Well, it's been a good run. 300+ posts in just over three years. I've enjoyed sharing my experiences, though of late, blogging has begun to feel like more of a chore than a healthy way to express myself. I thought I would migrate over to Facebook or Twitter, but I've found myself spending a lot of time on Quora lately, so that's probably how I'll be expressing myself, at least for a little while now. I will leave the blog up for a while, but I don't expect that I'll come back to posting. Hope you've enjoyed the ride.
-Daniel
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Local Animals
Monday, December 26, 2011
Infrequent
Seasons greetings, readers!
My apologies that I've written nothing about what's been going on in my life the last two months. This month, I fought off a couple of infections and I started sleeping incredibly erratic hours, so I haven't felt a lot like writing. And to be honest, there hasn't been a whole ton of excitement in my life. Still, I am hoping to get two more posts up here before the new year.
Stay tuned :)
My apologies that I've written nothing about what's been going on in my life the last two months. This month, I fought off a couple of infections and I started sleeping incredibly erratic hours, so I haven't felt a lot like writing. And to be honest, there hasn't been a whole ton of excitement in my life. Still, I am hoping to get two more posts up here before the new year.
Stay tuned :)
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Uganda Pedal Power Workshop Photos
Pedal-power workshop in Uganda
See previous posts: Travel to Uganda and Preparing for Workshop
The workshop was a three day event, but I could only stay for the first two since I had to grab a bus to Nairobi to catch a flight. We started off by demonstrating some bicycle repair and maintenance skills. My station was on repairing flat tires. The one time I tried to fix my own flat, I wound up destroying the whole tire (not just the tube, mind you). Fortunately, I was staying in a guest house with Bernard, so the night before, he showed me how to do it and I got to practice. For the demo, four different groups came through and we looked at different types of tires (regular, racing and mountain) and then I used my nail to make a puncture as we all took turns using the tire iron, applying the patch and then checking for additional leaks. The participants also learned how to pack a bearing, how to spoke a tire and how to work on a chain.
After that, there was a session on identifying challenges, but I had to miss that one. After lots of hassle, we got a box of GCS equipment that morning (phone chargers and corn shellers), so I spent my time setting the kit up. By the time I finished setting things up (with some help from Bernard, since I was having an embarrassingly difficult time and for some reason couldn't apply basic problem solving skills), they were just finishing up the discussion.
Then, we demonstrated a few technologies that we had set up for the occasion. There was a charcoal crusher* that Bernard designed and built based off a project that he had worked on at IDDS in 2008. There was a peanut grinder using spare bicycle parts (everyone loved this one since we got to eat a sesame-peanut butter concoction that we prepared to show the machine). There was a blender that ran off the back wheel of a bicycle (people also enjoyed the smoothies that came out of this demo).
In the afternoon, we broke off into teams to work on the design challenges that they had chosen. I was working with a team of Caritas staff members who were looking at designing a sorghum thresher. All of the other participants had previously done a workshop with Amy, so they were familiar with the design process, but the Caritas staff had been a last minute addition. It was really interesting to see what it's like trying to design something with people as they try to decide the order of steps themselves (imagine watching someone build a house starting with the roof). I worked with them to try to guide them down the right path (identifying constraints before selecting design elements) and though it was a bit slower than usual, by the end of the day, we had an idea that we were happy with.
The second day was mostly building and testing ideas. It was a bit difficult with the sorghum threshing team since we didn't have dried sorghum that was ready for threshing, but they still produced a pretty nifty machine. Mid-morning we took a break and Bernard and I demonstrated the GCS technologies for everyone. People were really amazed to see the corn sheller work and were also very excited by the bicycle phone charger. Everyone kept passing up their phone to see if it could be charged by the bicycle (they all could). It was really unfortunate that shipping is such an expense, because it definitely drives the price beyond the means of the communities.
All of the sessions were translated from English into Acholi, the local language, by the Caritas staff. I had to leave after the second day, which was really sad. At dinner that night, the participants gave me an Acholi name. They called me Otam, which means the thinker. I think they just saw me constantly staring at bicycles and could hear the wheels turning in my head. I was really touched by everyone there. I was a little disappointing that the only words that I learned in Acholi were "hello" "thank you" and "good". Still, I managed to get pretty far with those as well as lots of wild gesturing.
I also really enjoyed the food in the community. Every morning, we ate a very hearty cassava stew with very sugary tea. Then lunch and dinner were a mixture of greens (but not kale like I usually eat in Kenya and Tanzania) with posho (the Ugandan term for what we call ugali in Kiswahili), rice with beans, peanut stew (really delicious) and roasted goat. We were definitely full at the end of every meal.
* It was fun that this was included, since it meant that Amy and I got to run a charcoal burn the night before to provide the material for the demonstration.
The workshop was a three day event, but I could only stay for the first two since I had to grab a bus to Nairobi to catch a flight. We started off by demonstrating some bicycle repair and maintenance skills. My station was on repairing flat tires. The one time I tried to fix my own flat, I wound up destroying the whole tire (not just the tube, mind you). Fortunately, I was staying in a guest house with Bernard, so the night before, he showed me how to do it and I got to practice. For the demo, four different groups came through and we looked at different types of tires (regular, racing and mountain) and then I used my nail to make a puncture as we all took turns using the tire iron, applying the patch and then checking for additional leaks. The participants also learned how to pack a bearing, how to spoke a tire and how to work on a chain.
After that, there was a session on identifying challenges, but I had to miss that one. After lots of hassle, we got a box of GCS equipment that morning (phone chargers and corn shellers), so I spent my time setting the kit up. By the time I finished setting things up (with some help from Bernard, since I was having an embarrassingly difficult time and for some reason couldn't apply basic problem solving skills), they were just finishing up the discussion.
Then, we demonstrated a few technologies that we had set up for the occasion. There was a charcoal crusher* that Bernard designed and built based off a project that he had worked on at IDDS in 2008. There was a peanut grinder using spare bicycle parts (everyone loved this one since we got to eat a sesame-peanut butter concoction that we prepared to show the machine). There was a blender that ran off the back wheel of a bicycle (people also enjoyed the smoothies that came out of this demo).
In the afternoon, we broke off into teams to work on the design challenges that they had chosen. I was working with a team of Caritas staff members who were looking at designing a sorghum thresher. All of the other participants had previously done a workshop with Amy, so they were familiar with the design process, but the Caritas staff had been a last minute addition. It was really interesting to see what it's like trying to design something with people as they try to decide the order of steps themselves (imagine watching someone build a house starting with the roof). I worked with them to try to guide them down the right path (identifying constraints before selecting design elements) and though it was a bit slower than usual, by the end of the day, we had an idea that we were happy with.
The second day was mostly building and testing ideas. It was a bit difficult with the sorghum threshing team since we didn't have dried sorghum that was ready for threshing, but they still produced a pretty nifty machine. Mid-morning we took a break and Bernard and I demonstrated the GCS technologies for everyone. People were really amazed to see the corn sheller work and were also very excited by the bicycle phone charger. Everyone kept passing up their phone to see if it could be charged by the bicycle (they all could). It was really unfortunate that shipping is such an expense, because it definitely drives the price beyond the means of the communities.
All of the sessions were translated from English into Acholi, the local language, by the Caritas staff. I had to leave after the second day, which was really sad. At dinner that night, the participants gave me an Acholi name. They called me Otam, which means the thinker. I think they just saw me constantly staring at bicycles and could hear the wheels turning in my head. I was really touched by everyone there. I was a little disappointing that the only words that I learned in Acholi were "hello" "thank you" and "good". Still, I managed to get pretty far with those as well as lots of wild gesturing.
I also really enjoyed the food in the community. Every morning, we ate a very hearty cassava stew with very sugary tea. Then lunch and dinner were a mixture of greens (but not kale like I usually eat in Kenya and Tanzania) with posho (the Ugandan term for what we call ugali in Kiswahili), rice with beans, peanut stew (really delicious) and roasted goat. We were definitely full at the end of every meal.
* It was fun that this was included, since it meant that Amy and I got to run a charcoal burn the night before to provide the material for the demonstration.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Preparing for the Pedal Power Workshop
Amy Smith has made several trips to northern Uganda and run workshops there on Creative Capacity Building and the design process. Her partner on the ground is Caritas, a Catholic organization that runs relief programs across the country. We (Amy, Bernard and I) were traveling north in a Caritas vehicle, which was a welcome change after some long bus rides.
As we traveled, we admired the scenery, and Michael (the driver) talked about the landscape and the history. He reminded us that some people did well during Idi Amin's reign who have now seen their standard of living drop during the presidency of Yoweri Museveni. Amy and I both noted that much of the scenery was much greener than what we're used to seeing (she used to live in Botswana in the Kalahari desert, while my experiences in Kenya saw lots of sparse landscapes). Michael mentioned the dangers of it as we drove through a pine forest and he explained that when the needles fall to the ground and dry out, the fires can be devastating. Then we started talking about pine needle gasification and inevitably to other simple technologies.
We arrived in Gulu and met David from Bikes not Bombs (BNB) who was also running the workshop. He had gone shopping and grabbed a few bikes as well as tons of spare parts for the sessions that we were going to run. David was collecting footage of a health project that BNB is running in another nearby community, so he left us with the supplies and returned to the village. We visited the Caritas office in Gulu and picked up a few more supplies at the market before heading to Pader.
When we reached Pader and were greeted by my friend Denis who was on my team at IDDS in Ghana. He showed us the community technology center that Amy had established there and I recognized several of the machines there from other programs that I've done with Amy. We set to work organizing the space so that it would be ready for the event. We were still missing one box (as stated in the last post, Kampala Coach had left our luggage behind), so we couldn't set up the GCS equipment. Instead, I set to work cleaning out a peanut butter maker which had not been cleaned in several months. After that, I designed a table and took inventory of all the supplies in the workshop. Meanwhile, Bernard set about creating a bicycle powered charcoal crusher to serve as an example.
We had 1.5 days in Pader before the participants arrived, so it was also a good opportunity to learn our way around the town a bit. Wokorach, the other staff member at the workshop, helped me buy some tools at the market and talked about the difficulties of life in the area. We also spent an evening at Denis's house where his wife cooked a delicious supper, and spent the whole time complaining that the large spread wasn't nearly enough food and she didn't like that we were rushing back to the workshop. I also took full advantage of MTN Mobile Money (another phone banking system similar to Safaricom's Mpesa), which has taken the bulk of the mobile banking market in Uganda (although when I was in Kampala, I noticed that there were several agents for Kenya's and Tanzania's mobile money systems in spite of the fact that they don't work with Ugandan sim cards).
I also had the opportunity to meet the local Caritas staff. It was most remarkable to talk with Jennifer, who is a social worker and helped us with the translation during the event. Her stories were terrifying and she told them with such non-chalance that it was difficult to contemplate the horrors that many of these people had lived through. Rather than letting the stories depress us, though, we saw it as a testament to the resilience of the community and saw it as a great motivator for running this workshop.
As we traveled, we admired the scenery, and Michael (the driver) talked about the landscape and the history. He reminded us that some people did well during Idi Amin's reign who have now seen their standard of living drop during the presidency of Yoweri Museveni. Amy and I both noted that much of the scenery was much greener than what we're used to seeing (she used to live in Botswana in the Kalahari desert, while my experiences in Kenya saw lots of sparse landscapes). Michael mentioned the dangers of it as we drove through a pine forest and he explained that when the needles fall to the ground and dry out, the fires can be devastating. Then we started talking about pine needle gasification and inevitably to other simple technologies.
We arrived in Gulu and met David from Bikes not Bombs (BNB) who was also running the workshop. He had gone shopping and grabbed a few bikes as well as tons of spare parts for the sessions that we were going to run. David was collecting footage of a health project that BNB is running in another nearby community, so he left us with the supplies and returned to the village. We visited the Caritas office in Gulu and picked up a few more supplies at the market before heading to Pader.
When we reached Pader and were greeted by my friend Denis who was on my team at IDDS in Ghana. He showed us the community technology center that Amy had established there and I recognized several of the machines there from other programs that I've done with Amy. We set to work organizing the space so that it would be ready for the event. We were still missing one box (as stated in the last post, Kampala Coach had left our luggage behind), so we couldn't set up the GCS equipment. Instead, I set to work cleaning out a peanut butter maker which had not been cleaned in several months. After that, I designed a table and took inventory of all the supplies in the workshop. Meanwhile, Bernard set about creating a bicycle powered charcoal crusher to serve as an example.
We had 1.5 days in Pader before the participants arrived, so it was also a good opportunity to learn our way around the town a bit. Wokorach, the other staff member at the workshop, helped me buy some tools at the market and talked about the difficulties of life in the area. We also spent an evening at Denis's house where his wife cooked a delicious supper, and spent the whole time complaining that the large spread wasn't nearly enough food and she didn't like that we were rushing back to the workshop. I also took full advantage of MTN Mobile Money (another phone banking system similar to Safaricom's Mpesa), which has taken the bulk of the mobile banking market in Uganda (although when I was in Kampala, I noticed that there were several agents for Kenya's and Tanzania's mobile money systems in spite of the fact that they don't work with Ugandan sim cards).
I also had the opportunity to meet the local Caritas staff. It was most remarkable to talk with Jennifer, who is a social worker and helped us with the translation during the event. Her stories were terrifying and she told them with such non-chalance that it was difficult to contemplate the horrors that many of these people had lived through. Rather than letting the stories depress us, though, we saw it as a testament to the resilience of the community and saw it as a great motivator for running this workshop.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Traveling to Uganda
Last month, my friend Bernard and I were working on a pedal-power seminar in Uganda, so we took the bus from Arusha. There are buses that go directly to Uganda, but we needed to run a couple of errands in Nairobi, so we stopped off there for a few hours. I went to a phone store and they were able to program a sim card so that I could have my old phone number (when my sim card was stolen, I lost lots of valuable contacts), and I just have to say that Safaricom really has their act together with that sort of thing*.
We had bought tickets and dropped off our bags with Kampala Coach for the 9:30 PM bus. It's nice, since the seats are comfortable, so it's easy to sleep on the way. Unfortunately, our bus didn't show up until 11 PM, so we were pretty tired by that point and fell asleep as soon as we were in our seats. We made it to the border at 9 AM and it was a pretty easy crossing. The bigger hassle was about 2 hours up the road at a checkpoint for the Ugandan Revenue Authority, where they held our bus and made sure that everyone had paid the necessary taxes on what they had brought into the country (one man had 3 of some kind of electronic device, so they figured he was some kind of smuggler). We were glad when they finally let us keep moving.
We admired the view of the Nile as we passed through Jinja and a fellow passenger told us all about the hydro-power station there. We arrived in Kampala at 3 PM (the bus was supposed to arrive at 10 AM) and we discovered that our bags never made it onto the bus. Always make sure that your bags make it onto the bus! After a lot of arguing with the staff, they said that they would make some phone calls and that it would be there the next morning. We went and found a small guest house nearby and grabbed a room and then found some supper before crashing.
Saturday morning, I went back to the Kampala Coach station to ask about the bags and they hadn't arrived. The man made some more phone calls and said that they would be there the next morning. I had to accept that, since I had to go to a meeting. The city was pretty crazy the whole day (and the night before) in preparation for the big Uganda-Kenya soccer match. If Uganda won, they would receive a spot in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. The way that people were blaring their vuvuzelas and running around town hollering and waving flags, you would be forgiven for assuming that they had already won. The match came out as a 0-0 draw, which meant that Uganda will have to try again for the next Africa Cup of Nations in two years. A friend explained that it was because they started their international players who hadn't practiced with the rest of the team, and that they had won the rest of their matches until the last two when those players came back.
I also met with a colleague who attended the Unreasonable Institute in Colorado in 2011 (I attended in 2010) and we talked a lot about his project in Uganda and it was great to sit down with him and talk. He also took me to a small restaurant and introduced me to the rolex, which is a Ugandan food consisting of a scrambled egg rolled up into a chapati (get it? rolled eggs / rolex) and eaten with ketchup and chili sauce. It is delicious.
On Sunday morning, we went back to the Kampala Coach station and waited for the bus to arrive. It was supposed to be there at 10, so we arrived at 9:45. It rained most of the morning, so I got soaked searching the luggage compartment of one of the buses before someone told me that the bus hadn't come from Nairobi. I managed to take my mind off of the situation by watching an episode of a South African soap opera that seemed pretty compelling. We were ready to give up hope on the bus at 2 PM, when it finally rolled up and we managed to grab our bags (well, after waiting another hour for them to process all of the parcels on the bus). We were so excited to have fresh clothes after about 84 hours without a change of clothes.
* Safaricom is owned by the same company as Vodacom, which is my phone provider in Tanzania. However, in spite of how wonderful I've found Safaricom, I'm equally frustrated by the service of Vodacom Tanzania.
We had bought tickets and dropped off our bags with Kampala Coach for the 9:30 PM bus. It's nice, since the seats are comfortable, so it's easy to sleep on the way. Unfortunately, our bus didn't show up until 11 PM, so we were pretty tired by that point and fell asleep as soon as we were in our seats. We made it to the border at 9 AM and it was a pretty easy crossing. The bigger hassle was about 2 hours up the road at a checkpoint for the Ugandan Revenue Authority, where they held our bus and made sure that everyone had paid the necessary taxes on what they had brought into the country (one man had 3 of some kind of electronic device, so they figured he was some kind of smuggler). We were glad when they finally let us keep moving.
We admired the view of the Nile as we passed through Jinja and a fellow passenger told us all about the hydro-power station there. We arrived in Kampala at 3 PM (the bus was supposed to arrive at 10 AM) and we discovered that our bags never made it onto the bus. Always make sure that your bags make it onto the bus! After a lot of arguing with the staff, they said that they would make some phone calls and that it would be there the next morning. We went and found a small guest house nearby and grabbed a room and then found some supper before crashing.
Saturday morning, I went back to the Kampala Coach station to ask about the bags and they hadn't arrived. The man made some more phone calls and said that they would be there the next morning. I had to accept that, since I had to go to a meeting. The city was pretty crazy the whole day (and the night before) in preparation for the big Uganda-Kenya soccer match. If Uganda won, they would receive a spot in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. The way that people were blaring their vuvuzelas and running around town hollering and waving flags, you would be forgiven for assuming that they had already won. The match came out as a 0-0 draw, which meant that Uganda will have to try again for the next Africa Cup of Nations in two years. A friend explained that it was because they started their international players who hadn't practiced with the rest of the team, and that they had won the rest of their matches until the last two when those players came back.
I also met with a colleague who attended the Unreasonable Institute in Colorado in 2011 (I attended in 2010) and we talked a lot about his project in Uganda and it was great to sit down with him and talk. He also took me to a small restaurant and introduced me to the rolex, which is a Ugandan food consisting of a scrambled egg rolled up into a chapati (get it? rolled eggs / rolex) and eaten with ketchup and chili sauce. It is delicious.
On Sunday morning, we went back to the Kampala Coach station and waited for the bus to arrive. It was supposed to be there at 10, so we arrived at 9:45. It rained most of the morning, so I got soaked searching the luggage compartment of one of the buses before someone told me that the bus hadn't come from Nairobi. I managed to take my mind off of the situation by watching an episode of a South African soap opera that seemed pretty compelling. We were ready to give up hope on the bus at 2 PM, when it finally rolled up and we managed to grab our bags (well, after waiting another hour for them to process all of the parcels on the bus). We were so excited to have fresh clothes after about 84 hours without a change of clothes.
* Safaricom is owned by the same company as Vodacom, which is my phone provider in Tanzania. However, in spite of how wonderful I've found Safaricom, I'm equally frustrated by the service of Vodacom Tanzania.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Happy Three Year Anniversary
Well, I've definitely had my ups and downs, as have the other 41 people who landed in Kenya with me three years ago today to serve in the Peace Corps. I definitely would not have guessed that three years on I would be living in Tanzania and would go such a long time without seeing any of those 41 friends (I saw a few folks in June and haven't seen anyone since). Anyway, cheers to my friends! I am thinking about all of you today :)
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Heavy Power Rationing
The whole year, we've had pretty heavy power cuts here in Arusha. Since getting back from Ghana, though, it's been even worse. We've been losing power for 8-16 hours nearly every day. In theory, the power gets cut at 8 AM one day and then comes back at 5 PM, then the next day, the power is off until 8 AM, on until 5 PM, and then cut off again until midnight. In reality, they like to throw the switch on or off at random times throughout the week*. They keep to the schedule just well enough that you expect it to be reliable, and then I get really frustrated as it switches off while I'm in the middle of work. I've been mostly working off a desktop computer, so as soon as the power goes off, so does my work.
In order to be productive when I can, I've spent a lot of nights taking advantage of the electricity while it's there. The power is most predictable during the midnight to 8 AM stretch, so I try to make the most of it. Unfortunately, as someone who is known for erratic sleep patterns, I stay up until about 4 AM on average and was awake to see 4 sunrises last week. I rarely get out of bed before 10 AM and on weekends, I can easily sleep until 2. Well, I never really was a morning person. Today I was out of bed at 8:30 and considered it a huge accomplishment.
I don't really know what the situation is at Tanesco (the Tanzanian Electric Supply Company), but it is really infuriating. There were rumors that they were increasing supply at the start of the month, but that was supposed to be in September. Now that it's the start of October, the situation has been a lot better. We've had power for about 20 hours per day. I remain cautiously optimistic.
* A few times, the electricity has been off for longer than 24 hours, one time it reached 60 hours. There was one really beautiful stretch where it stayed on for 48 hours.
In order to be productive when I can, I've spent a lot of nights taking advantage of the electricity while it's there. The power is most predictable during the midnight to 8 AM stretch, so I try to make the most of it. Unfortunately, as someone who is known for erratic sleep patterns, I stay up until about 4 AM on average and was awake to see 4 sunrises last week. I rarely get out of bed before 10 AM and on weekends, I can easily sleep until 2. Well, I never really was a morning person. Today I was out of bed at 8:30 and considered it a huge accomplishment.
I don't really know what the situation is at Tanesco (the Tanzanian Electric Supply Company), but it is really infuriating. There were rumors that they were increasing supply at the start of the month, but that was supposed to be in September. Now that it's the start of October, the situation has been a lot better. We've had power for about 20 hours per day. I remain cautiously optimistic.
* A few times, the electricity has been off for longer than 24 hours, one time it reached 60 hours. There was one really beautiful stretch where it stayed on for 48 hours.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Returning to Tanzania
It was nice to make it back to Arusha after two months of traveling. I have to say, when you come back after being away for a while, you always notice everything that has changed.
First, when I got home, we were having a good-bye party for my roommate Rose, which was really sad (glad I made it back in time to see her off). I was still kinda dazed from the traveling, and I realized that I only knew about a quarter of the people there. I definitely enjoyed myself at the party. But probably not as much as the Tanzanians who built a little grill in our yard and roasted some goat. They were incredibly triumphant about the whole experience.
That night I also discovered that we had acquired a new dog. My housemate Reuben had petted him once, and I suppose that act of kindness was so refreshing for the dog that he decided to take up a post as our guard. Unfortunately, he's a bit too aggressive and kinda rubs us all the wrong way, but he hasn't figured out that we'd prefer if he didn't spend time at our house. We call him Reuben, since we've had dogs named after most of the other occupants of the house.
I also noticed some changes in town. Gas prices have gone up about 10% and it's now over 2000 shillings per liter (about $1.25). Also, the exchange rate is going up again, and it's now over 1600 shillings to the dollar (it was just over 1500 when I left). Food prices are rising a bit more slowly (though some products have risen much more quickly).
It was also nice to see that the bridge near our office that they've been rebuilding for most of the year was finally finished. Some of the big construction projects in town have really come together quickly and are starting to look pretty impressive. But all in all, two months is a pretty short time, and things mostly stayed the same while I was gone.
First, when I got home, we were having a good-bye party for my roommate Rose, which was really sad (glad I made it back in time to see her off). I was still kinda dazed from the traveling, and I realized that I only knew about a quarter of the people there. I definitely enjoyed myself at the party. But probably not as much as the Tanzanians who built a little grill in our yard and roasted some goat. They were incredibly triumphant about the whole experience.
That night I also discovered that we had acquired a new dog. My housemate Reuben had petted him once, and I suppose that act of kindness was so refreshing for the dog that he decided to take up a post as our guard. Unfortunately, he's a bit too aggressive and kinda rubs us all the wrong way, but he hasn't figured out that we'd prefer if he didn't spend time at our house. We call him Reuben, since we've had dogs named after most of the other occupants of the house.
I also noticed some changes in town. Gas prices have gone up about 10% and it's now over 2000 shillings per liter (about $1.25). Also, the exchange rate is going up again, and it's now over 1600 shillings to the dollar (it was just over 1500 when I left). Food prices are rising a bit more slowly (though some products have risen much more quickly).
It was also nice to see that the bridge near our office that they've been rebuilding for most of the year was finally finished. Some of the big construction projects in town have really come together quickly and are starting to look pretty impressive. But all in all, two months is a pretty short time, and things mostly stayed the same while I was gone.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Visiting the Embassy
When I arrived in Nairobi, the entry visa* took up the last page in my passport. I knew this was coming, so I planned to spend an extra day in Nairobi before returning to Arusha, since there wouldn't have been any space to stamp my passport at the border.
We had arrived in the morning (I didn't even know they had red-eye flights across Africa) and I hadn't slept on the flight, though I managed to grab a 2 hour nap on the taxi ride in from the airport (traffic in Nairobi is ridiculous these days, that used to be a 40 minute drive). After dropping my bags at Upper Hill, I headed straight to the embassy, though the only thing on my mind at that point was a nap.
I found the embassy pretty easily (it's rather well-fortified after the bombing in 1998) and went to the security line, only to be informed that I couldn't enter without an appointment. She gave me a sheet to set an appointment. I was too tired to read the whole page, so I just called the number she had circled only to discover that it was the "emergency services" line. The person on the line was friendly and told me that I needed to go online to make an appointment. So I found an internet cafe and scheduled an appointment for the next day.
When I arrived the next day, I made it through the security line easily and found a long line in the embassy for services. Really defeats the purpose of the appointment if they have you schedule it just to wait around for an hour. While I was there, I had plenty of time to kill, and I noted the outdated posting reminding me that replacement passport pages were recently a free service. When it was finally my turn, I had to pay my $82 so that they could stitch 6 pieces of paper into my passport. That price still baffles me and seems nearly extortionate. If they're taking that much money off of me, I'm pretty sure that they should offer that service whenever I feel like showing up. I will say that at least they handled the job fairly quickly.
In conclusion, getting new passport pages was an all-around unpleasant experience. I have seven years left on this passport, which probably means I'll get to do it at least once more. I'll do everything I can to keep my scowling to a minimum.
*Also, they just doubled all of their prices for entering Kenya. A transit visa is now $20 and the 3 month single entry visa is now $50.
We had arrived in the morning (I didn't even know they had red-eye flights across Africa) and I hadn't slept on the flight, though I managed to grab a 2 hour nap on the taxi ride in from the airport (traffic in Nairobi is ridiculous these days, that used to be a 40 minute drive). After dropping my bags at Upper Hill, I headed straight to the embassy, though the only thing on my mind at that point was a nap.
I found the embassy pretty easily (it's rather well-fortified after the bombing in 1998) and went to the security line, only to be informed that I couldn't enter without an appointment. She gave me a sheet to set an appointment. I was too tired to read the whole page, so I just called the number she had circled only to discover that it was the "emergency services" line. The person on the line was friendly and told me that I needed to go online to make an appointment. So I found an internet cafe and scheduled an appointment for the next day.
When I arrived the next day, I made it through the security line easily and found a long line in the embassy for services. Really defeats the purpose of the appointment if they have you schedule it just to wait around for an hour. While I was there, I had plenty of time to kill, and I noted the outdated posting reminding me that replacement passport pages were recently a free service. When it was finally my turn, I had to pay my $82 so that they could stitch 6 pieces of paper into my passport. That price still baffles me and seems nearly extortionate. If they're taking that much money off of me, I'm pretty sure that they should offer that service whenever I feel like showing up. I will say that at least they handled the job fairly quickly.
In conclusion, getting new passport pages was an all-around unpleasant experience. I have seven years left on this passport, which probably means I'll get to do it at least once more. I'll do everything I can to keep my scowling to a minimum.
*Also, they just doubled all of their prices for entering Kenya. A transit visa is now $20 and the 3 month single entry visa is now $50.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Accra
At the end of IDDS, we were flying out of Accra, which meant there was a six hour bus ride down. It was sad because there were a lot of good-byes on the bus. I was part of the group that was flying out the next day, so there were about 20 of us staying in a guest house on the other side of town. When we got there, Habib was sorting out the price with the bus driver (he was a lot better at driving the price than he was at driving a bus) while Amit was arranging everything with the receptionist at the guest house. I got to help the porters move the bags to people's rooms and then make sure that the food was all sorted out.
After that, a few of us opted to go out to get a few drinks. I was ready to sleep, but I was coaxed into going out and I wound up napping in the taxi on the way over. It was difficult to find a place that was open on a Sunday night, but we found a spot and all had a beer. It turns out that 650 mL bottles are plenty filling (I had only drank two other times in Ghana, so I didn't want to overdo), so we spent a while there reflecting on the whole summer and thinking about what IDDS will look like in 2012.
The next day, I slept in pretty late, which was much needed after those 5 weeks in Kumasi. I woke up in time for lunch, and even though I wasn't hungry, I headed down to the cafe at the hotel and discovered that they weren't serving lunch to anyone, even though some people needed to head to the airport shortly. After a bit of arguing they put some food out for people. I tried to meet with my friend Frances who I hadn't seen since I was in Ghana in 2008, but things were a bit disorganized and we didn't get to meet up (it didn't help that she works just outside of Accra and we were staying at the opposite end of the city).
Instead, I had to take care of some stuff for GCS. We had a customer in Togo, so we thought we could reduce his shipping fee by having me get it to him in Accra. Unfortunately, I didn't know what I would need to take care of on arrival, so I didn't have much time to organize things. He said that he could drive in the next day, but since my flight was later that evening, he wound up arranging for me to bring it to a friend of his in Accra (our conversation was an interesting bit of French and English, and it turns out my French is pretty rusty these days). I was supposed to get lunch before heading out, but since they had delayed in preparing it, I wound up leaving before I had any food.
The taxi ride wound up taking the better part of an hour, but it was nice to see lots of Accra. I made it to the area that the man had told me, but I couldn't find the restaurant that he said was next to this office. I was walking around with 2 GCS maize shellers on my back (46 lbs) getting impatient. Most of the shopkeepers on the road didn't know the restaurant, but fortunately, I found a minister who was able to point me in the right direction and we had a nice five minute conversation about trees since he was heading the same way. I made it to the office and unpacked the bag for the man there. We had very quick explanations of what we both do, and then I realized that I needed to get to the airport, so he gave me his business card so that I could follow up.
I grabbed a taxi to the airport fearing that it would take an eternity with the distance and the rush hour traffic jam (and it would feel even longer since I still hadn't eaten anything the whole day). It turned out that we were actually only a couple of miles from the airport, so I got there with plenty of time to spare. I didn't have much to do as I waited for the rest of my group to arrive (there were 7 other people from IDDS on my flight and they were bringing my suitcase from the guest house). I decided to explore the airport a bit, which was interesting, but nothing too exciting to report. The rest of my group arrived after an hour and a half.
They had brought my reimbursement, which was great because it meant that I could finally grab some food (good thing Ramadan had prepared me for long days without food). I also had to run to the currency exchange shop, which was closed by that time, but I found a man in the airport flower shop who arranged to convert my Ghanaian cedis into dollars. I was in such a rush, I didn't even notice that the $10 that he gave me was counterfeit. After that, I tried to find food at the airport that wasn't horrendously overpriced, but was completely unsuccessful, so I grabbed something small before they hurried us to our gate so that we could wait for our plane. As we went to the gate, we said our last good-byes to folks flying to Brazil and I couldn't help thinking about how amazing IDDS was this year.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
After that, a few of us opted to go out to get a few drinks. I was ready to sleep, but I was coaxed into going out and I wound up napping in the taxi on the way over. It was difficult to find a place that was open on a Sunday night, but we found a spot and all had a beer. It turns out that 650 mL bottles are plenty filling (I had only drank two other times in Ghana, so I didn't want to overdo), so we spent a while there reflecting on the whole summer and thinking about what IDDS will look like in 2012.
The next day, I slept in pretty late, which was much needed after those 5 weeks in Kumasi. I woke up in time for lunch, and even though I wasn't hungry, I headed down to the cafe at the hotel and discovered that they weren't serving lunch to anyone, even though some people needed to head to the airport shortly. After a bit of arguing they put some food out for people. I tried to meet with my friend Frances who I hadn't seen since I was in Ghana in 2008, but things were a bit disorganized and we didn't get to meet up (it didn't help that she works just outside of Accra and we were staying at the opposite end of the city).
Instead, I had to take care of some stuff for GCS. We had a customer in Togo, so we thought we could reduce his shipping fee by having me get it to him in Accra. Unfortunately, I didn't know what I would need to take care of on arrival, so I didn't have much time to organize things. He said that he could drive in the next day, but since my flight was later that evening, he wound up arranging for me to bring it to a friend of his in Accra (our conversation was an interesting bit of French and English, and it turns out my French is pretty rusty these days). I was supposed to get lunch before heading out, but since they had delayed in preparing it, I wound up leaving before I had any food.
The taxi ride wound up taking the better part of an hour, but it was nice to see lots of Accra. I made it to the area that the man had told me, but I couldn't find the restaurant that he said was next to this office. I was walking around with 2 GCS maize shellers on my back (46 lbs) getting impatient. Most of the shopkeepers on the road didn't know the restaurant, but fortunately, I found a minister who was able to point me in the right direction and we had a nice five minute conversation about trees since he was heading the same way. I made it to the office and unpacked the bag for the man there. We had very quick explanations of what we both do, and then I realized that I needed to get to the airport, so he gave me his business card so that I could follow up.
I grabbed a taxi to the airport fearing that it would take an eternity with the distance and the rush hour traffic jam (and it would feel even longer since I still hadn't eaten anything the whole day). It turned out that we were actually only a couple of miles from the airport, so I got there with plenty of time to spare. I didn't have much to do as I waited for the rest of my group to arrive (there were 7 other people from IDDS on my flight and they were bringing my suitcase from the guest house). I decided to explore the airport a bit, which was interesting, but nothing too exciting to report. The rest of my group arrived after an hour and a half.
They had brought my reimbursement, which was great because it meant that I could finally grab some food (good thing Ramadan had prepared me for long days without food). I also had to run to the currency exchange shop, which was closed by that time, but I found a man in the airport flower shop who arranged to convert my Ghanaian cedis into dollars. I was in such a rush, I didn't even notice that the $10 that he gave me was counterfeit. After that, I tried to find food at the airport that wasn't horrendously overpriced, but was completely unsuccessful, so I grabbed something small before they hurried us to our gate so that we could wait for our plane. As we went to the gate, we said our last good-byes to folks flying to Brazil and I couldn't help thinking about how amazing IDDS was this year.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Friday, September 23, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Transportation
There were lots of misadventures with transportation in Ghana. One morning, a driver just decided not to show up and tried to use that as a bargaining chip to extort a higher price. Another driver saw nothing wrong with driving through Kumasi's busy streets without brakes. And some of the drivers felt that Ghana's lax enforcement of speed limits was an all-clear to drive like a maniac. Fortunately, most of the time I was traveling with Frank and Gideon who drove a tro-tro (the Ghanaian term for a minibus, the same as a Tanzanian daladala or a Kenyan matatu) with our safety in mind and for a reasonable price. But I had one particular misadventure that I'm just grateful didn't end up worse.
At the end of Maker Faire, Tish (the other American on my team) and I were exhausted and decided to leave a little early to find some energy for the final events. We grabbed a taxi right outside Suame and began the 45 minute drive back to the hostel. About ten minutes up the road, our lane was ending so we had to merge. Since it was around rush hour, traffic was moving pretty slowly and people were reluctant to let us in. As we sat there, we heard a loud crash behind us and a split second later felt something smash into us. We looked behind and saw that a huge truck crashed into the car behind us, knocking it into our taxi. Fortunately, we were all unhurt, just a bit rattled.
The driver hopped out and pulled off the last bit of his rear bumper which was still attached and threw it into the trunk. Then he found an opening in the other lane and started moving. Tish and I were a bit surprised that he didn't want to stop and exchange information with the other drivers since he probably could get compensated for the damage. And just ahead, a man came up to the window and said something (in a mixture of Twi and English) and all I could pick up was "wrong lane" and "pull over here". The driver made to pull over just ahead and then just kept going as we came to the roundabout.
At this point, Tish and I were concerned, but it didn't seem like we could do much and we didn't really know what was going on. Also, we were a bit out of it. I actually found myself nodding off a bit. Then all of a sudden, I was awakened by someone opening my door (this was about fifteen minutes later) and trying to climb in. Our driver was pretty jammed into traffic and couldn't really weave anywhere. A second man appeared and climbed in the front seat and struggled with the driver to pull the keys out of the ignition. I'm not really sure what happened next, but Tish and I climbed out and just started walking. This was clearly something that we did not want to be involved with. When we were talking with Joseph (from Tanzania) later he explained that the driver was probably in some kind of trouble before that accident which is why he was trying to clear out so quickly and the people who climbed into our cab had probably followed us that whole time trying to find a time to settle the score. So much for unwinding.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
At the end of Maker Faire, Tish (the other American on my team) and I were exhausted and decided to leave a little early to find some energy for the final events. We grabbed a taxi right outside Suame and began the 45 minute drive back to the hostel. About ten minutes up the road, our lane was ending so we had to merge. Since it was around rush hour, traffic was moving pretty slowly and people were reluctant to let us in. As we sat there, we heard a loud crash behind us and a split second later felt something smash into us. We looked behind and saw that a huge truck crashed into the car behind us, knocking it into our taxi. Fortunately, we were all unhurt, just a bit rattled.
The driver hopped out and pulled off the last bit of his rear bumper which was still attached and threw it into the trunk. Then he found an opening in the other lane and started moving. Tish and I were a bit surprised that he didn't want to stop and exchange information with the other drivers since he probably could get compensated for the damage. And just ahead, a man came up to the window and said something (in a mixture of Twi and English) and all I could pick up was "wrong lane" and "pull over here". The driver made to pull over just ahead and then just kept going as we came to the roundabout.
At this point, Tish and I were concerned, but it didn't seem like we could do much and we didn't really know what was going on. Also, we were a bit out of it. I actually found myself nodding off a bit. Then all of a sudden, I was awakened by someone opening my door (this was about fifteen minutes later) and trying to climb in. Our driver was pretty jammed into traffic and couldn't really weave anywhere. A second man appeared and climbed in the front seat and struggled with the driver to pull the keys out of the ignition. I'm not really sure what happened next, but Tish and I climbed out and just started walking. This was clearly something that we did not want to be involved with. When we were talking with Joseph (from Tanzania) later he explained that the driver was probably in some kind of trouble before that accident which is why he was trying to clear out so quickly and the people who climbed into our cab had probably followed us that whole time trying to find a time to settle the score. So much for unwinding.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Thursday, September 22, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Ramadan
The last week of IDDS also marked the beginning of Ramadan, a month-long fast in the Islamic calendar where they do not eat or drink anything from sunrise to sunset. Since IDDS is a great place to learn about other cultures, several of us decided to experience Ramadan first hand. Each night at our Iftar (the first meal after sunset where people break their fast together), there were three Muslims and four or more non-Muslims (at one point, there were ten of us fasting together). During the day, we would support one another as we counted down the hours until we could rehydrate since the heat in Ghana makes it especially challenging (and in my case, until I could recaffeinate, since the huge drop in caffeine intake gave my system a bit of a shock). The 4 AM breakfasts were not as well attended, since most people just opted for a midnight snack and uninterrupted sleep, though I did go one morning when Mustafa and Saba (both Pakistani) made some delicious French toast.
Fasting was rather challenging for me as I had lots going on (well, we all did). I had that one day where I was helping to run three sessions and most of the other days we were in the machine shop or running around Suame the whole day. I was pretty much running on fumes at the end of the day and often found myself just trying to lie down in the late afternoon. At one point, two of my teammates were having a protracted discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of male circumcision (using a marker with and without its cap to avoid being too explicit) and I just didn't have the energy to steer the conversation back to oil-related topics. All in all, though, it was really rewarding and those of us who were fasting felt a very strong bond through our shared experience. And best of all, Habib from India would bring huge quantities of delicious mango and watermelons for us every evening. I miss those dinners a lot.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Fasting was rather challenging for me as I had lots going on (well, we all did). I had that one day where I was helping to run three sessions and most of the other days we were in the machine shop or running around Suame the whole day. I was pretty much running on fumes at the end of the day and often found myself just trying to lie down in the late afternoon. At one point, two of my teammates were having a protracted discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of male circumcision (using a marker with and without its cap to avoid being too explicit) and I just didn't have the energy to steer the conversation back to oil-related topics. All in all, though, it was really rewarding and those of us who were fasting felt a very strong bond through our shared experience. And best of all, Habib from India would bring huge quantities of delicious mango and watermelons for us every evening. I miss those dinners a lot.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Potluck
My favorite IDDS event every year is the potluck where people make different dishes to showcase all of the different nations at the event. I upheld my tradition of not cooking with the USA team, and instead Amy Smith and I formed the Charcoal Nation. We prepared C-turtles (get it? like sea turtles) where all of the ingredients started with C. We used caramel, cashews, charcoal and chocolate. By mixing in some finely ground charcoal powder with the caramel, the result had a nice turtly color with the chocolate making the shell and the cashews acting as the legs and the tail. I spent a lot of time arranging the nicely, only to discover that they weren't staying together as they hardened, so it just made more sense to do them as clusters. Still, at the end of the day, they were delicious and we received lots of compliments at the event.
Amy and I also wore black clothing and smeared some charcoal on our faces so that we would look the part of the president and vice president of the charcoal nation. However, the best dressed person of the night was definitely Rose, whose dress had the pattern of the Tanzanian flag. All the food was delicious, and it was wonderful to eat food from Brazil and Zambia (thankfully they didn't bring any caterpillars this year) and South Asia (India and Pakistan cooked together and made quite a feast) and the US (which featured some delicious chocolate banana pancakes) and every other corner of the world all in one meal.
Then, in an effort to speed up some of the metabolism after such a huge meal, some drummers showed up and we danced the night away. Abby (the Ghanaian from my team) led us for some time and we were all impressed with her seemingly endless supply of energy as she called out every person to come and dance with her while she kept the beat on her calabash. At the end of the night, I think we all slept very well.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Amy and I also wore black clothing and smeared some charcoal on our faces so that we would look the part of the president and vice president of the charcoal nation. However, the best dressed person of the night was definitely Rose, whose dress had the pattern of the Tanzanian flag. All the food was delicious, and it was wonderful to eat food from Brazil and Zambia (thankfully they didn't bring any caterpillars this year) and South Asia (India and Pakistan cooked together and made quite a feast) and the US (which featured some delicious chocolate banana pancakes) and every other corner of the world all in one meal.
Then, in an effort to speed up some of the metabolism after such a huge meal, some drummers showed up and we danced the night away. Abby (the Ghanaian from my team) led us for some time and we were all impressed with her seemingly endless supply of energy as she called out every person to come and dance with her while she kept the beat on her calabash. At the end of the night, I think we all slept very well.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
IDDS 2011 - Food
The Ghanaian diet is very different from what I am used to in East Africa. Although both rely heavily on starches alongside vegetables cooked in oil, the food in Ghana wound up being much heavier. Part of it is that cassava and yams are pretty dense, and part of it is that I think we were eating a lot more palm oil in Ghana, while in East Africa, the concentration of soybean oil tends to be somewhat lower.
Now, if it were up to me, we would eat nothing but fruit the whole time we were there, since the mangoes and pineapples and avocadoes and watermelons were absolutely divine (bananas, oranges and papaya were more hit or miss). However, we did have quite an assortment of foods. My favorite meal is red-red, which is cowpeas in tomato sauce (and lots of palm oil) served alongside fried plantains. There weren't a whole lot of pulses (as in peas and beans) on offer, so I was definitely excited when we had red-red. Another favorite was palava, usually served alongside boiled yams. Palava (apparently also called green-green) uses a specific leaf (maybe pumpkin) and its fried with some mashed up agouti seeds (kinda like pumpkin seeds) which always gave the appearance of having scrambled egg in the dish, even though it was in fact vegan-safe.
One of the more difficult meals was groundnut stew, which was served with fufu (mashed cassava) and was just not as good as I remembered it being on previous meals. I generally stayed away from banku, which is similar to ugali that I often eat in East Africa, only this is fermented (there was also something called nsiho which was almost the same as ugali, except it was salted). I also struggled a bit with some of the vegetarian meals, which were mostly tomato sauce with palm oil and a small amount of onions and green peppers. I ate the vegetarian meals quite a bit of the time, though I did make sure to grab fish meals when I could while we were on the Volta river. There was one day where we ordered shrimp, which were rather small and one of the Ghanaians yelled at someone for trying to remove the shell and the legs "If you do that, there won't be anything left!" Oh, and I was also persuaded to try "coat". It's basically cooked leather. And unsurprisingly, it's about as pleasant as you would expect eating leather to be. We also ate lots and lots of rice, much of the time it was prepared as jollof rice, which involves cooking it in oil, spices and tomato sauce. Some days I was thrilled to have jollof rice, while other days I was not so enthusiastic.
We had a lot of prepared meals on campus at the cafeteria. After a couple of days, I was really excited every time that I wasn't eating the cafeteria food. They were very receptive to our requests, but in general, it was just so much oil. There was also a woman who would bring scones or meat/veggie pies for breakfast, and those were always a treat. When we were working in Suame, we would order lunches from a nearby cafe most days, which I preferred to the cafeteria (though I think there were several people who preferred the cafeteria food). In the village, our hosts cooked most of our meals for us (absolutely delicious), and we would make sure to grab some kosi (a delicious cowpea batter deep fried and served with spices) and ballfloat (large spherical pieces of dough, fried up like doughnuts), which always gave us all the energy that we needed for the day. Rose from Tanzania commented that if Tanzanians ate these kinds of foods, maybe they'd be as strong as the Ghanaians. The Ghanaians all laughed at that.
My diet actually consisted of quite a lot of yogurt, which we could buy from the shop in the dorm. It was thin enough to drink and much sweeter than any non-frozen yogurt I've ever had. I also drank an unhealthy amount of soda (as usual), and Coke had a much stronger market presence than Pepsi. The interesting part was that the three flavors of Fanta that they had in Ghana were orange (I assume everywhere they make Fanta includes orange), fruit cocktail which was in fact the exact same color and flavor as the variety they call passion fruit in Tanzania and lemon, which was similar to the citrus flavor (my all-time favorite, which I've only found in some parts of Kenya), but not quite as good. I also periodically bought baked beans, small packets of cookies, ramen noodles or just opted for a peanut butter sandwich.
I cooked only a few times, and usually when other people proposed that we cook for a larger group. One time, I helped make tostones, which come from Guatemala (I think) and are kinda like refried plantains. I also made some masala french fries at 1 AM one time for people who were working that late. I teamed up with Amy a few times and helped make a delightful tomato soup and some pineapple fried rice. And when we had a large barbecue, I was manning the grill for quite a while, and even managed not to burn a few of the ears of corn that I was responsible for.
There were several people who cooked pretty much every night including my suitemate Sanjeev. He complained that most cooking besides his own did not have enough spices (fortunately he brought his own from India) and generally cooked for at least five people. Jessica and Amit (both from California) were really good at accusing me of not eating and then sharing their delicious cooking with me as well. I felt bad that I never really returned the favor.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Now, if it were up to me, we would eat nothing but fruit the whole time we were there, since the mangoes and pineapples and avocadoes and watermelons were absolutely divine (bananas, oranges and papaya were more hit or miss). However, we did have quite an assortment of foods. My favorite meal is red-red, which is cowpeas in tomato sauce (and lots of palm oil) served alongside fried plantains. There weren't a whole lot of pulses (as in peas and beans) on offer, so I was definitely excited when we had red-red. Another favorite was palava, usually served alongside boiled yams. Palava (apparently also called green-green) uses a specific leaf (maybe pumpkin) and its fried with some mashed up agouti seeds (kinda like pumpkin seeds) which always gave the appearance of having scrambled egg in the dish, even though it was in fact vegan-safe.
One of the more difficult meals was groundnut stew, which was served with fufu (mashed cassava) and was just not as good as I remembered it being on previous meals. I generally stayed away from banku, which is similar to ugali that I often eat in East Africa, only this is fermented (there was also something called nsiho which was almost the same as ugali, except it was salted). I also struggled a bit with some of the vegetarian meals, which were mostly tomato sauce with palm oil and a small amount of onions and green peppers. I ate the vegetarian meals quite a bit of the time, though I did make sure to grab fish meals when I could while we were on the Volta river. There was one day where we ordered shrimp, which were rather small and one of the Ghanaians yelled at someone for trying to remove the shell and the legs "If you do that, there won't be anything left!" Oh, and I was also persuaded to try "coat". It's basically cooked leather. And unsurprisingly, it's about as pleasant as you would expect eating leather to be. We also ate lots and lots of rice, much of the time it was prepared as jollof rice, which involves cooking it in oil, spices and tomato sauce. Some days I was thrilled to have jollof rice, while other days I was not so enthusiastic.
We had a lot of prepared meals on campus at the cafeteria. After a couple of days, I was really excited every time that I wasn't eating the cafeteria food. They were very receptive to our requests, but in general, it was just so much oil. There was also a woman who would bring scones or meat/veggie pies for breakfast, and those were always a treat. When we were working in Suame, we would order lunches from a nearby cafe most days, which I preferred to the cafeteria (though I think there were several people who preferred the cafeteria food). In the village, our hosts cooked most of our meals for us (absolutely delicious), and we would make sure to grab some kosi (a delicious cowpea batter deep fried and served with spices) and ballfloat (large spherical pieces of dough, fried up like doughnuts), which always gave us all the energy that we needed for the day. Rose from Tanzania commented that if Tanzanians ate these kinds of foods, maybe they'd be as strong as the Ghanaians. The Ghanaians all laughed at that.
My diet actually consisted of quite a lot of yogurt, which we could buy from the shop in the dorm. It was thin enough to drink and much sweeter than any non-frozen yogurt I've ever had. I also drank an unhealthy amount of soda (as usual), and Coke had a much stronger market presence than Pepsi. The interesting part was that the three flavors of Fanta that they had in Ghana were orange (I assume everywhere they make Fanta includes orange), fruit cocktail which was in fact the exact same color and flavor as the variety they call passion fruit in Tanzania and lemon, which was similar to the citrus flavor (my all-time favorite, which I've only found in some parts of Kenya), but not quite as good. I also periodically bought baked beans, small packets of cookies, ramen noodles or just opted for a peanut butter sandwich.
I cooked only a few times, and usually when other people proposed that we cook for a larger group. One time, I helped make tostones, which come from Guatemala (I think) and are kinda like refried plantains. I also made some masala french fries at 1 AM one time for people who were working that late. I teamed up with Amy a few times and helped make a delightful tomato soup and some pineapple fried rice. And when we had a large barbecue, I was manning the grill for quite a while, and even managed not to burn a few of the ears of corn that I was responsible for.
There were several people who cooked pretty much every night including my suitemate Sanjeev. He complained that most cooking besides his own did not have enough spices (fortunately he brought his own from India) and generally cooked for at least five people. Jessica and Amit (both from California) were really good at accusing me of not eating and then sharing their delicious cooking with me as well. I felt bad that I never really returned the favor.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Thursday, September 15, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Maker Faire
For final presentations we set up tables at ITTU in Suame Magazine and brought people from the communities where we worked (there were three village clusters--mine was New Longoro) as well as local artisans and technicians. Each team had their prototype as well as some posters explaining the technology and the venture. It was amazing that in spite of our proximity, I still didn't know the direction that some of the teams had taken with their projects.
At the start of the event, all the teams had the opportunity to present about our projects. My team nominated me to do our talking and then I was told that we would be the first team presenting. As the moment approached I could feel the dread setting in. And then the opening started an hour and a half late because a certain attendee decided to show up at his own convenience and our hosts insisted that we couldn't start before he arrived. I gritted my teeth as I had to thank him during my speech for attending.
Another difficulty was that they set up speakers and had a DJ. We used them to make announcements and the music helped attract some passers-by to see what we were doing. Unfortunately, the speakers were pointed right at our table, so it was sometimes difficult to explain our technology to the attendees. We kept asking the DJ to turn the music down, but as soon as we walked away, they would turn it up again. Finally, I thought back to my days as a sound technician and found the perfect situation. There is nothing more offensive than tinkering with someone else's controls, so I slid a couple of faders before turning down the master volume. The DJ was fuming and unplugged his CD player. All of a sudden it was a lot easier to explain our project.
We were a bit frantic at times during our demonstration as we collected moringa seeds from the team next to us after they had removed the shells (their project was a machine that did just that). Then we winnowed the shells away (okay, so about 95% of the winnowing was done by Rose from Tanzania) and tried to put them into our machine as fast as the passers by could turn the handcrank. People were generally impressed with our machine and some wanted to know when and where they might be able to buy one*.
There was also a fair bit of down time (it seemed like we had either 20 people at the booth or no people) so I was able to wander around and see what everyone else had been working on. I enjoyed trying out other people's technologies and asking all sorts of questions (often in the direction of whether we could try it out in Tanzania). I will say that having the exhibition run for two days was probably longer than necessary, but otherwise, it was a great way to get lots of feedback. I have to give kudos to Nathan who organized the event for doing an outstanding job.
* That was a pretty good compliment for our design, but there were some teams where people were offering to buy their prototype.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
At the start of the event, all the teams had the opportunity to present about our projects. My team nominated me to do our talking and then I was told that we would be the first team presenting. As the moment approached I could feel the dread setting in. And then the opening started an hour and a half late because a certain attendee decided to show up at his own convenience and our hosts insisted that we couldn't start before he arrived. I gritted my teeth as I had to thank him during my speech for attending.
Another difficulty was that they set up speakers and had a DJ. We used them to make announcements and the music helped attract some passers-by to see what we were doing. Unfortunately, the speakers were pointed right at our table, so it was sometimes difficult to explain our technology to the attendees. We kept asking the DJ to turn the music down, but as soon as we walked away, they would turn it up again. Finally, I thought back to my days as a sound technician and found the perfect situation. There is nothing more offensive than tinkering with someone else's controls, so I slid a couple of faders before turning down the master volume. The DJ was fuming and unplugged his CD player. All of a sudden it was a lot easier to explain our project.
We were a bit frantic at times during our demonstration as we collected moringa seeds from the team next to us after they had removed the shells (their project was a machine that did just that). Then we winnowed the shells away (okay, so about 95% of the winnowing was done by Rose from Tanzania) and tried to put them into our machine as fast as the passers by could turn the handcrank. People were generally impressed with our machine and some wanted to know when and where they might be able to buy one*.
There was also a fair bit of down time (it seemed like we had either 20 people at the booth or no people) so I was able to wander around and see what everyone else had been working on. I enjoyed trying out other people's technologies and asking all sorts of questions (often in the direction of whether we could try it out in Tanzania). I will say that having the exhibition run for two days was probably longer than necessary, but otherwise, it was a great way to get lots of feedback. I have to give kudos to Nathan who organized the event for doing an outstanding job.
* That was a pretty good compliment for our design, but there were some teams where people were offering to buy their prototype.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Sunday, September 11, 2011
IDDS 2011 - New Longoro
Most of our fieldwork was done in the village of New Longoro about 5 hours north of Kumasi. When we first arrived, we attended a community meeting under a huge mango tree. It was a great way to meet the community and explain what we were hoping to accomplish with the visit (and mercifully, no one commented on the fact that I had spilled water down the front of my trousers--I always have a way with first impressions).
Our host was named Pastor George and he managed to accommodate all of us (about thirty people) and provide food for us. We had most of our meals in a little gazebo in front of his house which was a great place to interact as a smaller group and we would often stay there late into the night singing* and having a wonderful time. We also enjoyed walking to the river** on the other side of town (about 2 kilometers) and grab some kosi (deep fried batter made with cowpeas and some spices) and ballfloat (huge spherical fried dough) for breakfast. Since we were quite a strain on the house, we tried to help out by carrying some water from the pump a kilometer up the road (though we certainly brought much less water than we ended up using).
We met lots of interesting people walking around the village and just asking questions. They gave us lots of information about all sorts of oilseeds available in their community. Most of the villagers are farmers, so they were really excited about our project and had lots of input. The women were interested in the possibility of a new way of earning some extra income. The men took one look at our machine and asked us why it wasn't hooked up to a motor. The women were eager to show that they could crank the machine themselves.
We also visited the nearby communities of Bamboi, Gomboi and Dwere (dw makes a j sound) to collect more information. Bamboi is a larger village on the other side of the river which provided some useful information on markets, but we didn't spend much time there. Gomboi and Dwere are much smaller and quite a way from the road. We would cram seven people into a taxi which was tiny and practically dragging on the ground with all of us as it wended its way down nearly washed away roads (at one point we had to reassemble a mini-bridge and guide the wheels onto the planks so it wouldn't tip over--we contemplated carrying the taxi, which probably would have been easier). The people of Gomboi and Dwere were very friendly and really helped us gain perspective of the challenges in more remote settings. I have to say that one of my favorite experiences during IDDS was riding bikes back about 20 km to New Longoro.
There was one weekend during IDDS where we didn't have anything scheduled, so a few of us drove up to New Longoro and went canoeing on the river. It was a really great group and we had an amazing time on the water. Several of us were a bit the workaholic type so New Longoro proved an invaluable escape. It really is breathtaking.
* Amy brought her guitar and we sang lots of folk music. Also, there was a keyboard there and Sophia from Ghana was very eager to set us up as a gospel choir.
** This is the Volta river, which is absolutely beautiful.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Our host was named Pastor George and he managed to accommodate all of us (about thirty people) and provide food for us. We had most of our meals in a little gazebo in front of his house which was a great place to interact as a smaller group and we would often stay there late into the night singing* and having a wonderful time. We also enjoyed walking to the river** on the other side of town (about 2 kilometers) and grab some kosi (deep fried batter made with cowpeas and some spices) and ballfloat (huge spherical fried dough) for breakfast. Since we were quite a strain on the house, we tried to help out by carrying some water from the pump a kilometer up the road (though we certainly brought much less water than we ended up using).
We met lots of interesting people walking around the village and just asking questions. They gave us lots of information about all sorts of oilseeds available in their community. Most of the villagers are farmers, so they were really excited about our project and had lots of input. The women were interested in the possibility of a new way of earning some extra income. The men took one look at our machine and asked us why it wasn't hooked up to a motor. The women were eager to show that they could crank the machine themselves.
We also visited the nearby communities of Bamboi, Gomboi and Dwere (dw makes a j sound) to collect more information. Bamboi is a larger village on the other side of the river which provided some useful information on markets, but we didn't spend much time there. Gomboi and Dwere are much smaller and quite a way from the road. We would cram seven people into a taxi which was tiny and practically dragging on the ground with all of us as it wended its way down nearly washed away roads (at one point we had to reassemble a mini-bridge and guide the wheels onto the planks so it wouldn't tip over--we contemplated carrying the taxi, which probably would have been easier). The people of Gomboi and Dwere were very friendly and really helped us gain perspective of the challenges in more remote settings. I have to say that one of my favorite experiences during IDDS was riding bikes back about 20 km to New Longoro.
There was one weekend during IDDS where we didn't have anything scheduled, so a few of us drove up to New Longoro and went canoeing on the river. It was a really great group and we had an amazing time on the water. Several of us were a bit the workaholic type so New Longoro proved an invaluable escape. It really is breathtaking.
* Amy brought her guitar and we sang lots of folk music. Also, there was a keyboard there and Sophia from Ghana was very eager to set us up as a gospel choir.
** This is the Volta river, which is absolutely beautiful.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Thursday, September 8, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Suame Magazine
The main reason for working in Kumasi is Suame Magazine, a massive industrial area where thousands of technicians work on all sorts of projects. The mass of workshops and spare part retailers is only interrupted by the occasional food stand or drinks shop. The bulk of the workshops do some kind of metalworking from blacksmithing to welding to metal salvaging. It's a wonder to behold.
We spent a lot of our time at the Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit, which was allowing us to use their workspace and the staff was very helpful all throughout. The workshop had a welding kit, a lathe, a grinder and most of the tools we needed for what we were building. It was a bit overwhelming with all the teams there some days, but they always managed to take care of everything and nothing ever phased them.
It was always an adventure to go searching for a part since there were hundreds of plots where they just had heaps of scrap metal. I learned my way around a bit and could generally find what I needed. You always had to have your wits about you as you wove your way down the roads where people were moving all sorts of heavy machinery and cars drove down nearly impassable roads inches away from you. Most of the shopkeepers were friendly and helpful and it was an uphill battle to bargain for a fair price, but that's all part of the experience.
One thing that surprised me was how many people were upset by smoking. I realize that there is plenty of flammable material all around, but there are also forges and people burning trash and sparks flying everywhere, so I hope it's not a safety issue. It is a rather crowded area, so people may have been concerned about breathing in hazardous fumes, but I worry that they were already ingesting a fair bit of hazardous compounds anyway in that environment. Whatever the cause, I respected their eagerness to speak their mind about it.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
We spent a lot of our time at the Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit, which was allowing us to use their workspace and the staff was very helpful all throughout. The workshop had a welding kit, a lathe, a grinder and most of the tools we needed for what we were building. It was a bit overwhelming with all the teams there some days, but they always managed to take care of everything and nothing ever phased them.
It was always an adventure to go searching for a part since there were hundreds of plots where they just had heaps of scrap metal. I learned my way around a bit and could generally find what I needed. You always had to have your wits about you as you wove your way down the roads where people were moving all sorts of heavy machinery and cars drove down nearly impassable roads inches away from you. Most of the shopkeepers were friendly and helpful and it was an uphill battle to bargain for a fair price, but that's all part of the experience.
One thing that surprised me was how many people were upset by smoking. I realize that there is plenty of flammable material all around, but there are also forges and people burning trash and sparks flying everywhere, so I hope it's not a safety issue. It is a rather crowded area, so people may have been concerned about breathing in hazardous fumes, but I worry that they were already ingesting a fair bit of hazardous compounds anyway in that environment. Whatever the cause, I respected their eagerness to speak their mind about it.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Where we stayed
Most of our work was in Kumasi, so we stayed on the campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). We had a whole dorm to ourselves and we took up three floors leaving the top floor for project work and the ground floor for the guests we had coming through. The dorm had 4 suites per floor (picture an X and the suites are each of the legs, while there is a hallway in the middle where they all meet) and each suite had 3 double rooms plus 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a common room.
My suitemates were pretty awesome guys, but I didn't spend nearly as much time in my suite as I would have liked. My roommate was a Ghanaian named Mensah, but we always seemed to be on different schedules, so we didn't end up seeing much of one another. The one thing that I could count on was that whenever I walked through in the evening, Sanjeev from India would be cooking an elaborate dish (he complained that all the Ghanaian food didn't have enough spices) for everyone who was around.
I spent a good amount of time on the top floor. Each team took the beds out of one of the rooms and filled it with flip charts and assorted project materials. We also took over the kitchen in our suite to use as our testing space. There was even an area in the hallway with workbenches and tools where people would work until all hours of the night and then pull out the guitar for a quick jam session. There was also one suite for the organizers where we stored extra supplies and took care of things like evaluations and accounting.
The hostel even had a little shop that was stocked with yogurt and soda and other things that people might consume. The selection wasn't great, especially in terms of fresh fruit and vegetables, but you couldn't beat the convenience. The hostel also had pretty good wireless coverage (well, some people from the US might have found it more frustrating) and a back-up generator for the few times that power was cut. The staff in the dorm was generally helpful (though very reluctant to distribute toilet paper for some inexplicable reason) and made our stay really wonderful. There was even a nice patch of grass out front where we had lots of meetings and events. The only real difficulty was when it rained, the hallways were all soaked through.
The building was on the far side of campus, but it was right near a classroom and cafeteria that we used most days. It was also within walking distance of the campus pool and a commercial area off campus where we could get more variety in our provisions. It was somewhat quiet since not many people were on campus for the summer, but the lack of distractions made it much easier to focus on our projects.
The living space is probably one of the most important parts of the IDDS experience and I was really happy with my experience at the hostel. It was nice being able to wander around almost any time of day and find people to work with or talk to and even people who insisted that I eat some of what they were cooking. It made it much easier to build the kind of strong community that we needed for working together during the summit and moving forward.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Saturday, September 3, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Language
My friend Mustafa from Pakistan made it his mission to learn ten new things everyday. I thought that was a pretty cool goal. In that vein, I decided that I would try to speak ten languages everyday. I made sure to greet the Ghanaians everyday in Twi (the national language) and Mo (a local language in the communities where we were working) and I greeted the Zambians everyday in Nyanja. I took every opportunity that I could to brush up my Spanish with the Guatemalans and Mexican. I used the scattered Hindi phrases that I knew with the Indians and Pakistanis. I worked on my German and tried to pick up some Danish with the participant from Denmark. I attempted to speak Portuguese with the Brazilians. I butchered French when speaking to the Cambodians (and one of the Ghanaians who had picked up a bit of French). English was the main language of the event and I tried to use bits of it's Sierra Leonian Krio cousin. And I was speaking quite a bit of Kiswahili as well.
Rose (the Tanzanian on my team) doesn't speak much English, so I was doing quite a bit of translation. There were four other Kiswahili speakers at the event, so we shared the task as much as possible. Denis (the Ugandan on my team) and I each did it about 40 percent of the time at team meetings, and unfortunately, there were some that we just had to recap later since after a while, my brain needed a break from translating. I definitely couldn't convey all of the meaning as we went along since there are a lot of subtleties in English that get lost in translation and also, my vocabulary has some gaps in it. During a lot of sessions, I would frantically signal to speakers to talk more slowly (and one at a time) so that I could translate (and periodically I would have to lean over to Rose and say "I don't understand him/her at all"). It was pretty difficult to both translate and share ideas during team meetings, but Dennis, Rose and I all seemed to manage, and our teammates were very patient with us most of the time. At the end of the summit, people voted for Rose to speak at our closing ceremony, which made me really happy. She delivered part of her speech in English, which was wonderful, but for the bulk of it, she spoke much to fast in Kiswahili and Joseph from Tanzania was struggling to keep up.
I also signed up to compile the language sheets for people to learn some useful phrases in Twi and Mo. It was a good way to pick up some additional phrases. The languages have a few letters and sounds that we don't really have in English, but I was pretty proud when I managed to pronounce the word "kpegri" to the satisfaction of some of our Mo speakers. You pronounce it just like it's spelled.
I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with myself that I didn't have the opportunity to learn more languages while I was there. I know it would have meant a lot to the Zambians if I had picked up some Bemba and similarly I would have loved to learn some Khmer from the Cambodians. Still, the language center of my brain definitely got a healthy workout and I am glad that everyone was so patient as I struggled with their languages and made tols of nistakes.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Rose (the Tanzanian on my team) doesn't speak much English, so I was doing quite a bit of translation. There were four other Kiswahili speakers at the event, so we shared the task as much as possible. Denis (the Ugandan on my team) and I each did it about 40 percent of the time at team meetings, and unfortunately, there were some that we just had to recap later since after a while, my brain needed a break from translating. I definitely couldn't convey all of the meaning as we went along since there are a lot of subtleties in English that get lost in translation and also, my vocabulary has some gaps in it. During a lot of sessions, I would frantically signal to speakers to talk more slowly (and one at a time) so that I could translate (and periodically I would have to lean over to Rose and say "I don't understand him/her at all"). It was pretty difficult to both translate and share ideas during team meetings, but Dennis, Rose and I all seemed to manage, and our teammates were very patient with us most of the time. At the end of the summit, people voted for Rose to speak at our closing ceremony, which made me really happy. She delivered part of her speech in English, which was wonderful, but for the bulk of it, she spoke much to fast in Kiswahili and Joseph from Tanzania was struggling to keep up.
I also signed up to compile the language sheets for people to learn some useful phrases in Twi and Mo. It was a good way to pick up some additional phrases. The languages have a few letters and sounds that we don't really have in English, but I was pretty proud when I managed to pronounce the word "kpegri" to the satisfaction of some of our Mo speakers. You pronounce it just like it's spelled.
I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with myself that I didn't have the opportunity to learn more languages while I was there. I know it would have meant a lot to the Zambians if I had picked up some Bemba and similarly I would have loved to learn some Khmer from the Cambodians. Still, the language center of my brain definitely got a healthy workout and I am glad that everyone was so patient as I struggled with their languages and made tols of nistakes.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Friday, September 2, 2011
IDDS 2011 - My Team
I was really lucky to have such an amazing team. Of course, all the people at IDDS are wonderful, but that doesn't always ensure that people will work well together. In our case, I was blown away with how much we were able to accomplish and by everyone's energy in carrying the project forward. My team was one of the least geographically diverse with everyone coming from East Africa, West Africa or the US (all the other teams had at least one member from Latin America or Asia), but we still had a wide variety of perspectives. We were also one of the older teams with three team members around 40 years old (for several teams everyone was under 30) which did mean that unlike many other teams we were not working past 11 pm, but the richness of their experiences proved invaluable for our project.
Abby is a schoolteacher in central Ghana and her father has a large plot of moringa trees, so she was able to provide a lot of context and ensure continuity for our project. She was our youngest team member at 21, but she was always eager for us to learn some of the language and she was regularly checking on what other people were working on in case she could bring a sample back to her community. The other participants really appreciated her energy and they voted for her to give a speech at the final ceremony, which was really nice.
Denis came from Uganda and does a lot of work up there with people who have lived in refugee camps their whole lives. He brought an incredibly positive attitude and good sense of humor to our sessions everyday. He was incredibly handy in the workshop and was always thinking about what we could do to make the design better. He also brought a lot of national pride and made sure that we all knew how beautiful Uganda was everyday (there was only one time where he talked about what he had lived through under the reign of Idi Amin).
Rose came from Tanzania and spoke very little English (she could often understand the general concepts that people were saying, but was a bit shy about speaking English). During a lot of our team meetings and class sessions, Dennis and I would be sure to sit close to her to translate (there were a few times where we were doing community interviews where the speaker would say something in Twi, which Abby would translate into English, which I would translate into Kiswahili). She was very thoughtful and always made sure that she had something to keep her busy. Rose also had a difficult time convincing people that she was 39--in fact, at one point, she showed us a picture of her wearing her son's school uniform and we all would have sworn she was about 16.
Sylvester came from Sierra Leone where he teaches workshop skills near the capital. He had a certain impatience which really helped to propel us forward. He brought a very interesting sense of humor and liked to take lots of pictures. Once we started building in the workshop, he was a constant fountain of ideas and we all had to struggle to keep up with him.
Tish came from the US and is about to start working at MIT (she graduated two years after me, but we knew each other when we were there). She had also spent a lot of time in Kenya and Tanzania working on mechanical engineering projects while she was there, so she and I made the East African bent of our team even stronger (also meant that two-thirds of our team could speak some Kiswahili, so by the end Sylvester and Abby were picking up some of the words). She was by far the most organized person on the team and was good at helping us plan so that we could get everything done.
Amy Smith was our mentor, which was really amazing. Even though she had a million things going on the whole summer, she always made herself available to us and was able to provide guidance without steering the project in a particular direction. She also has spent a lot of time in Ghana and provided additional perspective on the communities where we were working.
Our team had a really strong bond, and whenever there were tasks where the team was supposed to split up and divide the labor, we found ourselves doing everything together until later in the summit where we were building prototypes and it was impossible to all work on one thing. In one of our first activities, we used colored pieces of rubber to make mini-Ghanaian flags for other participants as souvenirs, which we received lots of compliments for. We definitely had a few rough patches and at times, we spent too much time thinking and not enough time doing, but in the end, we had a wonderful balance.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Abby is a schoolteacher in central Ghana and her father has a large plot of moringa trees, so she was able to provide a lot of context and ensure continuity for our project. She was our youngest team member at 21, but she was always eager for us to learn some of the language and she was regularly checking on what other people were working on in case she could bring a sample back to her community. The other participants really appreciated her energy and they voted for her to give a speech at the final ceremony, which was really nice.
Denis came from Uganda and does a lot of work up there with people who have lived in refugee camps their whole lives. He brought an incredibly positive attitude and good sense of humor to our sessions everyday. He was incredibly handy in the workshop and was always thinking about what we could do to make the design better. He also brought a lot of national pride and made sure that we all knew how beautiful Uganda was everyday (there was only one time where he talked about what he had lived through under the reign of Idi Amin).
Rose came from Tanzania and spoke very little English (she could often understand the general concepts that people were saying, but was a bit shy about speaking English). During a lot of our team meetings and class sessions, Dennis and I would be sure to sit close to her to translate (there were a few times where we were doing community interviews where the speaker would say something in Twi, which Abby would translate into English, which I would translate into Kiswahili). She was very thoughtful and always made sure that she had something to keep her busy. Rose also had a difficult time convincing people that she was 39--in fact, at one point, she showed us a picture of her wearing her son's school uniform and we all would have sworn she was about 16.
Sylvester came from Sierra Leone where he teaches workshop skills near the capital. He had a certain impatience which really helped to propel us forward. He brought a very interesting sense of humor and liked to take lots of pictures. Once we started building in the workshop, he was a constant fountain of ideas and we all had to struggle to keep up with him.
Tish came from the US and is about to start working at MIT (she graduated two years after me, but we knew each other when we were there). She had also spent a lot of time in Kenya and Tanzania working on mechanical engineering projects while she was there, so she and I made the East African bent of our team even stronger (also meant that two-thirds of our team could speak some Kiswahili, so by the end Sylvester and Abby were picking up some of the words). She was by far the most organized person on the team and was good at helping us plan so that we could get everything done.
Amy Smith was our mentor, which was really amazing. Even though she had a million things going on the whole summer, she always made herself available to us and was able to provide guidance without steering the project in a particular direction. She also has spent a lot of time in Ghana and provided additional perspective on the communities where we were working.
Our team had a really strong bond, and whenever there were tasks where the team was supposed to split up and divide the labor, we found ourselves doing everything together until later in the summit where we were building prototypes and it was impossible to all work on one thing. In one of our first activities, we used colored pieces of rubber to make mini-Ghanaian flags for other participants as souvenirs, which we received lots of compliments for. We definitely had a few rough patches and at times, we spent too much time thinking and not enough time doing, but in the end, we had a wonderful balance.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
IDDS 2011 - Delivering Content
One of the most exciting opportunities I had this summer was to stand up in front of everyone and lead some sessions. It feels weird to think of the participants as students, which is why we euphemistically referred to it as "delivering content". The curriculum team does an amazing job of balancing the amount of time spent in the classroom with hands-on learning experiences and I worked on both (I hope to do that more in future IDDSes).
On the third day of the summit, we had a series of Build-It activities where participants built different simple technologies to learn how to use various tools. There were six different areas (metal-working, sheet metal fabrication, wood carving, electronics circuitry, plastics-working and metal casting) and I was on the metal-working team. We were building charcoal presses (link to pdf), so I signed up since I figured I could be pretty useful in explaining the context and why the tool was useful. But as the session went on, I realized that we were a bit short-handed, so my friend Joseph from Tanzania and I taught people how to use the hacksaw, the shear and files to make clean cuts. Then we teamed up with some of the technicians at the Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit where we were working in order to teach welding and especially welding safety. By the end of the session we had three welding stations and I was supervising one of them. It was interesting to be teaching and supervising stick-welding since I have never done it in my life and and I haven't even welded anything in three years. Still, we didn't break anything and no one got hurt and all in all, the charcoal presses came out really well. I was impressed with everyone in the session, but especially with a Zambian woman named Mainess who picked up all the techniques so quickly and was super-eager to try everything. (There's even a picture of me helping her on the IDDS blog (about two-thirds of the way down the page).)
For one of the sessions on venture design, they asked me to present some slides with Ben Linder and Bob Nanes (both much, much bigger names than mine). They prepared most of the slides, but I offered input on some of the topics and they took some of my suggestions. I also put together a slide on my work with GCS and presented a few of the slides during the session. I wish that I had practiced a bit more since I was having a bit of trouble hitting all the points that I wanted to make, but all in all I was really excited about how the session went.
Later that morning we had a panel on water treatment ventures* and my friends Mustafa from Pakistan and John from Zambia and I were up in front to moderate. There were some logistical headaches (the hall where we originally planned to have the event cut off their power and then demanded that we pay them exorbitant rates to switch on the generator--we just changed the venue in the end), but once we got started, it went off really well. Running the event took very little effort and every time I was about to say "Let's have a question for our first panelist" or "Are there any questions from some of the women in the audience?" the audience came through without me having to say a word. I was really happy with the event and very grateful to the panelists who shared lots of interesting experiences.
And that afternoon we had an activity where participants took apart different technologies to consider the manufacturing techniques involved. I was working with Mustafa again and Suprio from India with help from a few of the other organizers to make sure that we knew what we were talking apart. Our project was those cheap flashlights, and our main goal was to make sure that we didn't just sound like we were quoting Wikipedia. In the end, the flashlight had lots of different parts and a short time to talk about injection molding, electro-plating plastics, spring steel, stamping and drawing, circuit board design and some of the other subtle intricacies. It was a really fun session and it was great to have a hands-on activity to wrap up the day, but at the end of the session, I was downright exhausted and ready to collapse. I actually did end up skipping out on the next session to get a nap, which was unfortunate since I really wanted to catch that session, but I figured it was less rude to fall asleep elsewhere than to fall asleep in the classroom.
* Water technologies tends to be a popular sector and none of the projects this year involved water, so we decided it would be good to bring in some speakers to talk about water issues. Since the panel on solar issues was called the Solar Panel, we debated calling this event either the Water Table or the Water Board.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
On the third day of the summit, we had a series of Build-It activities where participants built different simple technologies to learn how to use various tools. There were six different areas (metal-working, sheet metal fabrication, wood carving, electronics circuitry, plastics-working and metal casting) and I was on the metal-working team. We were building charcoal presses (link to pdf), so I signed up since I figured I could be pretty useful in explaining the context and why the tool was useful. But as the session went on, I realized that we were a bit short-handed, so my friend Joseph from Tanzania and I taught people how to use the hacksaw, the shear and files to make clean cuts. Then we teamed up with some of the technicians at the Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit where we were working in order to teach welding and especially welding safety. By the end of the session we had three welding stations and I was supervising one of them. It was interesting to be teaching and supervising stick-welding since I have never done it in my life and and I haven't even welded anything in three years. Still, we didn't break anything and no one got hurt and all in all, the charcoal presses came out really well. I was impressed with everyone in the session, but especially with a Zambian woman named Mainess who picked up all the techniques so quickly and was super-eager to try everything. (There's even a picture of me helping her on the IDDS blog (about two-thirds of the way down the page).)
For one of the sessions on venture design, they asked me to present some slides with Ben Linder and Bob Nanes (both much, much bigger names than mine). They prepared most of the slides, but I offered input on some of the topics and they took some of my suggestions. I also put together a slide on my work with GCS and presented a few of the slides during the session. I wish that I had practiced a bit more since I was having a bit of trouble hitting all the points that I wanted to make, but all in all I was really excited about how the session went.
Later that morning we had a panel on water treatment ventures* and my friends Mustafa from Pakistan and John from Zambia and I were up in front to moderate. There were some logistical headaches (the hall where we originally planned to have the event cut off their power and then demanded that we pay them exorbitant rates to switch on the generator--we just changed the venue in the end), but once we got started, it went off really well. Running the event took very little effort and every time I was about to say "Let's have a question for our first panelist" or "Are there any questions from some of the women in the audience?" the audience came through without me having to say a word. I was really happy with the event and very grateful to the panelists who shared lots of interesting experiences.
And that afternoon we had an activity where participants took apart different technologies to consider the manufacturing techniques involved. I was working with Mustafa again and Suprio from India with help from a few of the other organizers to make sure that we knew what we were talking apart. Our project was those cheap flashlights, and our main goal was to make sure that we didn't just sound like we were quoting Wikipedia. In the end, the flashlight had lots of different parts and a short time to talk about injection molding, electro-plating plastics, spring steel, stamping and drawing, circuit board design and some of the other subtle intricacies. It was a really fun session and it was great to have a hands-on activity to wrap up the day, but at the end of the session, I was downright exhausted and ready to collapse. I actually did end up skipping out on the next session to get a nap, which was unfortunate since I really wanted to catch that session, but I figured it was less rude to fall asleep elsewhere than to fall asleep in the classroom.
* Water technologies tends to be a popular sector and none of the projects this year involved water, so we decided it would be good to bring in some speakers to talk about water issues. Since the panel on solar issues was called the Solar Panel, we debated calling this event either the Water Table or the Water Board.
Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra
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