Last week's classes went well. Tuesday was fuel cell day -- I gave a lecture on hydrogen, then we operated the H2E3 fuel cell/electrolyzer kit. The students were really interested and asked a lot of questions. Thursday I focused on system design, specifically design of small off-grid systems. We used Solar Energy International's methodology and a version of their worksheet that I translated into Spanish and modified using some ideas from an article in the current issue of Home Power magazine.
Friday Rich Cairncross and I went to a meeting at the U.S. embassy to plan some Earth Day events that we're going to participate in. Afterward, Rich came to our apartment and Basilia, Rich and I went out to have dinner at a Taiwanese vegetarian restaurant. Afterward we went over to the Feria Internacional, San Salvador's main convention center. It was opening night for AgroExpo, an event that bears a surprising resemblance to the Humboldt County fair, with rows of buildings full of prize livestock and farm equipment. After making our way across a few acres of this, we found the amphitheater where Nicaraguan salsa singer Luis Enrique was scheduled to sing. The opening acts were strange -- a reggae band that I gradually realized were not really playing their instruments, and a sort of American Idol reject type singing Mexican pop to a recorded backing. Fortunately Luis Enrique and his band were of a far higher caliber and put on a really great show. The vaulted roof over the open-air arena unfortunately created bad acoustics, but aside from that the show was a lot of fun.
Saturday morning we had a 6:30 a.m. departure (ouch, after Luis Enrique kept us out past midnight the night before) for the class's last field trip. Basilia came along again. This time we went to Cerrón Grande, one of El Salvador's four large hydro power projects. My co-worker Eduardo's brother Francisco works at the plant, and coincidentally Eduardo and his wife Norma had organized all of Norma's family to spend the weekend out at a guest house operated by CEL, the hydropower agency, right by the dam. They had invited us to join them, so Basi and I sent the students back to San Salvador in the bus without us. (This was planned ahead of time, so we had our swimsuits and toothbrushes with us.) It ended up being a very relaxing way to round out the weekend. There was a swimming pool, hammocks, pupusas, some whiskey courtesy of Eduardo's father-in-law -- everything we wanted. It was well past dark when we got back to San Salvador last night.
With Eduardo (far left) and his in-laws near Cerrón Grande
Today I caught a ride with Jorge Lemus over to UDB's Soyapango campus. We met with Carlos and Carolyn from the U.S. embassy and Tim DeVoogd, a Cornell neurobiologist who is also an itinerant scientist representing the U.S. State Department in Latin America. He was there to review our Science Corner proposal and see if the space we had set aside was adequate. He gave us a clean bill of health. Not yet time to celebrate, but things are looking good for getting the grant.
Sunset over the Cerrón Grande reservoir. OK, it's a fake lake, but it sure looked pretty.
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