Registered owners with no vehicle access

Even though we are still being blocked along the La Palmera road we have some good news - the Totoco property is now completely registered in the name of Casa Tortuga Nicaragua S.A!

Moreover, on the 7^th November we had the pleasure of hosting a whirlwind 3-day visit by Frans van Loef, one of Totoco’s Supervisory Board members. Frans came to Nicaragua for the purpose of better understanding the access problem we are currently facing, helping us to form a resolution strategy, and not to mention, seeing first-hand the Totoco property.

During the three days Frans was here, we attended a number of meetings with key people involved in the problem. With the aid of a qualified translator, Fran’s was able to ask detailed questions allowing him and us to obtain a clearer picture of the problem, its facets and also potential solutions. He also was given the opportunity to meet with a number of other people, who while not directly involved in Totoco’s issue, have substantial experience living and owning business’s Nicaragua.

In relation to the Totoco property, Fran’s was suitably impressed and now understands why we were each so insistent about buying this particular property.

Towards the end of Fran’s stay we held a meeting wherein we summarized our learnings and agreed next steps over the short-run. Essentially this meeting revealed the following;

The problem we are facing spans across three areas;

• Social
• Legal &
• Political

To each of these areas we have devised a plan of action.

In relation to the social aspects of the issue, we agreed that we need to continue building the reputation of Totoco as a good project that will benefit the local community. To this end, we have agreed to pursue development projects that will provide us with ‘quick-wins’. Such projects that we are currently underway with include;

• Organisation of a group of Veterinarians from the USA to come to Balgue in January 2007 in order to provide free consultations to the local people
• Provision of educational material to the local primary school thoughtfully donated by Frans van Loef
• Continue pursuing the realization of the new water system to Madronal and improvement of the existing water tubing system coming from Balgue
• Plan to create an organic garden in the Balgue Primary School
• Sponsorship of a local Football team and assistance to help them find additional donors
• Improvement of the local sports field
• Work with the local woman’s group in areas of great need

In relation to the legal aspects of our problem, we are preparing for our first court hearing that will take place in Altagracia on Tuesday 20^th November. Given we now are the fully legal owners of the 8.8mzas we stand strong in the eyes of the law. While we don’t expect the whole situation to the resolved in one sitting, we do feel that it should not take too long for the judge to provide a court order to the blockers to vacate their position along the public road.

From the political angle we are taking a two-pronged approach. We will continue to try and build our relationship among local municipal councilmen but also are now using a contact that will take us to the top of the Sandinista party. It is our hope that this approach could allow us to side-step a number of processes buy taking us directly to the decision makers whose voices will make the local law makers jump.

We would like to take this opportunity to, once again, thank Fran’s for taking time out of his very busy schedule to visit us and help us with this extremely frustrating issue.