Thursday we visited a hydroponic farm in a well-kept arboretum. It started with a brick of nutrients, the seeds are planted into their own cubes which are placed on a slightly slanted table. Water is released at the top and trickles down. They have 7 different types of lettuce which they sell commercially at local grocery stores. To keep the lettuce alive they must feed it enough water with the right concentration of minerals. To assure this, they test the water twice a day and have to increase or decrease water supply based on the daily temperature.
They also grow a lot of plants are native and non-native to the area, so they can figure out how to grow more plants to make a business and better the job selection in Roatan. They had vanilla beans, lime trees, miniature pineapples, cacao trees, coffee bushes, orchids, and more. The arboretum has added a lot to the community by adding jobs and hiking and biking trails to their property.
Half of the students went around town to see perspective sites for solar projects in the future. We visited the local school, church, and water wells to see the shading and tilt of the roof tops.
After we left, it was a free day at the resort to enjoy the sun and the warm Caribbean water. It rained so the group stuck together and played cards for the day until dinner. For dinner we all had a whole fish and ate the eyes so we didn’t get bad luck!
Eddie from Vegas Electric, who volunteered his time this week to help us enormously with installing the solar panels, joined us for dinner. We had a nice meal and all thanked him. He came with a nice story fro. Raul, the pump manager, who read the meter for the first day of full power generation… 99 kWh in one day!! RECO (Roatan Electrical Company) only provided them with 50 kWh when they did recieve electric. Knowing we can provide the community with more power that they had before all powered by the sun is very special. We are all humbled by this experience working with a community that only received water for 3 days a week to providing them with power to pump water everyday. Water is the essence of life and we are so happy to be able to provide that.
Thank you very much to our sponsors and to Penn-Del-Jesery and Western PA NECA Chapters for supporting the student chapter and giving us the opportunity to do good for a well deserving community.