Preparing for Departure

So it's Saturday and I'm outta here on Monday, bright and early. Actually, the sun won't even be up when I leave. I blame Vince for the itinerary and early start.

I've been home in Hudson, Ohio, for a few days now, and have been preparing for Nicaragua ever since! 10 weeks is a long time to be gone, and I have a lot to do, so I have tried to make preparations accordingly. I picked up plenty of testing equipment (Thermocouples and Data Acquisition Systems, or DAQs) from UD last week, and have been shopping for other various materials throughout. Now, I have everything pretty much laid out and ready to be put into the suitcase.

As a result, however, the house is a mess. Mother won't show the house while I am home because my room is a blackhole of clothes and various travel items. She says she's nervous about me leaving for Nicaragua, and that she is going to miss me, but I'm sure a part of her will be glad that I am gone as well.

Packing has gone smoothly, and I am extremely thankful for all my previous travel experiences, which have all combined, cultivated, and culminated into this one unique and very different travel experience. I have a few travel tips, items which I have crossed off my personal travel list:

- bring plenty of dryer sheets. Clothes love 'em, bugs hate 'em.

- bring ziploc baggies. Sometimes, toiletries explode. Also, baggies can protect things from the environmentals.

- Duct tape. If duct tape can't fix it, give up all hope.

- copies of your passport (plural if you happen to be a fugitive) and credit cards.

- don't settle for a bug spray with less than 25% deet.

- I never leave home without a frisbee. It doubles as a plate.

Research indicates that Nicaragua will be hot. It happens to lie just above the Equator, and seems to recieve little Hadley Cell wind. Sabana Grande itself means "Great Plains", which pretty accurately describes where we will be staying. Whilst it is not labeled on the map above, You can easily find Managua, and then Esteli straight above that. Sabana Grande, to the best of my knowledge, is just SE of Esteli (but really a great distance away).

Prepartions have gone pleasantly smoothly, and now we pray to The Lord for safe travels, and that the plane be completely devoid of snakes. My Continental flight leaves Cleveland, with my fellow travel companions and I on board, at 5:55AM Monday morning, the 19th of May. We travel to Houston, then arrive in Managua, Nicaragua, at 11:28AM. They are only two hours behind New York time.

With that, I am about to go finish up some packing details, and actually start stuffing my suitcase! It's likely that the next time I am able to convey something, it will be from somewhere in Nicaragua! Again, please pray for the safety, happiness and wellbeing of all my travel companions and I, and I will see you on the flip side.

-Daniel

Welcome to the blog

Hey everyone!

Here is a simple blogging site that I set up so that you all can check on the status of my adventures in Nicaragua this summer. I thank you all SO much for your support thus far, and am really looking forward to sharing more about my experiences with you over the next 3 months!

Remember to check here every once and a while if you are interested in seeing what we are doing/the work we are performing. At this time it is hard to say how much access I will have to an internet station, but my guess is that I will be able to fill you all in at least once a week, complete with lovely pictures and my very own stupendous prose. You can even leave comments, which I would thoroughly enjoy. (you may have to sign up, but it's free and takes about 2.37 seconds).

If you don't already know, the purpose of my trip this summer is what's formally labeled as an Internship, but is really service work. I am traveling with ETHOS (Engineers in Technical and Humanitarian Opportunities for Service-learning)... think of this as the University of Dayton version of Peace Corps, for enginerds. I am traveling to Nicaragua with fellow enginerds Vince Romanin, Matt Wills, Peter Kolis, Lori Hanna, and an enrepeneur-major, Anna Young. Vince is staying in the capital city of Managua, while the rest of us are going up into the mountains of never-never land, otherwise known as Sabana Grande, Nicaragua. Lori, Anna and I will be working on starting our business, Salud del Sol, meaning "Health of the Sun". Check out http://www.saluddelsol.org/ for our website and a bit more info.

Our plan this summer is to finalize testing on the Solar Autoclave, ending in working prototypes, and then beginning production and sales by the end of the summer. We will also be holding business education classes, teaching the local groups, such as Las Mujeras Solares and Grupo Fenix, how to run a business efficiently. This part of the plan is very important to us, because we want to create jobs for these groups and the locals, and they will have a form of income. With this knowledge, they will be able to carry on the production and sales of solar autoclaves long after we have gone back to school in August.

Anyway, that was a really long welcome paragraph, and I hate long welcomes, so I will sign off for now. Thanks again for your continued support, and don't forget to check back in!

Peace and love,
-Daniel