Nothing like it had ever happened in the barrio before.
El Presidente, Antonio Astiazaran Gutierrez, the mayor of Guaymas, was coming to Fatima to commemorate the solar panel project. It was ten in the morning, and the schoolchildren whirred around the schoolyard like frenetic hummingbirds. Above them, the Mikes and Kina and Khyber hustled about on the roof, rushing to finish the installation before the entire school assembled to hear El Presidente speak.
Mike Chase, his right thumb wrapped in bright yellow electric tape, nicked marks in the roof with a carpenter's pencil, then blasted a hole in the asphalt with his drill. A local man named Pedro moved behind him with slow precision. When Mike finished drilling, Pedro knelt onto the asphalt, inserted a long black rubber hose into the hole, then blew the thick dust out of it with a sharp puff of breath. When he was finished, Khyber wrestled another panel into place and bolted it to metal runners. Panel by panel, the strip of clean energy took form above the school.
I climbed down the rickety ladder and walked around the building to the center of the schoolyard, where the empty nests of the goalposts cast thin shadows against school's blue walls. Mati had just finished an inverted pushup and was now walking on his hands while a gaggle of kids ran beside him, screaming. Kina leaned against a post, adjusting his camera, as half a dozen schoolgirls crowded around him to watch. At the edge of the roof, Mike Miller stood with his cell phone to his ear, the ubiquitous pair of sunglasses clapped over his deep brown eyes. Mike had been calling, calling, trying to get CFE's permission to tie the solar panel system into the grid, thus far without success. Given that he had yet to procure permission to tie the wind turbine to the grid, either, I was beginning to have my doubts about our chances. Was it possible the only real value of the solar panels would be symbolic?
Regardless of how it went with CFE, we were nearly done with our work. Thin puffs of clouds, the first we'd seen since our arrival, crossed the sky. Spotty bits of green dotted the rugged hills in the distance. Power towers stood at the confluence of hill and horizon. Down in the rocky, dusty schoolyard, the principal shielded her eyes against the mid-afternoon glare to watch as we finished the installation.
Jennie's Spanish had flourished like an exotic plant in a sympathetic climate. The children adored her, as did the teachers, and as she gained confidence, she had surged ahead, grammatical errors be damned, breathing conviction into her spine. Appropriately, given the fact that no one else in our group spoke passable Spanish, she had been named Greenscool's spokesperson for the commemoration ceremony, and now she went over her notes with the teachers in the computer lab.
Khyber and Mike were just finessing the final panels into place on the roof when the teachers began lining up the schoolchildren in a giant L. As reporters and television cameras positioned themselves--both media and local dignataries had arrived to witness the ceremony--a teacher of about forty blew into a microphone, testing the sound. Young girls in blue blouses and young boys in short-sleeved shirts snapped into order. Mike Chase had exchanged his Carhartts and baggy t-shirt for a button-down shirt and clean jeans, and he took his place next to Terry Challis, who had materialized to watch the proceedings.
Suddenly, there was a stir at the gate. El Presidente had arrived, and now his entourage guided him through the metal fence while the kids and the teachers applauded in unison.
The television cameras found their angles. El Presidente walked to the head of the line and, bent at the waist, gladhanded his way along it, tussling heads while the cameramen got their shots. Behind him lay the solar panels, aligned in a neat row on the roof.
The man blowing into the microphone began to speak. I focused, trying to discern words in Spanish, as he introduced Greenscool and then handed the microphone to Jennie.
Jennie began speaking. The children held rank as she outlined our goals in poised if broken Spanish. She swept her hand from one end of the L to the other, then gestured at individuals in the rows to make her points. Gone was the hesitant young idealist who had picked me up at the airport. In her place stood the confident teacher who had introduced the barrio to the concept of renewable energy.
When Jennie was finished, she yielded the microphone to El Presidente, who tapped it twice, then cleared his throat. In impeccable English, he thanked us for the project before turning to address the children and the cameras. I recognized simple words--"petroleum," "sun," "clean energy"--as he explained to them the value of the solar panels. Jennie looked on, her engagement so intense she could have been praying.
Mexico was just starting to explore green alternatives. The kids probably cared less about the fact that the energy was green than they did that there was electricity at all. But as I watched El Presidente speak, I remembered what Terry Challis had told me our first day in Fatima. "It will be the next generation who makes the difference," she had said.
"This project is good," El Presidente said into the microphone, "because above and beyond what it generates in electricity, it creates consciousness in the children." The kids looked on, rapt; it was the first time someone as important as El Presidente had addressed them, and they didn't miss a word. "The children are our future, and by providing them with clean, renewable energy, we are giving them a better Mexico."
The cameras panned to the solar panels. The reporters scribbled notes on their pads. The children held their positions. As El Presidente spoke, our message went out, over their heads to all of Mexico.
While our work on the project was now complete--or would be, when Mike gained permission to tie the project to the grid--our work on the website continued.
It was seven p.m., and we had hours of uploading still ahead of us. In two days, Jennie would fly back to Flagstaff, and I'd depart for San Francisco. Conversation had already turned among the others toward the long drive home. Momentum was beginning to ebb, we were falling behind our goal of posting every day--and now Mike wanted us to drop what we were doing and go to dinner.
We had been invited to the home of one of the electricians who had helped us install the panels. "He's cooking for us," Mike said over our protestations. "He expects us all there. Plus, he's got wi-fi. We can upload from his house as we eat."
The electrician, whose name was Servando, lived in a nice part of Guaymas. Jennie drove, navigating the narrow, cobbled streets. As we moved deeper into the city, the housefronts grew more elaborate, and the black metal grills on the windows became ornate. We could have been in Spain.
"That's it," said Mike, when our lights flashed on a numbered gate. We stumbled out of the van, frazzled, and followed him to a door that swung inward to a large, open foyer. My eyes went to the back wall, where a neon sign advertised Tecate. An industrial-size grill sat behind an island covered in dishes of food. Massive speakers stood against the side of the grill. A table covered in linen lay in the open courtyard, clean and spacious and immaculately presented. Was this someone's house, or a nightclub?
Servando came out to greet us, and now I recognized him from the school. He introduced his wife, who wore a dress as blue as the Sonoran sky. Servando's father stood behind her, smiling. Their children, two young boys and a girl, shyly introduced themselves with the Guaymas handshake: open palms sliding over ours, followed by a fist bump.
Mike walked back to the grill with Servando, where he busied himself with small talk. I looked at Kina.
"What's the password?" I asked, flipping open my laptop.
"I don't know," Kina said. He'd been shooting hundreds of stills a day, laughing, solemn, confident, beautiful compositions that revealed the project from the schoolchildren's perspective. Now, his black eyes carried a shadow of exhaustion. This would be the fourth night in a row of late nights, and it didn't look like we'd finish any earlier than we had the night before. "Man, this is crazy. We've been working every night, and we're still falling behind. We gotta get this done."
The speakers vibrated with music. Servando's father handed me a beer.
"I'm sorry we have to keep working," I said to him.
He smiled kindly. "Don't worry," he said in English. "You're doing good work."
Servando flipped thin strips of carne asada on the grill. His oldest son ran up and hugged his leg, but he brushed him away, laughing, and turned back to his conversation with Mike.
Jennie caught the boy's hand and leaned over to hear him speak. He guided her through a side door and they disappeared.
A moment later, Jennie burst back into the room.
"We're on TV! We're on TV!"
Kina and I exchanged quick glances, then crowded into the room beside the others. There, on a television set perched up in a corner of the room, was El Presidente, addressing Fatima's Vicente Guerrero de Guaymas Primary School. He spoke with compassion and concern about the future of the children and the future of Mexico's energy sources. The cameras swept to the asphalt roof. Above the broken courtyard lay the solar panels for all the audience to see.
Earlier that day, after the ceremony, Mike had disappeared. When I'd found him in the courtyard, his eyes had been red.
"What's wrong?" I'd asked.
"I just balled my eyes out," he'd said. "The emotions are so intense."
Now I watched him as he witnessed his project unfolding on Mexican television. His dream of installing renewable energy sources and educating children in impoverished schools around the world had just taken its first step.