Entries For: June 2008
2008-06-19
Who is this guy? Agent 007.2?
The blueEnergy Brain Trust is made up of its three founders: Lâl Marandin (currently President of blueEnergy France, Guillaume Craig (currently Director of blueEnergy Nicaragua) and myself. Each of us brings to the table a very different skill set: Lâl is the opener, Guillaume is the closer and I'm the glue that keeps it together.
Lâl's been on a blueEnergy media blitz lately, doing his 007.2 stuff that he does so well. Here a few pictures from the past month:
Lâl and President Gorbachev at the Energy Globe 2007 Awards in May 2008.
President Gorbachev reading about blueEnergy at the Energy Globe Awards.
Lâl and associate Matthieu Poulet accept the Energy Globe Award on behalf of blueEnergy from Mrs. Maneka Gandhi (Former Minister of the Environment, India).
Lâl and Mr. Pöttering (President of European Parliament) at the Energy Globe Awards in the European Parliament building in Brussels.
Lâl Marandin and Yann Arthus Bertrand (famed photographer of "Earth From the Air") at the launching of the Chirac Foundation. Lâl attended the event with Colette Grinevald, blueEnergy Board Member and keynote speaker at the event.
Lâl Marandin, Colette Grinevald (of linguistic fame) and President Jacques Chirac of France discussing blueEnergy.
Lâl discussing blueEnergy with Mr. Samassekou (Former Minister of Education of Mali).
Lâl discussing blueEnergy with President Chissano of Mozambique.
2008-06-08
... the bitter [followup to "An incredible trip... the sweet"]
For all that is going well with blueEnergy, it's not all roses. We have constant reminders that we live and work in a difficult, marginalized place. We chose to work where working, and life in general, are hard in order to create opportunities for development for people who've rarely had any.
During my trip the price of petroleum surpassed $5 a gallon and nearly everyone in the transport sector took to the streets to demand government price controls. With a transport strike in place, we were nearly paralyzed in Bluefields. blueEnergy doesn't own its own vehicles, rather it relies on its partner, the National Technical Institute (INATEC), for transportation services. blueEnergy typically has access to the Institute's Land Rover but as happens on a regular basis, the vehicle was in the capital city for repairs since no one is able to service the specialty vehicle in Bluefields. This, combined with the extreme pressure on the remaining vehicle due to the strike (as well as the death of the chauffeur's father), left us high and dry at a time we had over 40 people to move around, materials to purchase, community trips to make (think, getting materials from shop/house/office to docks and back), etc.
Amidst this logistical confusion and difficultly, the real bad news came in - Neuman Puchie, leader of the community of Set Net, blueEnergy champion and person friend to us all, died unexpectedly while on a trip to the capital city of Managua. Just one week before, Puchie had captained a boat full of blueEnergy staff to the Pearly Keys to celebrate the successful water purification workshop. Puchie was the reason blueEnergy ever came to know the community of Set Net. He was often the captain that brought us there, the first to help unload the boat, the one to house the blueEnergy teams, and the first up in the morning making everyone coffee. He had a hand in every step of the blueEnergy project in Set Net and was the community champion.
The entire blueEnergy team was in shock at the news of his passing. Most painful was the uncertainty over the cause of death and the prospect that it may not have been natural causes. Nicaragua is a land where facts and information are far and few between, and the pain this causes in times of crisis can be immense, especially to the family. I was so upset I just went to bed early, something I rarely do. What is certain is that Puchie will be sorely missed and the community of Set Net now has a mountain to climb to get back on its feet.
To add insult to injury, on my last day in the capital, the car I was in was pelted with water balloons by transport strikers as we sped along the highway near the airport. As I was talking to our driver, I caught one right in the face. I was lucky all I got was a sharp scare and a soar jaw... others had been attacked with rocks and oil. When you're helping people, you always hope they'll be appreciative, but the world is complex and there's often a monkey wrench that enters the equation. Often times its nothing personal.
blueEnergy's strength is its persistence through the good and bad times and this trip was surely a testament to that.
2008-06-04
An incredible trip... the sweet
I was recently down in Nicaragua for what was probably the busiest 12 days of my life. blueEnergy is growing in so many ways and in so many directions, it’s an incredible site to see in action, viewed from the field.
The trip had many objectives above and beyond the usual human resource, project evaluation, site visits and planning ones that my trips are normally made up of.
I had no more then stepped off the plane in Bluefields when I was met by a blueEnergy team and introduced to Andrea Roach, technical trainer for Canadian... (CAWST). Under the leadership of blueEnergy volunteer Bruno Borgarino, we had partnered with CAWST to come to Bluefields to give a technical workshop on bio-sand water filtering systems. blueEnergy is launching a pilot project to build and install these filters in the homes of its local technicians to study the effectiveness and appropriateness of the technology for the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. The workshop had taken place the week before and was a great success. It culminated with a visit to our shop by the United Nations’ top representative in Nicaragua, Don Alfredo Missair, who lauded blueEnergy’s pioneering work on the Coast.
Upon dropping my bags off at our house, I was put to work assembling shelving in my brother Guillaume’s new house. While still under heavy construction, the house was serving as overflow space due to the extraordinary number of people on site at that time. That is still the blueEnergy culture – you want a bed to sleep in or a shelf to put your clothes on, well start building it. Doesn’t matter if you’re a volunteer, a visitor or the executive director.
The visit was a historic moment because it represented the first time that Colette Grinevald, mother to Guillaume and I and known as the “mother of blueEnergy” as well as the three co-founders (Lâl, Guillaume and myself) were all in Nicaragua at the same time. We took took full advantage of this opportunity to discuss the bigger issues of strategy and vision, particularly as it relates to our international structure and plans for expansion. At the same time Colette continued with her 25 year project of documenting and revitalizing the Rama Language by teaching classes on the Rama language at the URACCAN university as well as hosting other Rama culture events. It was an incredible mix of the history that brought us to Nicaragua and where we stand today.
The visit was also historic because during it blueEnergy hosted its first complete, official community energy system operator training workshop. blueEnergy, under the leadership of volunteer Marie Roussel, brought to Bluefields 12 community operators from the 4 communities blueEnergy is currently active in to learn more about operation and maintenance of the blueEnergy energy system. The workshop was a week long, was taught by volunteer and local staff, and featured blueEnergy’s first complete operator training manual.
Amidst all this, there was a French film crew in Nicaragua to film a documentary on blueEnergy. This will be turned into a full-feature documentary film sometime in the coming year... stay tuned!
