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.