22 September 2013

Covenants and Restrictions and Electricity

     In preparation for offering some house lots for sale at False Bluff,  I'd spent some time writing covenants and restrictions...including a portion dealing with electricity for the houses that would call for the installation of solar power as primary power source, with generators to be used only during construction or as emergency back up. 
     And then one day during a walk on the beach I met a man who asked permission to bring his boat up our creek.
     Our language difference made clear communication awkward, so when we got back to the house I phoned a friend in Bluefields who helped the two of us get at just what he was asking for.   A crew chief from Enel, Nicaragua's electric company, he wanted to be able to bring his crew up our creek because the creek presented such an easy way to get the crew to their current work area.   
     Under his authority twenty guys showed up the next day to continue chopping the right-of-way they had begun far to the north of us (they're not all shown below).   These guys were followed a week later by the chain-saw crew, cutting trees that were too big for machetes.  


     The machete crew does the first job in Enel's project to run power from Kukra Hill north of False Bluff south along the coast to El Bluff and then across the bay to Bluefields.  Actually the power lines will run all the way across Nicaragua from Managua to Kukra and then down our section of the Caribbean coast.  The poles are being delivered by way of the sea and have already been installed from Kukra about half-way down to False Bluff.
     My reaction to this life-altering event is the same as that of everyone else who's heard it:  simple disbelief.   Electricity along any of the RAAS coast was not on anybody's radar, but it's happening.