New Projects to Empower the Poor

Hey everyone!! Things here are great as usual. I have just moved into my new home located closer to town. It is a beautiful house with plenty of space. My walls of my home are made of dried adobe or a mixture of dirt and horse manure (the manure helps makes the dirt stick together better). Luckily the bricks are dried very well so there is no trace of smell in the bricks. The roof is made of brick tiles arranged so water won´t leak, but after a heavy rain the water will soak through just a little. I also have a kitchen which is right beside my house. I have been using a wood stove to cook on, which have been getting easier and easier to use. It started out taking up to 30 minutes and about 20 matches just to get a good fire going, but now I am down to less than 5 minutes and only one match!! I am also learning about different foods that I can cook. Cooking takes a lot of my time as there isn´t the canned food or pre-made in the package. I am still usually eating rice and beans, but with a few extra veggies.
I think that I am finally getting used to some of the Nicaraguan cultures, as I catch myself saying some of the normal clips, si hombre(yes man), or que tawny(that's cool)-along with some of the famous hand motions used everywhere here!
As far as projects are coming, my primary goal is concentrating on getting my Spanish level higher. I am able to communicate with everybody here, but would just like to understand more. I am currently working with my community to start up a bakery. I have a new design for a more improved oven consisting with a metal 50 gal. drum and bricks. The oven is fairly cheap and easy to build. The hope is to build a couple of these throughout the community and make enough bread to supply the town and the other neighboring villages. Right now they buy their bread from a truck coming from the capital city-more than 3 hours away. Other projects include a water irrigation system for small gardens. Right now is the dry season and the dry weather will last for the next 5 months. Food shortage becomes a problem with a lack of food throughout all of Nicaragua, and with these irrigation systems the people will be able to grow their own crops and vegetables during this harsh time of the year.
Another project high on my priority list includes building a wash stand for the women to wash their clothes on. They currently take their closes to the river to wash-putting harmful chemicals in the river(Sadly I have to do the same as I don´t have a place to wash my clothes). This new design that I am working to find funds for includes a cement sink with a pipe out the back to drain the water. I have also designed a drainage pipe to travel into the ground to drain the water. The hope is to build a garden over this drainage pipe to capture some of the humidity from the water. As you can see I am staying busy with projects and improving my Spanish!



Hope you all are staying warm up there amongst the freezing weather! If you have a chance-check out this website for Emerging Opportunities for Sustainability EOS International, a company a couple of friends and I started up to help empower people in developing countries with appropriate technology. We just became incorporated and got the website up and running. Give me a shout-out if you have any comments!! http://www.eosintl.org/
Cheers,

Wes