Back from the second trip

Hello to everyone again,
We just got back today from our second trip, which was mostly revisions and fixing old systems. I'll skip most of that since I already mentioned the basics of the work we do.

One highlight was fixing a road that had eroded away too much for the truck to cross. Obviously we waited on the other side of the chasm, and the driver managed to back in to the corner, turn and pull forward after some careful construction i.e. tearing at the dirt edge with shovels to make more space. (See the included pictures)

Also, for fans of Oregon trial, we never caulk the wagon and float, preferring to ford the river.

There were a could aspects of this trip that made me rather irritated:
First, Tim and I speak decent Spanish and can understand people fine if the talk slow-ish and CLEARLY. The guys and the first trip realized this and we did fine, the guys on this trip refused to change (horrible grammar I might say, they say och instead of ocho, or noch instead of noche for example, very hard for someone who's studied proper spanish grammar to understand) and instead devolved to pointing and grunting, which we both found rather demeaning. Also they decided to do a night installation - this makes no sense as you can't test the panel - and we didn't get back to the city until midnight, at which point the inn was full. Rather than drive to the next city, they decided to sleep on the porch to the inn. Tim and I found the ludicrous and unsafe, so we "slept" in the truck cab (not much better).

A couple of observations:
Everyone here has technology regardless of their economic status: Most of the farmers in rural areas had cell phones and the ones with solar panels had a tv/dvd player hooked up.

Tortillas are eaten like a dinner roll. On the first day Tim and I filled them with beans and rice and got laughed at.

Nissan makes good trucks. That truck we we're on has been through more that any one truck should, and we only came out with a bent fender from driving over a boulder. I don't know why we drove over a boulder but it seemed like fun at the time.

Nicaraguans are masters at switching out tires. We blew a tire on one of the trips, a stone dug into it. With in 5 minutes we're were back on the road. However apparently they aren't good at repairing them, as we had the tire "repaired" and it blew out again the next day.

Orange fanta is their idea of heaven. This stuff is everywhere, even more popular than pepsi or coke with the locals. I can't complain, it's good stuff, but I still prefer diet pepsi.

Illegal music and DVDs are 10 times easier to buy than legal ones. Kids with back packs of burned DVD's and CD's line the streets of all of the cities trying sell them. Apparently the police don't care - most of it is Nicaraguan music, so this is a little surprising.

Finally, I've mastered the art of discretely pitching any drink given to me by a local at an installation without them noticing (we can't drink the water here).

Hope everyone is well!