Oaxaca, Mexico had been whispering for me to visit long before I arrived. Día de los Muertos was on my lifetime bucket list, I loved the vibrant color and style of Mexican street and folk art, and it was hard to resist the opportunity to eat as much mole as humanly possible. It also had lots of sunshine.
Beyond just travel, a core intention of my trip was to learn more about how solar energy could assist and empower developing communities in Latin America. I was interested in off-grid solar power as an economically and ecologically sustainable solution for un-electrified and under-electrified communities.
My work the previous year at Sungevity, a residential solar company based out of Oakland, had planted this seed. Sungevity stoked my excitement for the transformative potential of solar energy. Here was a company enabling customers to power their homes with solar energy while simultaneously saving money, and all the while generating a profit. Talk about win-win-win. I was inspired. I wondered though, could this win-win-win model work in developing nations, in communities who need that win the most?
My initial research showed me that not only was it possible, but that the economic incentives and opportunities were even stronger. Un-electrified communities use kerosene, diesel, and candles all of which are more expensive than solar energy. With creative leasing and pay-as-you-go models organizations were removing the upfront costs to solar and enabling these communities to harness the power of the sun. Solar cookers, moreover, were already being deployed around the world as an amazing appropriate technology solution to areas where people cooked on inefficient and hazardous wood stoves (over 2.8 billion people worldwide!)
My time in Mexico was a time for for learning, exploring, the germination of ideas, and indeed lots of delicious mole. I contacted and visited like minded organizations to learn more about their work: solar cooking, bicycle powered blenders, off-grid solar power for indigenous communities in the mountains of Oaxaca. My Spanish skills dusted themselves off from the dark corners of my brain were they had slumbered since my college semester abroad in Spain and I could speak Spanish again! I met some of the kindest and warmest people I had ever met. I fell in love with Mexico. Eventually though, it was time to keep moving south and transform ideas into action.
I landed in Guatemala on December 28, just in time to celebrate New Years on Lake Atitlan with a few good friends from the home who also happened to be there. Lake Atitlan seems to spill out of the clouds like a dream. A highland lake that is actually the mouth of a giant volcano ringed by smaller volcanoes that are all attached. Small indigenous villages communities are spread across the lake and the best means of transportation is by boat. There I connected up with the non-profit Project Nuevo Mundo started by some friends of mine in the Bay Area. In particular with my friend Brennan Bird who has a wealth of experience in solar cooker technology and a similar passion for the potential of such technology down here. A collaboration was born and a project dreamed up.
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