Walt Ratterman, in the Galapagos Islands

Walt Ratterman is program director for Green Empowerment, a nonprofit that promotes community-based renewable-energy projects internationally to generate social and environmental progress.

We went to the local high school to present our class on solar-energy systems and energy efficiency. Again, we had a good mix of participants: students from the high school, people from the electric company, people from the municipality, and high-school teachers. Overall, there were nearly 40 participants. The trainings went from 8:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.

During the class, we learned that the strike situation was getting worse instead of better. Since the minister of the environment is not coming right away, they are threatening to close down the airports. Diego heard that Ecuador is sending in special-forces groups from the army and navy to increase their presence on the islands, but there was no word whether or not they would try to keep the airports open or just try to keep the peace.

On Santa Cruz, where we were Wednesday, the road to the airport has been closed since shortly after we went by. So, anyone trying to leave Santa Cruz via the airport in Baltra has been stranded and remains so.

The strike has expanded and they have closed the operations at the national parks on all three islands. The national-park people we met with here on San Cristobal got in to their offices last night and moved all of their essential equipment to their homes to set up temporary offices until the strike situation is over.

It appears as though all is still okay for class and installation at the Galapaguera. The park people today were able to get into the warehouse and move all of the equipment up to the site -- about 45 minutes by truck. Our plans are to gather up our participants at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow to head up to the Galapaguera and begin the five-day workshop of training and installation.