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Only in Fairbanks . Well, probably not… I find the people (most) that comment on the letters to the editor pretty absurd. I guess that is why I read them.  However, this one was good enough to post. A first for everything.  Enough for now.

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5/26/2009, 10:10 a.m.

In a couple weeks, I am participating the Relay for Life, a nationwide fund raising event for the American Cancer Society.  I am on Team Spiritus and it seems like it is a fun, good, and amazing group.  The team goal is to raise $5000 and my personal goal is a bit less than that.  Needless to say, I am off to a slow start in getting to my goal.  I would appreciate any help you can offer in supporting me in the worth while effort.  The link to my Relay for Life page and instructions for donating is located here. Thank you very much!

Alaska is a crazy big place, so different than nearly all the places I have been these past couple years.  In the past month, I have seen a lot of this incredibly big and beautiful state.  The 2nd week of work was spent with Kenji traveling all around the state and helping a bit with his outreach program.  I have mentioned this before, but I really like what Kenji is doing.  The kids really seem to respond to Kenji, Tunnel Man, and what he is doing.  An incredibly lucky opportunity for me.

A couple weeks ago, I took a road trip down to Anchorage to attend the AWRA conference.  I made a quick trip into Denali NP as the weather was unbelievably good – amazing sun and over 20C.  It is really really difficult to beat that hanging out in the park with such fantastic weather.  The conference was good – saw many people I had not seen in a while. Very good for me to re-introduce myself to the community here. It was also great to see Gayle, Alex, Crane, Wendy, and Jer (and a whole bunch of little ones).

Last weekend, I went with Ann, Kat, and Sveta down to Denali for the pre-season bike ride. This is one of my favorite trips I enjoy.  Before the tourists arrive and the buses begin to run, the road is opened up until mile 30 for vehicles.  After that point, the road is closed to vehicles, but bikes and hiking is allowed.  So we biked up to Polychrome Pass and back (50 km total). We saw most all the big animals, except wolves – but we did see tracks.  Great, great day.

Here are the rest of the pictures with Kenji, the road trip, and bike trip into Denali.

After about 2.5 years, I have finally made it back to Fairbanks.  On the return from Nicaragua, I stopped in Boulder for a few days to visit with Peter and Jen. We went up to Brainard Cabin – a place Peter has been visiting since he was a wee lad.  Very fun and very nice.    It had been too long since I had seen them.  Hopefully I will make it back there fairly soon.

My return to Fairbanks has been good.  The transition back into town has been a bit rougher, but not bad, than I was expecting.  I spent a lot of time visiting friends and family and getting logistically set up – bank accounts, car, starting to work again,  etc.  At times it was a little ovewhelming going from Nicaragua to USA. For example, going to Safeway in Boulder was completely overwhelming. I spent much time just wandering around with just so much stuff.  Another example of the strangeness was going from this little village in Sabana Grande where I was walking everyday on dusty dirt roads to driving around in a (almost) new hybrid car.  It just did not seem right.  Alaska is different than many places, but it very much feels like I have been going from extreme to extreme.  I guess this will settle down a bit.

I left Nicaragua with mixed feelings.  It was definitely a great experience. I have been asked if I got out of it what I was hoping.  The answer to this is definitely ‘Yes.’   I think I managed to experience most every emotion – frustration, anger, happiness, being proud, etc.  I did manage to learn much about myself, step back and take a look at what is going on around me, and many other things.  At this point I feel this was a once in a lifetime sort of event for me and I am glad I was able to take advantage of it.

Now that I am back in Fairbanks and things are sort of settling down, I hope to be able to do a better job of keeping up with posting on the blog.

Today is my last day in Nicaragua. The past few days have been a little crazy but fun. After spending a few days in Granda, we decided to head to Corn Island, located in the Carribean Sea. We originally wanted to go there for New Years, but the timing did not work out. This trip was meant to be 4 days, but was shortened to one after we both baked ourselves in the sun (literally and not in a good way). So after 24 hours, we flew back to Managua and then got on a bus up to León. Yesterday, we hiked to the top of 3 volcanos (2 active, 1 not so active). It was a great way to end an amazing journey. Our guide was this amazing man of 60 years that walked up and down the volcanos with no effort at all. He then mentioned that in 10 years of guiding on the volcanos, nobody has ever done 3 in the same day and he thought we were both quite fit. He then guessed our ages – me 26 or 27 and Mareike 23. Pretty funny, but made me feel good (although I was more than quite happy just to be able to keep up with our guide). I look forward to sharing more stories and showing pictures with everyone soon.

This afternoon will be spent travelling back to Managua and I leave early in the morning back to the US. More pictures will be uploaded when I am back.

The past couple days we have been in Granda.  We were here early in December. It is a very beautiful city. I am very glad we made a return visit.  I now have less than a week left in Nicaragua – it is hard to believe I have been here for 4 months.

Success! The wind generator is up in the air, producing a (wee) bit of electricity, changing with the wind directions, and stopping when wind speeds are too high (to avoid snapping the blades). I am very proud and satisfied with all this.

I have received a few emails wondering if I am just completely frustrated with the volunteering or if I am enjoying myself here. The answer is definitely both. The entire journey has been a truly amazing experience for me. It is hard to believe that it is actually ending very soon. Working at the Solar Center has been very frustrating throughout my stay here (although there have definitely been some good days). It has taken a very long time for the community to really understand and accept our project as being useful to them in the long term. There has also been some clashes with another personality (another volunteer) that has made the work more difficult than necessary. BUT, I am feeling very satisfied that our project is working (when nearly everybody said it would not work or that we would not have enough time) and the community realizes it is a positive (and big) step for the center as well. It is also true that I had no real idea what to expect with the ¨volunteering experience¨except I knew that it would be an experience – and this has proven true. I knew it would be different, challenging, at times hard, etc. I had no way to anticipate what would be challenging or hard or what would frustrate me or anything, but I now understand and appreciate much more than I did when I arrived 9 weeks ago. I see all these things as positive for me.

I have less than a week left at Grupo Fenix, leaving either Thursday (maybe Friday) morning. I will spend about a week traveling around visiting favorite places before heading back to the US. I will be in Boulder for a few days before heading home to Alaska. I will try to have more pictures posted in the image gallery by  tomorrow morning, but I doubt I will have time to blog or add more pictures before arriving back in the US.

UPDATE: New pictures of the wind generator are being posted here.

A lot has happened and not much has happened in the past weeks since my last post.  The big news is that our little wind generator actually produced a bit of electricity on Thursday afternoon.  It was actually working on Tuesday, but WE (the ¨collective we¨which very much means ¨me¨) placed it on the side of the shed to drink a bit of coffee. A gust of wind came up and blew it over resulting in a busted blade.  We decided to redo the blade with a double thickness which I think will be much more stable in the long run.  The next steps are putting the foundation together, getting it into the air, and figuring out some way to control what little flow of electricity it produces.  The staff at the Solar Center seem pretty excited about it and we have definitely generated a bit of interest in the project.  Needless to say, I am pretty proud of the work we have done and we are doing.

The past weeks have also been a bit frustrating with the volunteering experience.  I have had the feeling that the work done will just sit around and not be continued or utilized.  This is especially true for the rain gage and weir (I still need to put that together).  I have had some other issues with the staff, the appearance of the center, the apparent stagnation of the mujeres (woman´s cooperative), etc.  However, after some long discussions with people within and external to the center, I am starting to feel like I am moving beyond the frustration and starting to understand what is going on a bit better now.  I think this is pretty true of the whole Nicaragua experience – many of the things that really bothered me at first have very little effect on me now (best example is dealing with the overcrowded busses and bus stations in general).

Nearly every weekend, we travel to some new part of Nicaragua. Last weekend, we went to Laguna de Apoyo which was pretty amazing place to relax.  It was very much needed after a very frustrating week.  This weekend, I am back in León (with a quick visit to the beach) for another extended weekend. I have added some new pictures of Sabana Grande (beginning on the 4th page), Laguna de Apoyo, and the wind generator.  After this weekend, I have only 3 more weekends (3.5 weeks total) left in Nicaragua.  Time is definitely flying past me.