Charcoal in Embu

Well, just to make myself sound super-important, I'm going to refer to this as an international business trip. :)

My friend Joe, who worked on IDDS with me two summers ago, is traveling from Kampala (Uganda) to Cape Town (South Africa) this summer in conjunction with the World Cup. He will be showcasing some technologies (including GCS products) that can make a difference for rural communities across Africa. He has been familiarizing himself with the route and meeting some really interesting people along the way. He was in Arusha two weeks ago and told us that we had to visit a remarkable women's group in Embu, which is 2 hours north of Nairobi. Last week, Winnie (the chairlady) called us to tell us that the maize was ready, so on 48 hours notice, we put together this trip.

I took advantage of the timing to make the stop in Nakuru before the real purpose of the trip. On Wednesday evening Reuben, Jodie and I traveled to Embu and met Winnie. The following morning, Winnie took us to the project site. We were excited after hearing about their big irrigation project. It wasn't until we got there that we learned what they meant by that. They wanted to do a large irrigation project and were hoping that we could offer some technical advice. Not exactly our specialty. Nothing to worry about, I'll still assemble some materials for them. We were also surprised when Winnie was the only woman from the group who was at the demonstration; she was accompanied by ten men.

Fortunately, they did have lots of maize (a rare sight in the region these days). We had sent several messages to make sure that the maize would be sufficiently dry for shelling (removing the kernels from the cob) and they assured us that it was completely ready. When we arrived, we found that it wasn't completely dry (it probably needed another week), which meant that the machine wouldn't perform as well. We asked them if it was dry enough for shelling using their typical method (beating it with a stick) and they told us that they would have to wait a few more days. We were slightly exasperated, but at least they got a general idea. We left the machine with them, so hopefully they'll be able to rouse some interest in the coming weeks and we'll have better luck when we follow up.

The other part of the demonstration was making charcoal. Joe had talked with them about the shortage of trees and the possibility of turning corn cobs into charcoal and they were very excited. We sent them a list of the materials they would need. We were a bit luckier on this venture. They had all the supplies (we only asked if cassava was available and they went out and bought about 15 kg, even though I was planning to buy about 1/2 kg on arrival; oh well) except for the oil drum. They told us that it wouldn't be possible or economical to get a 200 liter drum, but they offered us a 20 liter drum. I'm not sure what they purpose of those are, I mostly see them as rubbish bins, but I tried to hide my skepticism as I announced that we would find a way to make it work. They offered us a 100 liter drum, but unfortunately it was not air-tight, so I said we would just make do with the 20 liter drum.

I did the basic prep work of inspecting and cutting holes in the base of the drum, making a lid and making a cassava grater (I felt proud of metal working skills). After Jodie finished with the maize sheller work, I showed them the charcoal making process. Cobs and husks were abundant, so we had fun filling the drum. In fact, the audience was so excited that they packed the drum a lot more tightly than I've ever done it before. I was hesitant at first, but I realized that the looseness we typically incorporate is to allow airflow, but since the container was so small, I realized that we could probably get away with it. We lit the drum and it took a little work to keep the airflow intact, but it burned really well. The burn went pretty much exactly to plan. The only hiccup was when we tried to use the cover, but found that it wasn't airtight. Fortunately, they were able to improvise a different cover using a piece of cardboard (I can't believe it didn't catch fire).

After forty minutes, I checked and felt the drum wasn't very warm and I was slightly disconcerted. Still, I let it sit a bit longer hoping that it would keep going a bit longer. Another hour later, we opened it and found that over 95% of material had successfully carbonized. It was also better than using the full size drum because the airspace we put in typically leads to the drum being only 40% full when we open it since the charcoal is much less dense (very anticlimactic), but this time it was closer to 70%. We made some cassava porridge to make the charcoal briquettes and the audience was very excited about that. When we finished, I looked at the yield and realized that in spite of using a container that was 10 times smaller, we still mustered about a quarter of the typical yield, so we were very proud.

Two of the men (one was called Twiga, which means giraffe) there were asking lots of questions and seemed to have lots of ideas for how they could own this project. Everyone seemed very impressed and excited to go out and show their communities what they had learned. They had a very clear picture in their minds of how they could use the sheller and then collect the cobs and make charcoal. It seemed like having complementary technologies (no, not complimentary) made a really big difference.

Now I'm on my way back to Arusha. I didn't get to see anyone from Peace Corps or any of my other friends here in Kenya. Oh well, I'll have to follow up with this project, so hopefully with more planning I'll get to see more people next time :).