Update on Ricardo's Well

We thought you may be wondering whatever happened to the well that Ricardo was digging. Just to remind for everyone, he had a vision from God about where he would find water on his land, so he began digging.
Well 11 months later his sons and him are still digging with a chisel. They are currently at 80 feet, but have found some water. They are getting 4-5 gallon buckets of water a day. For some of you it may seem like God has not been faithful because that is not enough water. Ricardo believes God will help them discover the larger vein of water that he saw in his vision.

Have you ever wondered, how do the men get in and out of the well to dig? It is not an easy task. They are lowered down by a rope with a pulley (it looks somewhat like repelling) and then work for half the day until lunch is brought from their mother or wife. They then return chiseling away at rock for the afternoon. When it is time to get out the rope the person ties the rope around his waist as a harness and then the person is pulled up. Here is what it looks like:

What Do We Do?

I realized that I have not written recently about our work here in Nicaragua. I tend to write more about the unusual things we have done, but I think it is time to update on our day to day lives. Well, as I have stated before we are living in Teustepe where we spend most of our time, we still have to go to Managua at times for meetings or when groups come. Teustepe is a small town, but big enough not to know everyone, so we are often stared at. It is very common for white people or anyone that looks different to get stared at, which is something that we will never be used to. .

Work wise...we still help some with office work, but from our home in Teustepe. Seth is still helping to write grants for projects. I am still organizing the groups that come from the states to see AsoFenix projects as well as planning for and organizing the intern. Right now we have 4 Swedish interns here for 6 months. The interns generally live in the communities working on small projects or following up on projects and getting to know what life is like in the countryside. We have been working on writing and doing base line surveys before we do projects, so we have something to compare to the results.

Recently I have not done any health trainings nor have we done any trainings in the schools but this will be changing. The focus our last year is to be in the communities more consistently to help with committee organization, project follow up and providing various trainings in the areas of health, nutrition, reforestation, sustainable agriculture and teaching how to use a computer to some of the youth. In addition to this we will continue to help our partner with renewable energy projects. In our time in Nicaragua we have been apart of installing

• a potable water system (picture on the left)
  
• a micro hydro turbine, solar panels and wind turbines to provide energy to isolated communities
• biodigestors for cooking
• drip irrigation systems (picture on the right)
  

We enjoy our work and look forward to being able to be in the communities more frequently. We are also grateful we are able to support AsoFenix.