July 1, 2006
The conference is fast-approaching and there are so many details that still need to be worked out. I’m cautiously optimistic that everything will be okay. However, caution and optimism basically cancel each other out, so I’m not sure how I actually feel.
I am reminded of when I was a state officer for DECA in Oregon, an international marketing club for high school students. (Yes, I’m a dork.) There is a large state conference every year for Oregon DECA in Portland. Since I was a state officer, I was at the event site before the conference and saw everything come together. A lot of people with a lot of experience are needed to make that conference run smoothly. What I now realize is that I had no idea how complex the conference planning process is.
Yesterday was officially the last day that we were accepting applications to our Honduras conference from July 14-18. I am excited to see the interest and dedication of diverse actors who all want to learn about and promote biodiesel. However, many people send back their applications without filling out important information or writing information ambiguously. So, I have to keep track of what info is missing from whom and make sure that we get everything we need for the conference to run well. Communicating through email is an imperfect, slow process, so this has been difficult.
We have a good number of applicants to the conference, and we will probably be adding more people as we work out how we will get our friends in Guatemala to the conference. For example, Erick Gonzalez and Edelman Monzon are two engineering professors at the Universidad de San Carlos in Xela, Guatemala. They are building a 1000 gallon biodiesel processor and would be a great asset for the conference. However, their university has to authorize their absence. I hope they can come, as they would learn a lot from other attendees and help us with our own production process.
I will be leaving Monday morning, bright and early, for the conference site in Sula, Honduras. I am apprehensive. I have been communicating well with Yovany of Cosecha Sostenible; however, there are many issues that need to be resolved before the conference. I feel good about the work that I’m doing, but I need to see more concrete results. The conference planning process is drawn out and there are few instances where I can say, “Yes! We’re making progress.”
There is progress, but it’s slow and steady. So, I can’t gauge our success. I look forward to meeting face-to-face with the many people who I have been speaking with for the last month and a half. I think I will get that feeling that we have really done something important when people from Costa Rica to Nicaragua to Holand learn about biodiesel and share that knowledge with their organizations and communities.
Aside from my personal work, our group is really developing and moving forward. Brook and Ethan came yesterday with our original processor. This is a huge relief as Brook and Ethan have important biodiesel and chemistry knowledge. Also, our original processor is solid which is crucial considering we have had leaks on the processor built in Xela. Three members of our group will be going to Anacafe Monday to work on processing palm oil, a key process that we have not tested yet. Others will continue working on solar, quality testing, and different heating elements for our process.