I was definitely impressed with the quality of the hotel. The room had a king sized bed (it might have been queen, but either way, it was enormous and soft), a TV, a refrigerator (which I immediately unplugged and never used), a fan, a really nice shower and even a coat rack. It was nice to be in a place that was very conducive to sleep.
The first morning we started our Training of Trainers (TOT) at the Peace Corps regional office. I met Mindy and Alex (short for Alexandra) who had been through a previous training that Amy and Kofi had done with Peace Corps Zambia and were helping to lead this program as well as Simon, another Peace Corps staff member who was based in Chipata and was incredibly helpful with everything that we were working on. We started with goals and expectations for the program and then went over our schedule and went over the details of the technologies that we would be working on and the sessions that we were running.
After lunch, we set to work putting together some technologies and setting up some demonstrations. Half the group started working on building a small brick kiln for making charcoal.
David showing off the kiln
I was with the group that was setting up an IDE treadle pump, a TDAU diaphragm pump and an IDE drip irrigation kit. There was a nice deep well on the compound and we were worried that it was too deep, but the treadle pump managed to lift the water (approx 10 meters, though they're typically rated for about 7 meters), but the diaphragm pump couldn't bring it up that far, so we just used a basin of water for that one. It took a while to get the pumps working and to run the hose, but by the end of the day, we felt pretty accomplished.
IDE Treadle Pump
TDAU Diaphragm Pump
IDE Drip Irrigation Kit in Peace Corps garden
I was not impressed with the food at the hotel, and I was a bit anxious about the cost, so I ran out and invested in some bread and peanut butter. I still wanted to be social, so I would go to the dining hall during the meal times and talk with people, but I think they were worried about me and I appreciated their concern. I was also a bit sun-burned, so I was rather low-energy as well.
The next day was more planning and a lot of effort trying to track down the necessary supplies. I worked to set up the Universal Nut Sheller and I found myself defending it to some skeptics who rejected everything about it outright as well as assembling a ram press and a screw press (for oil extraction). Bernard showed off a design that he had made for producing low-cost tubing for drip irrigation kits by sealing small strips of plastic. This provided a nice segway to an activity where we had to design a machine for cutting the plastic into strips of the appropriate size.
Screw Press
Ram Press (also called Yenga Press in Zambia)
We paired off for the activity and I found myself with David. He seemed perplexed at first by the challenge, but as we started working, I could hear his brain firing on all cylinders. We put a groove into a block of wood with a blade at the end so that we could run the plastic through. We didn't have a terribly outside-the-box design, but we were pretty happy with our result and David spent a lot of time talking about how excited he was to be designing a new technology. He spent a lot of time bantering with Henry since they're from rival tribes, and we all jokingly joined in the fun.
After that, we set up the drip irrigation kit and admired the garden out back. It was clear that the whole yard had been a trash heap and one of the Peace Corps Volunteers in the area had led a program to turn it into a demonstration plot for raising crops and controlling erosion. Then we did a bit of show-and-tell. We were impressed by the mud and brick kiln that they had built and were really excited to see it in action.
Photo Credit: All pictures taken by Alexandra Chen using Amy Smith's camera
No comments:
Post a Comment