Meeting the indigenous leaders

Greetings SolarAiders,

It's 6am in a very kitsch hotel in Potosi, Bolivia. Everything is purple and bright yellow with statues of Indian elephants and other exotic creatures. We arrived late last night to find our hotel hadn't kept our reservation, so ensued a desperate run around Potosi's hotels with Raul, our counterpart from Fundación Avina, until we found the last two rooms left in the town.

I've been awake since 5am - a mix of left-over jetlag and the effects of altitude. Indeed, altitude has an odd influence on the body. Just brushing my teeth last night left me out of breath, as though I'd just run 10k.

Meeting 80 Leaders
Since our last blog post we had our meeting with the leaders of the communities in Abra Pampa. Eighty turned up from across the region, many of them women dressed in bright traditional clothes - evidence of recent moves to empower women in local decision-making. We presented our work to them and quizzed them about their energy needs and this was followed by a very good discussion. It all works by consensus here; nothing happens unless everyone is happy with it. By the end of it, they were all asking, 'so when do we start?' The agreement is that we'll aim to begin with micro solar and then look into the bigger systems.

Nick