Friday Feb 11, 2011- We woke up early, ate a plate of fruit and then headed straight up the antenna tower. We thought we were leaving at noon so we hustled to get as much done as possible. (We left shortly before sun down, I love how futile watches and schedules are hereJ)
View looking down from the tower onto Petri and the Radio Mulukuku building.
Liz and antenna. The block of green behind my shoulders is the field and basketball court and behind my bandana is the central block of the Cooperative with the clinic, women’s facilities, etc.
We would liked to have poured gallons of water over each connection one by one to see if the transmitter shut off, but that would have taken a lot of time and not necessarily produced the same conditions as a strong downpour, so we did it only on the four way power divider connection the first time we climbed the tower on Wednesday. Friday morning we re-taped connections, made a plastic hat for the power divider, tested the four antennas and attended to the cable to antenna connections.
We untapped and sawed notches in all of the plastic pvc tubes covering the cable to antenna connections. We re-taped them so that they are more level. The third one up was rust colored inside the tube, which none of the others were. It seems the most likely suspect.
We'll just have to wait for another downpour to see if we actually fixed the problem. I must say we were pretty thorough, so I'm optimistic. The antennas naturally sag a bit over time so they could be tightened up a bit in the future.
Petri made cables for the remote transmitter (radio movil). The mobile unit is a lower watt station that can be moved from location to location and picked up by the studio at Radio Mulukuku and transmitted via their 250 watt transmitter.
We tested it out from the Cooperative and went on Radio Mulukuku live. You could hear it clear as day. The antenna for the mobil unit was tuned to 107.
Mobil radio antenna
Mobil Radio Unit
Grethel y the Doctor
Further tests will need to be done to see how far it reaches, but Petri and Aldo drove to the bridge and it still picked up signal out there. So they should at least be able to broadcast live from the baseball games. Baseball is still king here, so for those who can't make it out to the games it will be great to listen at home or work.
After some interviews and short speeches celebrating the new radio movil Radio Mulukuku returned to its scheduled program and we cleared our gear from the station and went to Grethel’s for lunch. We ate fish that Danilo caught in the local river the night before. Rico!
Grethel and Noel live on a farm not far from the Cooperative. The land is beautiful. Quite expansive with lots of trees, animals, a man made lake and trails. They raise cows, chickens, pigs, and quails, produce their own milk and cheese, and grow lots of their own food. They're ready for global collapse.
Noel in front of the farm house.
Pigs and Milk
Shade for pigs and keeps a year worth of firewood dry.
After lunch we walked with Aldo to their man-made lake and saw what looked like a couple of herons. (Sorry, no good pics of the birds)
Killer Bamboo, huge torns!
Crazy slick red tree
Walking the line between man and nature
After our little walk we set out in the truck with thirteen people all together. Five in the cab and eight in the back of the truck.
Just startin' to pile in and get cozy
Grethl’s grandchildren were headed back to school, which starts the 15th nationwide. It rained and everyone and everything got a bit wet, but it could have been worse. Half of the five hour ride was very very bumpy as the roads to Mulukuku are not paved. Reprieve was had in Rio Blanco when we stopped for fries and a drink. Rio Blanco has no more than a couple of intersections, but is home to the ‘Atlantic City Casino'. Casinos are everywhere here, but smaller in size than those in the U.S.)
Had it not been for Danilo's excellent eyes and reflexes we would've ended in a giant ten feet deep pit, but we didn't and the ride was fine. At one point one of the girls tapped vigorously on the window of the cab to signal us to pull over. Someone in the back had to pee. We stopped on a bridge and Grethel told them not to leave the bridge, that they should pee off the side. I wanted to say something about peeing into a water source, but then she mentioned how during the war someone pulled over at this very bridge to pee and walked into the vegetation and was blown apart by a mine. After that story I didn’t feel the need to remind them to be 50 feet away from water when urinating, 150' when pooing.
There’s still a lot to do and see in Mulukuku, but we’ve got a bit of a schedule, so we’ll have to come back.
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Saturday Feb. 12, 2011- We are now in Matagalpa at a lovely hostel that was started by an American named Robert and Noel (Grethels' nephew).
El conejito
Petri in the hostel
Tomorrow will be the hostel’s one year anniversary. Everything still looks really new and a little more upscale than your average backpacker hangout. They have a library, hammocks, a rabbit, and the strangest wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom.
It's green and white wallpaper of hygiene and beauty advertisement slogans from the 1940s (or older?). What’s even weirder is that the drawings of generic products looks like they were designed originally to be wallpaper and weren't just recycled for the purpose.
(Didn’t have time to get picture as we were running out to catch a bus).
Matagalpa was very laid back and walkable. It was a good place for rest and errands before hitting the road again Sunday morning. I hear there are nice hikes and waterfalls in the area as well, but didn't stay long enough for any side trips.
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