Nicaragua: Managua

9 julio Managua
Woke up thinking about a plan Jaime had about bringing tourism to Malacatoya. How might increased tourism affect a small community like Malacatoya, or even a slightly larger one like San Jose de Ramates?
Anna brought pinol for breakfast, though I admit I had to decline in favor of my favorite deity, Coffee. H, B & R joined us for breakfast, and then we headed to the panaderia where everyone partook of bread pudding. I asked if we could see the equipment in the back, and they graciously agreed. Wood fire starts the huge stove!
H, B & R spent the day at Laguna de Apoyo while Jaime, Anna and I went to the National Assembly who ended up being on vacation for 46 days. WOW! Went back to the cyber, but the server was down. Went back to the hotel, but no electricity on the patio. No one wanted us to work, apparently. An hour later, went to the Ministry of Energy for what would hopefully be met with better luck than our previous non-meeting.

Ministry of Energy
The Ministry works in El Cua with ATDER-BL; there are 900 more people who live in this area than just a short time before, so the 1mW plant will serve the area well.
Micro hydro is the current focus of the Ministry; they even had a map on the wall of the micro hydro systems in place and those still planned. The Ministry is currently involved in a pilot project creating 20 hydro plants to show the technology’s potential and effectiveness. We were told that most people on farms use energy for processing coffee. They have despulpadors and picadoras. Other business uses for electricity include pulperias and furniture manufacturing shops. Addition domestic uses are also quite common. There are three levels of production: the farm, electricity for related business, and cooperatives.
The Ministry has few funds of its own and receives donations from groups for programs including micro credit. Micro-credit is something which the Ministry is quite familiar with, starting to use it themselves in 2005. Protesa, PrestaNic are microlenders as well, but he knew of nothing that served Boaco at present.

Got back to the “ranch” in time for a meeting with another organization.