our material gathered up we took it back to our place. I then went back to my corner sat at my work table cutting the rubber foam to perfect circles to fit the pvc pipe. It was hot and long sleeves helped to keep the sweat out of my eyes.

One of our self-employment workshops. Pio our director is teaching here.

Day Five

I think I want to live in the jungle. We took our first trip out of town today. I'm not sure I could do it right away though because to live there you need a few skills that would take me at least a couple months to develop. I need to be able to ride a bicycle carrying at least 2 other people, ride two bikes at once, and ride a bike carrying an arm full of fire wood. And then there are certain rules of the road that I would need to figure out when I got there. Does the bike yield to the horse and the horse to the bus? What if about two horse pulling a carriage? Seriously though it was really pretty and by getting out of the city the smell of burning trash wasn't quite so overwhelming. The soil was great and you could grow about anything. The flowers were awesome. Of course I love grandma's bachelor buttons but the orchids here are terrific.

Should I go on...fruit trees don't need much encouragement but apparently the Noni fruit are causing vision impairment. But the same guy that told us that also used a metal wire held around his waist to find where the water was in the field. Now I was a little skeptical of water divination at first but I couldn't argue with the results. The wire indicated that there was water right in the corner of the field at the highest elevation so the water could flood irrigate the entire plot.

Day Six

After all this talk about business ideas we decided to have our own Nicaraguan trial run. Considering the typical loan here is about $100 we thought that to be a good target price for our own investment. We are attempting the real thing – starting our own business and earning an income. Of course we won't be working but we are working in enough labor cost to cover the cost of living of one employee. I have plenty of other big ideas which I may do if this turns out but for now this should be a good test of what we teach in the workshops.
$100 for us is not a big of risk, so of course we are not putting all our tortillas in one basket like they are. I have a lot of respect for their courage to take the loan and venture out.

Day Seven

I've been initiated into the “too-much local water club.” Kind of a fun club to be in when the bano is right between two offices and the front wall doesn't actually go to the ceiling—just kind of a wood panel that slides shut for visual privacy. As you sit there wondering what you should be vowing to never eat or drink again you can hear mouse clicks and people talking. That's another reason I like Nicaragua, no one can really hide anything. No embarrassment though they've all been initiated as well. Welcome to the club.

The Locals

Roberto Guzman – our taxi driver, takes a loan from the foundation. Picked me up from the airport Friday night. Jolly man. I appreciated his slow driving (not sure that was by choice though).
Larry – office management at CFH, 2nd counselor in Stake presidency, 27 years old.
Karen – Larry's wife.
Moises – our neighbor who, like everyone else, likes to sit outside his front door. That is when he isn't loading his bicycle (it has some metal carrier welded on the middle frame) or motorcycle with a propane tank for delivery.
Elvis – teenager works at the foundation.
Tony – gregarious, English speaker we met at the stadium ticket counter. Drank 10 beers at the baseball game, set me up with a girl who looked about 16. He left early, came back wanting to wait a bit as he was too drunk to drive. He put back another couple cans while he waited.
Ex-Pat – Big fan of the Costa Caribbean team (the only white fan among all blacks). Older man gray hair and beard, from Texas, but has lived in Nicaragua for so long that he speaks English as fast as Spanish (fast). Picture Colonel Sanders with a Dodgers hat on.
Karen – Basketball girl (way good, may have a little Caribbean in her). Speaks some English, joined our pick up game with the local kids Saturday night after the neighborhood soccer game.
Elliot – Karen's friend who cheered from the side. A nerdy sort, speaks English.
Obisbo – Bishop. Hasn't realized I don't speak Spanish yet. Runs a food stand in the center plaza. We had deep fried enchiladas, tacos and banana chips.
Johnathan – Teenage boy in the ward likes to talk to Eric and I. Laughs (more of a giggle) when I don't understand.
Rebecca – about 5'3” cute as a button. I think 21. We're going to her house for FHE tomorrow!
Gorge – Rebecca's cousin. They are the only active kids in their families so they hang together. He is putting in mission papers this summer.
Claudio – lives next to Larry and Karen. Delivers our food to the foundation everyday.
Adan – Teenage CFH intern. We went to his house to test out our auger and get some dimensions. (Another wild walk through town)
Darling – She brings us lunch here at CFH. It costs about $1.25. It tastes good but you could probably get it for that cheap in the states, it really is just rice and beans and a couple slices of fried banana. Oh and bags of some home made drink that goes directly in the trash after she leaves.
Leo – Teenage intern, works in the foundation burning leather book covers.
President Contrerres – Our stake president. We bumped into him the town square. Amiable but brief.

Los Ninos