Day 2: Orientation & Arrival in Suchilquitongo
Hola todos! We arrived in Santiago Suchilquitongo tonight after a long day of gathering our materials to build the solar ovens. We started our day at Hotel Aitana, where we were served a wonderful breakfast and enjoyed catching up with whole team and our technical advisor, David. Richard had prepared our itinerary for today, and we started the day with gathering on the patio of our hotel for a In-Country Orientation given by Richard and his wife Sarahi. We received information about the community, their habits, maps of the community, finalized our itinerary, and received a mouthwatering menu for the duration of our stay in Suchil.
After our In-Country Orientation, a part of the team headed to the Home Depot in Oaxaca, and the other half of the team got a chance to explore the city. We faced multiple struggles while acquiring the materials for our project. We had trouble with pricing of the wood we needed at Home Depot and we ended up visiting a lumber yard in Oaxaca to see if we could find the wood there. We learned about how to buy wood, and the different types of wood available in different types of stores. We ended up buying the wood from Home Depot because the lumber sizes in the Lumber Yard don’t follow the Lumber Standards and we would have to shave off a significant amount to get the desired dimensions. After tackling our lumber problem and other various issues related to the materials such as the vents, tools, etc., Richard reached out to his friend Seth or known to his friends as “Guero” to help us transport the materials from the Home Depot to Suchil. Seth offered to loan us his tools after seeing the tools we were purchasing, which really helped us offset the cost of the high lumber costs.
From Home Depot we headed out to find a supplier for the Aluminum Metal sheets and down spots that we will need to build the ovens. We quickly realized that in Mexico, not many people sell metal sheets and aluminum sheets were specially hard to find. We were at our second store where we were able to find an alternative to the Aluminum sheets. We are still searching for alternative options for the Aluminum down spots. At this point it was getting really late in the day, so we decided to head to lunch/ early dinner. We ate at I love Tlayudas where the food (“Oaxacan Pizzas”) was wonderful and the atmosphere of the restaurant was great for us to decompress after a long day.
We finally headed to Suchil from the restaurant. The hotel we are staying in is cozy and really beautiful. We are looking forward to exploring the property in day light. After arriving at the hotel, we had a second dinner ready for us by the staff. From the first tasting of the food tonight, we know we are in for a great culinary adventure during our time here.
We learned many lessons today about efficiently getting materials, ordering materials in advance, and inquiring about the material available in country. Overall it was a very productive if not slightly long day. We have a lot accomplished and we are ready handle any challenges we might face. We are looking forward to meeting the Mezquite Project members tomorrow and to get started with building!
