June 22- Six weeks down!

As my sixth week comes to a close, I realize that I am over half way through my internship. I had intended on being in Nicaragua for 10 weeks. In order to meet my internship requirement, I needed 5, but I assumed it would be difficult to “hit the ground running” and opted for a slightly longer amount of time. I now realize that my thinking was more than correct. However, after recounting my weeks, I realize that I am actually here for 11 weeks. I am not sure how I managed to miscount them but in a way I am sort of grateful since my estimated 3 week water boiling test is now in its third week with only 2 of 9 tests done. I do not even have a stove yet for one of my testing requirements. I know that this is all part of working internationally though. Even though I seem to fail a lot, I am learning so much and gaining a lot of knowledge about working abroad and about agricultural engineering also.

I think now is a good time for reflection.

1.       It is hard to be viewed as a professional here as a woman. The culture is very different. Men yell inappropriate things at women on the street because it is culturally acceptable. Many women will get married and have children after high school. If they do get degrees, very few will actually use them because they have to stay at home to cook, clean, and take care of their children and husbands. However, I think I will be a much stronger person because of this because I have really had to assert myself about what want to do.

2.       While I do enjoy the food here, I am missing the variety in my diet that I once had. I eat beans, rice, and cheese every day at least twice a day. And although I can get “American” food like pizza, hotdogs, and hamburgers here, they are different and often unappetizing.

3.       It is great to live with a family. I can practice my Spanish and learn to cook with them. They also explain things when the news is on if I don’t have the background knowledge to understand what is going on. They also feed me and even do my laundry.

4.       Finding time to blog is really hard when the internet doesn’t cooperate and I do not actually live in a home with internet. I apologize for my spotty updates.

June 21- Successful Wood Stove Test

Today I had my first successful wood stove water boiling test. It was very exciting and the data looks great. I got up at 4am in order to start my testing. It’s interesting because I thought that I would be disrupting the family by using their biodigester gas, but I am actually disrupting them by using their wood stove. This is because they use their wood stove for tortillas every day, beans, and coffee. These are items that take a long time to cook, so there is insufficient gas. When I use their gas, they can use their wood stove or they can use their propane gas stove. However, normally they do not like using their propane because it is so expensive.

The women of my family are very helpful. In fact, my host grandmother helped me throughout the entire test with the fire to make sure it stayed consistent. She also gave me some tips for starting it and controlling it. She also yelled at me whenever I had to weigh the charcoal or leftover wood out of the stove. I thought this was interesting because I was the one with the gloves. She would just sort of take over and help me out and not use the gloves. Clearly she has a lot of confidence that comes with experience.

The wood stove during testing.

June 19 and 20- Biodigester Installation

Last night, another technician, David, came to San Isidro. He lives in Leon and is an expert on biodigesters. He took Chris and me to Managua for two days to help install a biodigester in a community about an hour outside of Managua. It was a really good experience because David really knows a lot and now I feel I have even more experience with the biodigesters. He also has a lot of good ideas for projects for me to help him with. I am very excited.

The stove with the woman who will be using it.

Mounting the biodigester.

I had my first experience sleeping in a hammock. In order to save money and time, David had everyone bring a hammock with them. The office had a couple that we borrowed. We ended up sleeping at the home of the family we installed the biodigester for. Chris and David slept in hammocks outside. My hammock was the right type for a hammock support, so I slept inside. However, my hammock was not that comfortable because it was essentially meant for a child, so it was quite small. I could not get comfortable and did not sleep much, if any at all.

June 17 and 18-My Birthday!

Sunday

Today I came into San Isidro from Sabana Larga in order to call my dad for father’s day. I also wanted to catch up with the world and use the internet a little bit. Ubania also wanted to come to the office and spend some time with me. She showed up around 1pm with a bunch of fingernail polish and did my nails in preparation for my birthday. They look almost professional! She is really creative, and we had a pretty good time while she was painting.

My manicure

Monday

Well today is my 22^nd birthday. I got up around 5, which is considered sleeping in when living in the country. My host family fed me a really big breakfast and everyone gave me hugs. They then presented me with a birthday cake to take with me to work. It was one of the cakes that we made together on Saturday, but they had made a “frosting” out of milk, rum, cinnamon, and raisins. It was so kind and unexpected that I thought I was going to cry.

Me with my birthday cake at the office

We all went to San Isidro together because everyone had errands to run. When we arrived, they got me a bike taxi to take the four blocks to the office since the cake was heavy according to them. It was very nice. Unfortunately, I had about a 7 hour meeting to sit through. Every Monday, everyone from the office gets together for a meeting in the morning to plan for the week. However, this one was very in depth (and long winded) and took a very long time. About 3 hours in we took a break for cake, then two hours later we had lunch, and met for two more hours.

Then after work, everyone was still sticking around. I figured something was up when three guys showed up on motorcycles with guitars, and Ubania sent me a message to tell me to wear my new dress (even though no one else was dressed up). Around 6, Ubania and some other people showed up and the party started. It was a party for both of us since it was also Ubania’s birthday. There was a Mariachi band, appetizers, ice cream, and even little gifts. It was a really great time.

Everyone from the office plus Brittany and Ubania

Ubania and I

June 15 and 16- Bucket Showers

Friday

Today, I decided to not go to the office because nearly everyone was out for the day. Instead, I layed in a hammock all day and read my book. I also had my first experience with a bucket shower because the water has been out for two days due to a pipe break to Sabana Larga. A bucket shower is when you draw a bucket of water out of the well to use for bathing water. I actually pulled a lizard out of the bucket I drew for my shower. There is a bowl that you use to dump the water on yourself. For the people who have to take early morning showers when both the water and air are still chilly, a little bit of water can be boiled and added to the bucket of cold water. I was not this lucky.

Saturday

This morning I learned how to make torta and roskia. They are both oven goods. Torta is very similar to but it is sweeter and lacks yeast. This type also had lime zest in it. Roskia are kind of like cookies. They have cuajada, which is the fresh cow’s cheese my family makes every day, in them. They are a very dry cookie. I will be posting the recipe at a later date for both of these goods.

Then, I went to Sebaco for the afternoon to do a little bit of shopping. I needed long pants, new socks, and dressier shoes. Sebaco is cheaper and closer than Estelí. I quickly realized, however, that I do not have the patience to shop here. It is very difficult to find things. Every store has approximately the same things, but they do not carry very many sizes. Finding pants was a joke. I ended up with a pair of ill-fitting jeans. I did not want to bring pants with me since it is so humid and hot here, but my ankles are raw from mosquito bites. I found a nice pair of black dressy shoes to go with my new dress for when I get it, and I also was able to find new socks since mine are pretty gross. I spent about four hours shopping for these three items. It was kind of ridiculous.

June 14- Success!

There is still hope for me yet. I was in fact able to boil water using the biodigester stove. It was a huge relief. However, I had to alter the testing protocols a little bit, but I will justify them in my write up. For instance, a lid is in fact needed in order to boil water. Without the lid, the heat is not sufficiently trapped and the stove does not have enough fire power to overcome the heat loss and boil the water. This is okay though because I am just going to merge two testing protocols together. One is the water boiling test and the other is the cooking test. The only difference between the two is that I the cooking test uses cultural practices. Then, instead of cooking food, I am just going to boil water. It is much simpler.

After I completed my first successful water boiling test, Ubania, Alvaro’s wife, called and asked if I wanted to go shopping with her in La Trinidad for a couple of hours. I met her in the office, and we took a taxi to a fabric store. She then told me that I needed to pick out fabric to buy because her mom wanted to make me a dress for my birthday. Her mom is a dress maker in San Isidro. Ubania also picked out fabric because we actually have the same birthday, so her mom is going to make her a new dress too. Then, we went back to San Isidro where her mom took my measurements and showed me some of the beautiful dresses that she has made. She told me that both dresses would even be ready by Monday!

June 13, 2012- Boiling Water is Difficult

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.
- Anthony D’Angelo –

This quote is pretty fitting of my project thus far in my internship. I have failed at every Water Boiling Test that I have attempted (including today), but I have learned a lot from these failures. Today I again could not get water to properly boil, even after using about two hours of the three hours of available gas. I narrowed my problem down to several possible causes.

1.       The pots (again). The family found me two pots that I later realized were from a rice cooker. I believe, therefore, that there is an air pocket in the bottom of the pot meant to distribute heat evenly so as to not burn the rice (kind of like a double boiler). This works great for water, but bad for boiling water because the energy is dissipated before reaching the water. I came to this conclusion when all the water in the pot was of one uniform temperature (ie no hot spots) and the bottom of the pot was the same temperature as the rest of the water. The water also stayed at 91C for over ten minutes and the local boiling point is around 97C.

2.       It was a windy day.

3.       I can’t use a lid with the test, but this theoretically shouldn’t affect it at all since water will not really evaporate until it begins to boil.

4.       The stove just didn’t have enough fire power to boil water. However, this was not a logical answer since my host mom and grandma told me they use the stove to boil water all the time. It just takes a little longer than the wood stove.

I ended up spending all day thinking about how to address all the possible causes and decided to address the easiest first: the pot. After consulting with several of my bosses, I have now decided to use different pots for the different stoves as is normal. Therefore, I will be using the heavy pots for the wood stove and the aluminum ones for the gas stove. I guess tomorrow will tell if I can in fact boil water.