Hello everyone,
It has been good to be back in Moshi this week. We've been working to solidify the future of the project in Uru before we leave.
On Tuesday (Aug 19), we had an outstanding meeting and trip to Uru. People from Brown/Assida, TRETA, TaTEDO and Floresta all came together to discuss the project. In addition to Kimario (from TRETA) and the four of us from Brown, Thomas Mkunda and Emmanuel represented TaTEDO and Albert, Bob (who works for the Floresta HQ in San Diego) and Julius were here from Floresta. After our morning meeting, we all went to Uru so that TaTEDO and Floresta could see one of the digesters and stoves (we went to Anthony's house). The involvement of these organizations brings a great deal of expertise to the project, and it was very helpful to listen to everyone's comments. One of the topics we discussed was the possibility of installing some sort of lining (concrete, brick, stone, etc.) and perhaps a simple roof to protect the digesters and trenches.
On Wednesday, we met with Kimario and Massawe (from Uru) and talked more about lining the trenches. We discussed costs and financing mechanisms. The Uru farmers will discuss the idea in an upcoming meeting, and some of them may choose to work with Assida and TRETA to line and cover their trenches. Later, we met with Kimario again to further plan for the roles that TRETA and Assida will play in the future of the biogas project in Uru.
We went to Uru again yesterday and talked to Frank and Komm about how they use their biogas digesters and stoves. We are trying to learn as much detailed information as we can about how biogas actually works in this setting, and our conversations with the farmers and their families have been invaluable. In the evening, we shared a delightful meal in town with Ibrah and Jerome (Mr. Komm's son).
That's all for now. Natalie, Melea, Miriam and another friend are spending the weekend on safari, and I'm heading to Arusha to visit the family and school that I stayed with in July. We'll all be back on Sunday.
Best,
Adam
Friday, August 22, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Back in Moshi
Hey all!
We had a wonderful and relaxing weekend in Zanzibar and have returned to cloudy, cold Moshi renewed and ready do do what we can to finish up this project this week. Before I make you all jealous describing our bungalow on a secluded beach or the marvelous fruit and spices that filled the Stonetown market, I wanted to say a few more things about organizations we met with in Dar.
Dar was an experience. We didn't exactly expect to like the city going in. Its hot, crowded, and sort of dangerous. We were clutching our purses wherever we walked and were careful to take taxis at night. Not to worry you Mom and Dad, but we were walking down the street and saw some guy grab an entire rack of phone credit (minutes) cards. We were especially careful after that. We had fun at the university though and met up with some other american studens studying abroad for dinner, including one student from Brown. It was interesting to hear about their impressions and experiences and especially interesting to get a taste of an african university.
Besides what Nat mentioned in her post, we also met with TaTedo's national headquarters. The most interesting thing that came out of this is that they are in the testing phase of a new kind of biodigester called the Vacvina (a technology from Vietnam). This digester involvs a massiave cement rectangular box as the digester and costs around 900 USD to make. They are very excited by the technology but can only forsee cutting the cots down to about 600 USD by using burnt bricks instead of cement. We are skeptical of the average family being able to afford anything like this and mentioned our own digesters that cost less than 150 USD for one family. Although they have never done their own tests with tubular plasic digesters (like ours), they previously decided that such digesters were too easily damaged.
We then headed to Simba plastics, an indian plastic company in Dar es Salaam with more intense security than any government office we have visited so far. We were directed to Simba by Kimario who reported ordering plastic biodigester bags from them to replace the broken bags in Uru. Armed with visitor badges we were taken upstairs to meet with the head guy at the company (I think they thought we were going to place an order for a couple thousand plastic containers or something...oh well) who proceeded to show us pictures of his biogas project on Zanzibar. Really cool, but they use massive plastic tanks and do not even sell sheet plastic bags. Confused and frusterated, we have now hit a road block. We can't promote biogas technology unless there is an incountry supplier for plastic bags. We're still looking into various sources to try to find some plastic bags in TZ, but no luck so far.
The other two organizations we met with in Dar were the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group and Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development. TFCG promotes a lot of income generating projects, tree planting and the use of fuel efficient stoves but does not do biogas there are not cattle keepers in the areas where they work. One thing that we could asertain from our meeting with them is that there is no real data on the extent of deforestation in TZ. We've gotten numbers which range from 10,000 hectares per year to 500,000 hectares per year. Miriam and I went to Agenda while Adam and Natalie visited the environmenal engineers. Agenda works alot wih formulation and implementation of government policy. Their main efforts to combat deforestation are awareness raising activities and promoting tree planting. They also promote energy efficient stoves through the ministry for energy and minerals which we ran out of time to visit while in Dar. Dorah Swai, the lady we met with was very excited about biogas technology having visited a woman who had a digester and had thus increased her income and bettered her lifestyle. These two organizations seem like prime candidates for promoting of biogas on a larger scale in TZ in the future. While we feel that we are not in a position to play a direct role in such promotion, we will write up a comprehensive report of our findings about biogas based on the pilot project in Uru and send both of these organizations our report. Hopefully our work will help them make their own decisions about biogas.
I've said a lot, so I won't spend much time talking about the wonderful time in Zanzibar. We did get to meet with one organization while in Stoneown, the ICSEE (International Collaboration for Science Energy and Evironment) which is based in Wayland, MA. Mr. Omar had some interesting perspectives on fuel efficient stoves and promotion techniques, although he thought that biogas was not viable for Zanzibar because there were not enough cows. He was incredibly welcoming and after our meeting, he showed us around Stonetown and the suburbs and took us back to his home for juice and to meet his family. We spent about 45 minutes talking to all of them about Zanzibari cooking, the Swahili language and anything else. It was great to meet them, we always love experiencing TZ hospitality, which is incredibly welcoming at any level of income. After a night in Stonetown we headed to the east coast of the island to Pongwe where we floated in the water, frolicked in the moonlight, and rolled around in the sand for two straight days. On our way out on Sunday we stopped in the Jozani forest to look at some Red Colobus Monkeys, a species which only exists on Zanzibar. You can get so close to them! Look out for pix when we get home!
Now we're back in Moshi and have big plans for the next week. We have invited both Thomas Makunda from TaTEDO Moshi and Albert from Floresta to Uru to see our stoves. We hope that they can give us some more expert opinion on the viability of biogas in the region. We also hope that they will be able to spread the project once we are back in the States, should they decide that it is a good technology for the region. We are headed to Uru today (hopefully) to continue our evaluation and interviews of people with biogas digesters there. Check back later for our progress as we wrap stuff up!
~ Melea
We had a wonderful and relaxing weekend in Zanzibar and have returned to cloudy, cold Moshi renewed and ready do do what we can to finish up this project this week. Before I make you all jealous describing our bungalow on a secluded beach or the marvelous fruit and spices that filled the Stonetown market, I wanted to say a few more things about organizations we met with in Dar.
Dar was an experience. We didn't exactly expect to like the city going in. Its hot, crowded, and sort of dangerous. We were clutching our purses wherever we walked and were careful to take taxis at night. Not to worry you Mom and Dad, but we were walking down the street and saw some guy grab an entire rack of phone credit (minutes) cards. We were especially careful after that. We had fun at the university though and met up with some other american studens studying abroad for dinner, including one student from Brown. It was interesting to hear about their impressions and experiences and especially interesting to get a taste of an african university.
Besides what Nat mentioned in her post, we also met with TaTedo's national headquarters. The most interesting thing that came out of this is that they are in the testing phase of a new kind of biodigester called the Vacvina (a technology from Vietnam). This digester involvs a massiave cement rectangular box as the digester and costs around 900 USD to make. They are very excited by the technology but can only forsee cutting the cots down to about 600 USD by using burnt bricks instead of cement. We are skeptical of the average family being able to afford anything like this and mentioned our own digesters that cost less than 150 USD for one family. Although they have never done their own tests with tubular plasic digesters (like ours), they previously decided that such digesters were too easily damaged.
We then headed to Simba plastics, an indian plastic company in Dar es Salaam with more intense security than any government office we have visited so far. We were directed to Simba by Kimario who reported ordering plastic biodigester bags from them to replace the broken bags in Uru. Armed with visitor badges we were taken upstairs to meet with the head guy at the company (I think they thought we were going to place an order for a couple thousand plastic containers or something...oh well) who proceeded to show us pictures of his biogas project on Zanzibar. Really cool, but they use massive plastic tanks and do not even sell sheet plastic bags. Confused and frusterated, we have now hit a road block. We can't promote biogas technology unless there is an incountry supplier for plastic bags. We're still looking into various sources to try to find some plastic bags in TZ, but no luck so far.
The other two organizations we met with in Dar were the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group and Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development. TFCG promotes a lot of income generating projects, tree planting and the use of fuel efficient stoves but does not do biogas there are not cattle keepers in the areas where they work. One thing that we could asertain from our meeting with them is that there is no real data on the extent of deforestation in TZ. We've gotten numbers which range from 10,000 hectares per year to 500,000 hectares per year. Miriam and I went to Agenda while Adam and Natalie visited the environmenal engineers. Agenda works alot wih formulation and implementation of government policy. Their main efforts to combat deforestation are awareness raising activities and promoting tree planting. They also promote energy efficient stoves through the ministry for energy and minerals which we ran out of time to visit while in Dar. Dorah Swai, the lady we met with was very excited about biogas technology having visited a woman who had a digester and had thus increased her income and bettered her lifestyle. These two organizations seem like prime candidates for promoting of biogas on a larger scale in TZ in the future. While we feel that we are not in a position to play a direct role in such promotion, we will write up a comprehensive report of our findings about biogas based on the pilot project in Uru and send both of these organizations our report. Hopefully our work will help them make their own decisions about biogas.
I've said a lot, so I won't spend much time talking about the wonderful time in Zanzibar. We did get to meet with one organization while in Stoneown, the ICSEE (International Collaboration for Science Energy and Evironment) which is based in Wayland, MA. Mr. Omar had some interesting perspectives on fuel efficient stoves and promotion techniques, although he thought that biogas was not viable for Zanzibar because there were not enough cows. He was incredibly welcoming and after our meeting, he showed us around Stonetown and the suburbs and took us back to his home for juice and to meet his family. We spent about 45 minutes talking to all of them about Zanzibari cooking, the Swahili language and anything else. It was great to meet them, we always love experiencing TZ hospitality, which is incredibly welcoming at any level of income. After a night in Stonetown we headed to the east coast of the island to Pongwe where we floated in the water, frolicked in the moonlight, and rolled around in the sand for two straight days. On our way out on Sunday we stopped in the Jozani forest to look at some Red Colobus Monkeys, a species which only exists on Zanzibar. You can get so close to them! Look out for pix when we get home!
Now we're back in Moshi and have big plans for the next week. We have invited both Thomas Makunda from TaTEDO Moshi and Albert from Floresta to Uru to see our stoves. We hope that they can give us some more expert opinion on the viability of biogas in the region. We also hope that they will be able to spread the project once we are back in the States, should they decide that it is a good technology for the region. We are headed to Uru today (hopefully) to continue our evaluation and interviews of people with biogas digesters there. Check back later for our progress as we wrap stuff up!
~ Melea
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Life in Dar
While we were taxi-ing back from the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC) I came to the terrifying realization that the middle lane of traffic is used as a passing lane, a turn lane, and a driving lane for not one, but two ways of traffic. Not a pretty sight.
We've been pretty busy meeting with different NGO's and groups the last few days. I think two of the best have been today- the NEMC, and the Tanzania Association of Environmental Engineers (TAEE). I feel that by the end of this trip I'll be able to sum our experience in a list of acronyms. NEMC is the Tanzanian equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the states. It is under the Vice President's jurisdiction. It was quite amazing that we got to go meet them (imagine 4 college students in the states walking into the EPA office in DC and asking to speak to the director- laughable). We didn't speak to the HEAD honcho, but close enough. We met with Engineer James Ngeleja, who is the co-ordinator for energy and environmental issues in the council, as well as the director for the division of enforcement and compliance. As I got back from the meeting less than an hour ago, I'm filled with a fresh sense of disappointment in the government.
We've met with NGO's for the majority of the trip and each one has said there is a fairly large gap between the policies and legislature that the government passes, and the actually enforcement of these policies. They heavily rely on the NGO's for support (but do little to support them). So, I posed the question to Mr. Ngeleja, of how exactly the NEMC enforces the policies, in particular, the one major National Energy and Environmental Policy (drafted in '97, legislated as the Environmental Management Act in '04, in effect '05). The unbelievable and pitiful response he gave me was that his department created enforcement guidelines which dealt with investigation and compliance. Basically, squat. When was the last time environmental law was enforced around here? Basically, Tanzania environmental regulation is directed by NGOs.
When we asked him about alternative energy, renewable energy, and what not, he told us about the 2 year old program ProBEC (Program for Basic Energy and Conservation).
I realize that I am being too harsh and, perhaps, a wee bit hypocritical about the Tanzanian government, given that our government isn't exactly getting the gold star on environmental regulations and policy enforcement. It is still frustrating to talk to the people that are RUNNING the country; the people that are able to make the drastic changes and improvements needed to be able to sustain a population of people not surrounded by landfills, and living in poverty, and learn that they are doing nothing but writing meaningless policies to appease the goals set forth by the all-knowing UNFCC Kyoto Protocol that their country signed but has no way of showing deliverables. THAT was a run on sentence and a bit of a rant. Please accept my apologies... I am not a fan of politics. Good Luck Melea.
We split up this morning to cover two NGOs at once, and I'll let Melea or Miriam fill you in AGENDA. Adam and I went to TAEE and met with a young, inspired group of environmental engineers. Most of them have finished school in the last 5 years and are working on a variety of projects including consultancy (their main source of funding), waste management, and awareness and training. We read over their latest proposal for Industrial Effluent Management and Pollution Monitoring, which they are just finishing their editing on, and they will submit for a grant soon. They have also just start working on a Biogas project, but it is in its infancy. We actually didn't get a lot of good advice from them, but for one of the few times this trip, were able to help them answer some questions they had on the technology and design. Near the end of the meeting, they asked us our interests, what we wanted to do after graduating; maybe, perhaps, we wanted to come back to Tanzania? and work on their projects? I couldn't give them a positive answer then, but I told them I would love to help them stateside as much as possible. They were excited that I have access to so much research and knowledge at the University, and I will be glad to help them out with any of that back home.
Yesterday we met with Godfrey and tried to get his advice about the biogas, but unfortunately, he wasn't as helpful as we had hoped, although he did support the project. One of our biggest questions we have been trying to get answered in the last couple weeks is whether the cost of the biogas digester is worth the investment of the farmers, or does it make more sense in terms of THEIR best interests to just stick with the inexpensive, fuel-efficient, firewood stoves. All the Environmental NGOs have been fairly gungho (sp?) about biogas because it really is better for the environment that just the Fuel Efficent stoves. But our project is not, and can never be, just an environmental project, but also must be a project to improve the daily life and future prospects of the people with biogas stove. These digesters ARE expensive, and the steep price cannot be overlooked so quickly.
We're heading to Zanzibar tomorrow for a little break from the work before heading back to Moshi. Dar has been a little dirty and hectic for my taste, but I have to admit I have been suprised with the city. Everyone I have talked to said that people were a bit more hostile and less interested in Mzungus in general, but the majority of people I have encountered always love to help us with our Swahili, point us in the right direction, and offer their welcome whenever they see us. Also, I had one of the best cups of coffee in my life at an ethiopian restaurant here. SOOO TASTY.
Over and out,
Nat
We've been pretty busy meeting with different NGO's and groups the last few days. I think two of the best have been today- the NEMC, and the Tanzania Association of Environmental Engineers (TAEE). I feel that by the end of this trip I'll be able to sum our experience in a list of acronyms. NEMC is the Tanzanian equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the states. It is under the Vice President's jurisdiction. It was quite amazing that we got to go meet them (imagine 4 college students in the states walking into the EPA office in DC and asking to speak to the director- laughable). We didn't speak to the HEAD honcho, but close enough. We met with Engineer James Ngeleja, who is the co-ordinator for energy and environmental issues in the council, as well as the director for the division of enforcement and compliance. As I got back from the meeting less than an hour ago, I'm filled with a fresh sense of disappointment in the government.
We've met with NGO's for the majority of the trip and each one has said there is a fairly large gap between the policies and legislature that the government passes, and the actually enforcement of these policies. They heavily rely on the NGO's for support (but do little to support them). So, I posed the question to Mr. Ngeleja, of how exactly the NEMC enforces the policies, in particular, the one major National Energy and Environmental Policy (drafted in '97, legislated as the Environmental Management Act in '04, in effect '05). The unbelievable and pitiful response he gave me was that his department created enforcement guidelines which dealt with investigation and compliance. Basically, squat. When was the last time environmental law was enforced around here? Basically, Tanzania environmental regulation is directed by NGOs.
When we asked him about alternative energy, renewable energy, and what not, he told us about the 2 year old program ProBEC (Program for Basic Energy and Conservation).
I realize that I am being too harsh and, perhaps, a wee bit hypocritical about the Tanzanian government, given that our government isn't exactly getting the gold star on environmental regulations and policy enforcement. It is still frustrating to talk to the people that are RUNNING the country; the people that are able to make the drastic changes and improvements needed to be able to sustain a population of people not surrounded by landfills, and living in poverty, and learn that they are doing nothing but writing meaningless policies to appease the goals set forth by the all-knowing UNFCC Kyoto Protocol that their country signed but has no way of showing deliverables. THAT was a run on sentence and a bit of a rant. Please accept my apologies... I am not a fan of politics. Good Luck Melea.
We split up this morning to cover two NGOs at once, and I'll let Melea or Miriam fill you in AGENDA. Adam and I went to TAEE and met with a young, inspired group of environmental engineers. Most of them have finished school in the last 5 years and are working on a variety of projects including consultancy (their main source of funding), waste management, and awareness and training. We read over their latest proposal for Industrial Effluent Management and Pollution Monitoring, which they are just finishing their editing on, and they will submit for a grant soon. They have also just start working on a Biogas project, but it is in its infancy. We actually didn't get a lot of good advice from them, but for one of the few times this trip, were able to help them answer some questions they had on the technology and design. Near the end of the meeting, they asked us our interests, what we wanted to do after graduating; maybe, perhaps, we wanted to come back to Tanzania? and work on their projects? I couldn't give them a positive answer then, but I told them I would love to help them stateside as much as possible. They were excited that I have access to so much research and knowledge at the University, and I will be glad to help them out with any of that back home.
Yesterday we met with Godfrey and tried to get his advice about the biogas, but unfortunately, he wasn't as helpful as we had hoped, although he did support the project. One of our biggest questions we have been trying to get answered in the last couple weeks is whether the cost of the biogas digester is worth the investment of the farmers, or does it make more sense in terms of THEIR best interests to just stick with the inexpensive, fuel-efficient, firewood stoves. All the Environmental NGOs have been fairly gungho (sp?) about biogas because it really is better for the environment that just the Fuel Efficent stoves. But our project is not, and can never be, just an environmental project, but also must be a project to improve the daily life and future prospects of the people with biogas stove. These digesters ARE expensive, and the steep price cannot be overlooked so quickly.
We're heading to Zanzibar tomorrow for a little break from the work before heading back to Moshi. Dar has been a little dirty and hectic for my taste, but I have to admit I have been suprised with the city. Everyone I have talked to said that people were a bit more hostile and less interested in Mzungus in general, but the majority of people I have encountered always love to help us with our Swahili, point us in the right direction, and offer their welcome whenever they see us. Also, I had one of the best cups of coffee in my life at an ethiopian restaurant here. SOOO TASTY.
Over and out,
Nat
Monday, August 11, 2008
another safe arrival and more on uru
On Friday we had our second visit to Uru, mainly to talk to the remaining families and see the rest of the biodigesters. We were only able to visit two additional families because the rest were dealing with family issues. We have started to formulate more specific data we want to collect, so while we don't have a ton of families to ask, we are getting a clearer sense of what we specifically want to find out from the farmers. One interesting factor has been that is seems like people in Uru are less likely to quantify time and income than we are in the U.S. We want to find out how much time and money the biodigesters save the women of the households (we just found out that it costs 2,000 tsh for a bundle of firewood), and how much more income they are able to earn, but these questions are quite difficult to answer as we did not ask them to remember this information when the biodigesters were installed in January. We will be back to Moshi and Uru after our week in Dar and Zanzibar to wrap things up and make sure the broken and unfinished biodigesters can be used.
Saturday we took the Dar Express bus to Dar es Salaam, which is not the official capital, but is basically the capital of Tanzania. We safely arrived in the afternoon and took a taxi to the University of Dar es Salaam housing set up by Godfrey, the professor we are visiting here. The hotel where we are staying is kind of off in the middle of nowhere, but on Sunday we figured out the Daladalas (minibuses) to get into and around the city. The city is huge, there are 3.5 million people!
Sunday was quite an adventure. After we arrived on Saturday we talked to Godfrey, who said he wanted to meet us at 8:30 am to go to a meeting at the university where there would be Americans. We thought we'd be meeting and talking to him, so in the morning we met him at the restaurant at the hotel and he told us we were going to an English church service. This was quite the surprise, considering none of us are Christian. But knowing he just wanted to make us feel at home, we went. He introduced us to the people running the service, and he went off to the Swahili service (which we decided we probably would have enjoyed more). We were stuck, but I was kind of excited to see drums and other instruments emerging. It was quite an interesting crowd, and very informative to here about peoples' reasons for coming to Tanzania. Many of the Africans at the service were from other countries, and most of the Americans were there for missionary trips, which I didn't even know existed any more. There were also a few other Irish, English and American people who work at the university. The whole sermon was about serving G-d and having the job of spreading Christianity throughout Dar es Salaam and the world. We were a little uncomfortable.
After that Godfrey had told us to take a Daladala to the mall, probably to make us feel at home, but instead we explored the city. It was HOT. We went to Mwenge where we found a neat semi-touristy crafts market where we got Natalie a wooden jewelrey box for her birthday and Melea and I got some jewelrey. We also had lunch at a very local place - the usual - rice, beans and greens. After, we took a Daladala to a huge market with rice, beans, veggies fruits and tons of spices, and then we walked around the city. We found an ice cream shop (much needed) and the national museum, which was quite different than any museum we've seen. Artifacts were left unprotected, there was a huge dead decaying fish sitting in some liquid, old cars owned by government officials sitting outside and rusting, and so much more randomness. We also tried to get to an Ethiopian restuarant for dinner, which ended up being closed Sundays, found a Malaysian restaurant that was full for the night and ended up eating back at the hotel.
Today we will have lunch with Godfrey and start meeting with some more NGOs... check back soon! Tutaonana (until later)!
Saturday we took the Dar Express bus to Dar es Salaam, which is not the official capital, but is basically the capital of Tanzania. We safely arrived in the afternoon and took a taxi to the University of Dar es Salaam housing set up by Godfrey, the professor we are visiting here. The hotel where we are staying is kind of off in the middle of nowhere, but on Sunday we figured out the Daladalas (minibuses) to get into and around the city. The city is huge, there are 3.5 million people!
Sunday was quite an adventure. After we arrived on Saturday we talked to Godfrey, who said he wanted to meet us at 8:30 am to go to a meeting at the university where there would be Americans. We thought we'd be meeting and talking to him, so in the morning we met him at the restaurant at the hotel and he told us we were going to an English church service. This was quite the surprise, considering none of us are Christian. But knowing he just wanted to make us feel at home, we went. He introduced us to the people running the service, and he went off to the Swahili service (which we decided we probably would have enjoyed more). We were stuck, but I was kind of excited to see drums and other instruments emerging. It was quite an interesting crowd, and very informative to here about peoples' reasons for coming to Tanzania. Many of the Africans at the service were from other countries, and most of the Americans were there for missionary trips, which I didn't even know existed any more. There were also a few other Irish, English and American people who work at the university. The whole sermon was about serving G-d and having the job of spreading Christianity throughout Dar es Salaam and the world. We were a little uncomfortable.
After that Godfrey had told us to take a Daladala to the mall, probably to make us feel at home, but instead we explored the city. It was HOT. We went to Mwenge where we found a neat semi-touristy crafts market where we got Natalie a wooden jewelrey box for her birthday and Melea and I got some jewelrey. We also had lunch at a very local place - the usual - rice, beans and greens. After, we took a Daladala to a huge market with rice, beans, veggies fruits and tons of spices, and then we walked around the city. We found an ice cream shop (much needed) and the national museum, which was quite different than any museum we've seen. Artifacts were left unprotected, there was a huge dead decaying fish sitting in some liquid, old cars owned by government officials sitting outside and rusting, and so much more randomness. We also tried to get to an Ethiopian restuarant for dinner, which ended up being closed Sundays, found a Malaysian restaurant that was full for the night and ended up eating back at the hotel.
Today we will have lunch with Godfrey and start meeting with some more NGOs... check back soon! Tutaonana (until later)!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
PAMOJA, EnviroCare and KIDT
Yesterday (Wednesday), we visited three different organizations in and around Moshi. They were PAMOJA, EnviroCare and KIDT.
PAMOJA - - Pamoja means together in Kiswahili, and working together is the goal of this NGO. We heard about how PAMOJA works to bring people from the government, the private sector and civil society together so that they can interact more constructively. PAMOJA has projects in three different sectors: education, health care and natural resource conservation (primarily water). Their role is to promote good governance and joint action in these fields.
EnviroCare - - At their local office, we learned about a variety of EnviroCare projects. Their projects include organic farming, planting trees and building fuel-efficient stoves in the Kilimanjaro region. We saw a group of people separating hibiscus flowers (presumably from one of their farms), which they then dry and use to make a nutritious juice. They have a simple solar dryer for this purpose.
KIDT - - Our visit to the Kilimanjaro Industrial Development Trust was a personal favorite of mine. They showed us their biogas digester and stove demonstration project, which includes a digester surrounded by a brick casing and roof. The overall design was similar to ours, although more durable and therefore also more costly. We also saw the factory where they make bricks in order to build houses and fuel-efficient stoves. As a mechanical engineering student, I enjoyed seeing how the clay/mud is crushed, mixed, molded, dried and fired. It was very hot among the kilns! Finally, they showed us the adjacent factory where they produce briquettes from sawdust to use as fuel. Many of the briquettes fuel the ovens for making bricks. We saw how the rough sawdust is sifted, dried, heated and compressed in order to make long, hexagonal briquettes.
For now,
Adam
PAMOJA - - Pamoja means together in Kiswahili, and working together is the goal of this NGO. We heard about how PAMOJA works to bring people from the government, the private sector and civil society together so that they can interact more constructively. PAMOJA has projects in three different sectors: education, health care and natural resource conservation (primarily water). Their role is to promote good governance and joint action in these fields.
EnviroCare - - At their local office, we learned about a variety of EnviroCare projects. Their projects include organic farming, planting trees and building fuel-efficient stoves in the Kilimanjaro region. We saw a group of people separating hibiscus flowers (presumably from one of their farms), which they then dry and use to make a nutritious juice. They have a simple solar dryer for this purpose.
KIDT - - Our visit to the Kilimanjaro Industrial Development Trust was a personal favorite of mine. They showed us their biogas digester and stove demonstration project, which includes a digester surrounded by a brick casing and roof. The overall design was similar to ours, although more durable and therefore also more costly. We also saw the factory where they make bricks in order to build houses and fuel-efficient stoves. As a mechanical engineering student, I enjoyed seeing how the clay/mud is crushed, mixed, molded, dried and fired. It was very hot among the kilns! Finally, they showed us the adjacent factory where they produce briquettes from sawdust to use as fuel. Many of the briquettes fuel the ovens for making bricks. We saw how the rough sawdust is sifted, dried, heated and compressed in order to make long, hexagonal briquettes.
For now,
Adam
an inspiring group of farmers
Hello everyone -
Today was a new an interesting day. Instead of sitting in offices and hearing about all the different technologies and strategies that various NGOs are implementing in various communities, we got to see some conservation efforts in action. We visiting a tree nursury at a man named Mr. Limo's house. Mr. Limo supplies trees, free of charge to villagers all around his area. He is also training farmers in soil and water conservation practices and was able to show us how he has implemented these practices on his own land. In the afternoon we headed back out to the Marangu area to visit an organization called Floresta which originated out of Santiago, California and now has offices in 5 countries in Latin America and Africa. Floresta has mobilized and organized 35 groups of farmers in various villages throughout the Kilimanjaro region. These groups are, in turn, organizing their own communities to plant trees, conserve water and soil, use fuel efficient stoves, promote small business, and otherwise conserve their environment. We had the opportunity to attend a group meeting this afternoon. They are very well organized and very dedicated to their efforts and excited to talk about them. When they heard we were working with biogas technology, they were very excited to learn about it and asked us to come back and train them in how to build digesters.
As we reexamined our schedule to see if we had time to come back and see their efforts in the field and to discuss biogas further, we were forced to consider the primary question of our trip: is biogas a good technology for this region. As I write this, Miriam and Natalie are posting about our experiences in Uru, that have, from my perspective, been inconclusive to date. Hopefully we'll be able to come to more of a conclusion after visiting the incomplete stoves in Uru tomorrow. In terms of this village farming group, every household has been using fuel efficient stoves for 2 years now and in doing so has been able to cut their time spent gathering firewood from 6 hrs, 4 times per week, to 5 hrs, once per week and are incredibly happy with the stoves as they use them for cooking and heating water and such. As we gather more information and talk to more people about their conservation efforts we are looking back at our technology and all the factors involved, including cost, assembly, results, impact on the environment among other factors. We definetly have to learn more and are excited to head to Dar this weekend and talk to Professor Frederk Godfrey, a watson scholar, and other NGOs and government organizations about our work.
hope all is well!
Melea
Today was a new an interesting day. Instead of sitting in offices and hearing about all the different technologies and strategies that various NGOs are implementing in various communities, we got to see some conservation efforts in action. We visiting a tree nursury at a man named Mr. Limo's house. Mr. Limo supplies trees, free of charge to villagers all around his area. He is also training farmers in soil and water conservation practices and was able to show us how he has implemented these practices on his own land. In the afternoon we headed back out to the Marangu area to visit an organization called Floresta which originated out of Santiago, California and now has offices in 5 countries in Latin America and Africa. Floresta has mobilized and organized 35 groups of farmers in various villages throughout the Kilimanjaro region. These groups are, in turn, organizing their own communities to plant trees, conserve water and soil, use fuel efficient stoves, promote small business, and otherwise conserve their environment. We had the opportunity to attend a group meeting this afternoon. They are very well organized and very dedicated to their efforts and excited to talk about them. When they heard we were working with biogas technology, they were very excited to learn about it and asked us to come back and train them in how to build digesters.
As we reexamined our schedule to see if we had time to come back and see their efforts in the field and to discuss biogas further, we were forced to consider the primary question of our trip: is biogas a good technology for this region. As I write this, Miriam and Natalie are posting about our experiences in Uru, that have, from my perspective, been inconclusive to date. Hopefully we'll be able to come to more of a conclusion after visiting the incomplete stoves in Uru tomorrow. In terms of this village farming group, every household has been using fuel efficient stoves for 2 years now and in doing so has been able to cut their time spent gathering firewood from 6 hrs, 4 times per week, to 5 hrs, once per week and are incredibly happy with the stoves as they use them for cooking and heating water and such. As we gather more information and talk to more people about their conservation efforts we are looking back at our technology and all the factors involved, including cost, assembly, results, impact on the environment among other factors. We definetly have to learn more and are excited to head to Dar this weekend and talk to Professor Frederk Godfrey, a watson scholar, and other NGOs and government organizations about our work.
hope all is well!
Melea
Uru and the farmers
Hello Hello!
We've been pretty busy during the days, and at night the internet places close up, so we haven't had a good chance to get a word in. BUT, here we are again.
On Tuesday we went to Uru with Kimario to visit the working stoves. It was pretty amazing to go back and see the people I had worked with in January. I had to leave in January to go back to school, but Duffy and Lauren skipped the first week or so and actually finished everything. So, when I went, this was the first time seeing a few of the stoves completed for me. Along with the digesters, we had two stoves built: one with the biogas burner built in, and one that was just a fuel efficient firewood stove. We paid for a basic one, and if they had a little extra money, they had the option to make it a little bigger. According to Kimario, 4 stoves were working, 4 never were completed/ they ran out of supplies, and 1 that the bag broke. We had given Kimario enough money to finish the 4, and apparently they are just being completed. He said the rain season started and they could not work on them anymore. On Tuesday we only visited the 4 working and 1 non-working digesters. Tomorrow (Friday) we will visit the uncomplete ones, and see if there is anything we can do to help finish them up for the farmers so they can start using them.
From the farmers with working stoves, we received an overwhelmingly positive feedback. Frank, the first farmer we visited, had a pretty elaborate system set up for the effluent of the digester, which is excellent organic fertilizer. He has been testing it out on his tomatoes, and seems to be pretty happy with the project. He dragged me by my hand around his house, lighting the stove for us, bringing us through the corn to show us the tomatoes, and showing us his cattle, etc. I wish the rest of the group from January could have been there, it was pretty great to see. I always feel a little uncomfortable when people thank me, because I feel like what I did was nothing to what I should be doing.
Some problems encountered...
- During the rainy season the gas production decreases. We think this could be for a couple reasons, but most likely because the decrease in temperature slows the reaction of the digester. Other ideas involved the dilution of the mixture due to the crazy rain that comes down and floods the villages.
-SOO-- they still have to collect some firewood.
-The farmers have different amounts of cows, so one farmer who has 4 cows, gets a lot more fuel for his digester than the farmer with 2 cows. So the actual amount of gas produced is pretty variable on the amount of manure added. This is pretty obvious, but it does make data collection a little more difficult.
Mushi, the ward chief, was the first to get a digester. Although when we talked to his wife, who said they used it often, the actual digester looked unused, and the gas bag was a bit deflated. We've been a little frusterated with the discrepencies of what Kimario translates and what we have been observing.
This isn't all bad though because at one house hold they went from collecting firewood 4 hours a day four days a week to four hours a day once every two weeks, even with the decrease in gas. They generally have enough gas to make breakfast, lunch, and a starter sauce for dinner.
More soon!
Nat
We've been pretty busy during the days, and at night the internet places close up, so we haven't had a good chance to get a word in. BUT, here we are again.
On Tuesday we went to Uru with Kimario to visit the working stoves. It was pretty amazing to go back and see the people I had worked with in January. I had to leave in January to go back to school, but Duffy and Lauren skipped the first week or so and actually finished everything. So, when I went, this was the first time seeing a few of the stoves completed for me. Along with the digesters, we had two stoves built: one with the biogas burner built in, and one that was just a fuel efficient firewood stove. We paid for a basic one, and if they had a little extra money, they had the option to make it a little bigger. According to Kimario, 4 stoves were working, 4 never were completed/ they ran out of supplies, and 1 that the bag broke. We had given Kimario enough money to finish the 4, and apparently they are just being completed. He said the rain season started and they could not work on them anymore. On Tuesday we only visited the 4 working and 1 non-working digesters. Tomorrow (Friday) we will visit the uncomplete ones, and see if there is anything we can do to help finish them up for the farmers so they can start using them.
From the farmers with working stoves, we received an overwhelmingly positive feedback. Frank, the first farmer we visited, had a pretty elaborate system set up for the effluent of the digester, which is excellent organic fertilizer. He has been testing it out on his tomatoes, and seems to be pretty happy with the project. He dragged me by my hand around his house, lighting the stove for us, bringing us through the corn to show us the tomatoes, and showing us his cattle, etc. I wish the rest of the group from January could have been there, it was pretty great to see. I always feel a little uncomfortable when people thank me, because I feel like what I did was nothing to what I should be doing.
Some problems encountered...
- During the rainy season the gas production decreases. We think this could be for a couple reasons, but most likely because the decrease in temperature slows the reaction of the digester. Other ideas involved the dilution of the mixture due to the crazy rain that comes down and floods the villages.
-SOO-- they still have to collect some firewood.
-The farmers have different amounts of cows, so one farmer who has 4 cows, gets a lot more fuel for his digester than the farmer with 2 cows. So the actual amount of gas produced is pretty variable on the amount of manure added. This is pretty obvious, but it does make data collection a little more difficult.
Mushi, the ward chief, was the first to get a digester. Although when we talked to his wife, who said they used it often, the actual digester looked unused, and the gas bag was a bit deflated. We've been a little frusterated with the discrepencies of what Kimario translates and what we have been observing.
This isn't all bad though because at one house hold they went from collecting firewood 4 hours a day four days a week to four hours a day once every two weeks, even with the decrease in gas. They generally have enough gas to make breakfast, lunch, and a starter sauce for dinner.
More soon!
Nat
Safari (journey) to Uru
So we're finally all here, and on my first full day, Tuesday, we spent the afternoon in Uru. We were glad to find 4 of the 5 biodigesters we visited working, though the village was quite different than what I expected. The family's houses were pretty spread out, as all families have a decent amount of land to farm bannanas, coffee, chinese cabbage, maize, and many other vegetables they eat and sell in the market. Most of the houses have some electricity, including just one or two light bulbs, and the cooking huts have one stove with two burners. Most of the families have a fair number of animals including cows, goats, chickens, dogs (one family had the cutest puppies!), cats and more. The children were adorable, but somewhat frightened by us 4 mzungus (white people). Everyone was so welcoming and kind, but as it was only my second day here I felt badly I didn't know more Swahili. People spoke varying amounts of English, but most spoke very little, so Kimario did a lot of translating for us.
Everyone was ecstatic to see Natalie and were very pleased to meet us. A couple families explained what a tremendous difference the new technology and stoves have had in their lives. The residences for which the pilot projects took place have two stoves each, one an efficient wood stove and one is run by biogas. Most of these families have said they have to collect very little firewood, and therefore women have more time to sell their produce, thus earning larger incomes. One woman said that she collects firewood for 6 hours every 2 weeks instead of for 6 hours 4 times a week! We have a few ideas of why firewood must still be collected. 1) There is not enough gas, which could be caused by families not using enough manure/water mixture, or not enough storag space, 2) They need two burners on which to cook - 1 for ugali (a maize doughy traditional food) and 1 for beans and/or meat (makande). The few families that are putting in enough manure/water mixture and have stoves working seem to really appreciate the technology. Additionally, the manure that has already gone through the reaction is being used as fertilizer in many cases, and one man even believes that it is helping his plants grow better than manure before it has gone through this process.
One of the digesters we visited was not working, but we believe this is because of a lack of care by its owners. There were metal sheets fallen on the plastic holding bags, so there might be a tear. Additionally this family's plot of land is very wooded and there were huge trees cut down and chopped up most likely for cooking.
We have heard that the four other biodigesters are not being used, possibly because they are not finished. We are hoping to get to see them tomorrow in our second trip to Uru. Kwaheri (good bye) for now!
Everyone was ecstatic to see Natalie and were very pleased to meet us. A couple families explained what a tremendous difference the new technology and stoves have had in their lives. The residences for which the pilot projects took place have two stoves each, one an efficient wood stove and one is run by biogas. Most of these families have said they have to collect very little firewood, and therefore women have more time to sell their produce, thus earning larger incomes. One woman said that she collects firewood for 6 hours every 2 weeks instead of for 6 hours 4 times a week! We have a few ideas of why firewood must still be collected. 1) There is not enough gas, which could be caused by families not using enough manure/water mixture, or not enough storag space, 2) They need two burners on which to cook - 1 for ugali (a maize doughy traditional food) and 1 for beans and/or meat (makande). The few families that are putting in enough manure/water mixture and have stoves working seem to really appreciate the technology. Additionally, the manure that has already gone through the reaction is being used as fertilizer in many cases, and one man even believes that it is helping his plants grow better than manure before it has gone through this process.
One of the digesters we visited was not working, but we believe this is because of a lack of care by its owners. There were metal sheets fallen on the plastic holding bags, so there might be a tear. Additionally this family's plot of land is very wooded and there were huge trees cut down and chopped up most likely for cooking.
We have heard that the four other biodigesters are not being used, possibly because they are not finished. We are hoping to get to see them tomorrow in our second trip to Uru. Kwaheri (good bye) for now!
Monday, August 4, 2008
Hiking (to) Kili
Our group is now complete. Miriam arrived today after 24 hours of flying in which she had an air tour of Rome, Ethiopia and Kenya before arriving here in Moshi this afternoon. Adam, Natalie and I have had an exciting day or so. Yesterday (Sunday) we had a free day with no meetings or anything todo, so we took a daladala to Marangu. Marangu is one of the two main places where people start hiking Kilimanjaro from. The people that live in the Marangu area are Chagga, a tribal people who do not speak Swahili, but instead speak their own language. (Also, the people in Uru - where the biogas stoves were built in January - are also Chagga.) In Marangu we learned a little about Chagga culture. One aspect that continually came up with our guide and other people we met was the Chagga punishment for sex before marriage. I'll spare you the gruesome details, and just tell you that it ends in death for both parties. After these interesting tidbits of Chagga culture, we hiked for about two hours uphill to the base camp for those hiking Kili and got to enter Kilimanjaro National Park for a quick look around. It was awesome to learn about the different routes up and talk to people who had just made it down. We're all determined to come back and try it someday. Although, I've got to get in better shape considering the hike to base camp tired me out.
Our hike up was also my first experience in a more rural environment outside the city of Moshi. We loved seeing all the kids who would come running out from their houses to greet us with "Jambo" and "How are you?" (the only Swahili and English they knew)
This morning we wandered over the the Moshi municipal government to meet with people in the "Sustainable Moshi Programme" or the "Urban Planning and Environment" department. It's awesome that you can just walk into a government office and meet with people then and there. This one guy, who turned out to be the director for the department of health for Moshi was just sitting in an office meeting with people as they came in, even though he clearly had stacks of paperwork that needed to be finished on his desk. The simplicity of it all and how accessible the government is to the people here was amazingly refreshing. When we finally got to the right department, we were able to have a very informative discussion with the woman in charge of environmental management in Moshi about the environmental issues within Moshi. The major issue include water pollution, waste management, and the pollution created by the informal sector which is nearly impossible to regulate. While her department doesn't have jurisdiction over the rural areas surrounding Moshi and therefore she was unable to tell us much about deforestation concerns, she did reiterate many of the concerns about the expense of electricity that we heard about in our previous meetings. Electricity only accounts for 70% of the daily demand in Moshi, the rest is filled with firewood, charcol, kerosene, and gas stoves.
In addition, we were able to gain some useful insight into the workings of the Tanzanian government. Apparnetly, all policy is national (rather than determined regionally as individual states do in the United States) and is written by ministries located in Dodoma and Dar es Salaam. Local governments only implement this policy in their regions. When asked her opinion about energy and environmental policy in Tanzania, she said that there have been very few tangible results despite the fact that an energy policy was written into law in 1992. She seems to think that the policies are headed in the right direction, but that no actual changes can occur without grassroots action and many people speaking out about the problems. A government offical offers an interesting and different perspective than we heard from NGO's on Saturday and we are beginning to see how the different aspects of our project (Engineering technology and policy and culture) can all come together.
Thats all for now! sorry for the long post - we'll try to keep them down in the future! Tomorrow we head to Uru though, so check back for updates on how the digesters are doing.
Melea
Our hike up was also my first experience in a more rural environment outside the city of Moshi. We loved seeing all the kids who would come running out from their houses to greet us with "Jambo" and "How are you?" (the only Swahili and English they knew)
This morning we wandered over the the Moshi municipal government to meet with people in the "Sustainable Moshi Programme" or the "Urban Planning and Environment" department. It's awesome that you can just walk into a government office and meet with people then and there. This one guy, who turned out to be the director for the department of health for Moshi was just sitting in an office meeting with people as they came in, even though he clearly had stacks of paperwork that needed to be finished on his desk. The simplicity of it all and how accessible the government is to the people here was amazingly refreshing. When we finally got to the right department, we were able to have a very informative discussion with the woman in charge of environmental management in Moshi about the environmental issues within Moshi. The major issue include water pollution, waste management, and the pollution created by the informal sector which is nearly impossible to regulate. While her department doesn't have jurisdiction over the rural areas surrounding Moshi and therefore she was unable to tell us much about deforestation concerns, she did reiterate many of the concerns about the expense of electricity that we heard about in our previous meetings. Electricity only accounts for 70% of the daily demand in Moshi, the rest is filled with firewood, charcol, kerosene, and gas stoves.
In addition, we were able to gain some useful insight into the workings of the Tanzanian government. Apparnetly, all policy is national (rather than determined regionally as individual states do in the United States) and is written by ministries located in Dodoma and Dar es Salaam. Local governments only implement this policy in their regions. When asked her opinion about energy and environmental policy in Tanzania, she said that there have been very few tangible results despite the fact that an energy policy was written into law in 1992. She seems to think that the policies are headed in the right direction, but that no actual changes can occur without grassroots action and many people speaking out about the problems. A government offical offers an interesting and different perspective than we heard from NGO's on Saturday and we are beginning to see how the different aspects of our project (Engineering technology and policy and culture) can all come together.
Thats all for now! sorry for the long post - we'll try to keep them down in the future! Tomorrow we head to Uru though, so check back for updates on how the digesters are doing.
Melea
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Karibu, welcome: some background info
Jambo!
So we've been busy the past couple days, walking around Moshi, trying to learn a few words of Kiswahili so I don't sound like a totally naive tourist (its going slowly), and setting up meetings with people around the area.
I wanted to give some background information to supplement Natalie's last post for anyone who was not up to date on Assida's previous blog (assida.blogspot.com if you want to check it out) from their January trip.
One of our principal contacts in Moshi, the city up north where we are currently staying and where the group stayed in January, is Ibrah, who is a program officer for Cross Cultural Solutions. CCS is a program which hosts international volunteers from all over for 3 weeks - 3 months and places them in volunteer positions in the area for that time. We had the opportunity to visit CCS yesterday and it really is a fantastic organization and seems to give volunteers a good sense of life here. Ibrah is really fun to hang out with and a pretty funny guy, hes also great at putting us in touch with people and helping us set up various parts of our trip.
The other person we are working with is Mr. Kamario, who runs a local NGO called TRETA (Trans Regional Environmental ... something...). Last year he helped build an irrigation system in the village of Uru, which paved the way for the building of biogas stoves there in January (since water is one of the principal inputs to biogas technology). This trip, Kimario is setting up meetings with various other local NGOs as well as arranging trips to Uru with us so that we can check out the progress of the biogas technology. We had two meetings today that Kamario set up for us and also visited his office. They were very interesting and we learned a lot. Adam is posting about those meetings now so be sure to check that out.
Some final background info on our project. Nine biogas digesters were built in the village of Uru, a village consisting of somewhere around 100 people. The digesters that were built cost around 100 USD and are composed of a system of plastic tubing. The inputs are water and manure and it outputs enough methane gas to power a cookstove for basic daily cooking. Without biogas or other energy saving technology, the women of Uru would walk 10 - 15 km daily to gather firewood, spending up to 6 hours of their days doing so. We haven't been to Uru yet, but as Natalie mentioned, reports from the 5 working digesters have been good and women have only had to gather firewood once a week or so, using the rest of their time to increase their vegetable crop production, which they can then sell to supplement their families income.
So thats the basics, hope that helps anyone new to Assida's blog in understanding our previous and future posts. We will be in Tanzania through August 26th, so keep checking back for updates! We look forward to reading your comments here or via e-mail!
~ Melea
So we've been busy the past couple days, walking around Moshi, trying to learn a few words of Kiswahili so I don't sound like a totally naive tourist (its going slowly), and setting up meetings with people around the area.
I wanted to give some background information to supplement Natalie's last post for anyone who was not up to date on Assida's previous blog (assida.blogspot.com if you want to check it out) from their January trip.
One of our principal contacts in Moshi, the city up north where we are currently staying and where the group stayed in January, is Ibrah, who is a program officer for Cross Cultural Solutions. CCS is a program which hosts international volunteers from all over for 3 weeks - 3 months and places them in volunteer positions in the area for that time. We had the opportunity to visit CCS yesterday and it really is a fantastic organization and seems to give volunteers a good sense of life here. Ibrah is really fun to hang out with and a pretty funny guy, hes also great at putting us in touch with people and helping us set up various parts of our trip.
The other person we are working with is Mr. Kamario, who runs a local NGO called TRETA (Trans Regional Environmental ... something...). Last year he helped build an irrigation system in the village of Uru, which paved the way for the building of biogas stoves there in January (since water is one of the principal inputs to biogas technology). This trip, Kimario is setting up meetings with various other local NGOs as well as arranging trips to Uru with us so that we can check out the progress of the biogas technology. We had two meetings today that Kamario set up for us and also visited his office. They were very interesting and we learned a lot. Adam is posting about those meetings now so be sure to check that out.
Some final background info on our project. Nine biogas digesters were built in the village of Uru, a village consisting of somewhere around 100 people. The digesters that were built cost around 100 USD and are composed of a system of plastic tubing. The inputs are water and manure and it outputs enough methane gas to power a cookstove for basic daily cooking. Without biogas or other energy saving technology, the women of Uru would walk 10 - 15 km daily to gather firewood, spending up to 6 hours of their days doing so. We haven't been to Uru yet, but as Natalie mentioned, reports from the 5 working digesters have been good and women have only had to gather firewood once a week or so, using the rest of their time to increase their vegetable crop production, which they can then sell to supplement their families income.
So thats the basics, hope that helps anyone new to Assida's blog in understanding our previous and future posts. We will be in Tanzania through August 26th, so keep checking back for updates! We look forward to reading your comments here or via e-mail!
~ Melea
An eventful Saturday
Today has been a busy and productive day! This morning, Kimario took Natalie, Melea and me to the local office of TaTEDO, the Tanzania Traditional Energy Development Organization. We met with an environmental engineer who had a lot to tell us about their work. He voiced his concern that energy policy in Tanzania is well organized at the national level but not at the district level, something that TaTEDO hopes to help change. We learned about several sustainable development projects run by TaTEDO. They are working to spread the use of fuel efficient stoves that can cut firewood and charcoal needs by as much as 50%. Electricity is very expensive to install and use, so most people stick with traditional fuels. Unfortunately, gathering firewood and producing charcoal leads to deforestation and other environmental problems.
TaTEDO also helps teach people in villages how to produce charcoal more efficiently so that less biomass is required. Another project involves biodiesel and fuel from the jatropha plant, which can be used to generate electricity. They hope to scale up, although it is difficult to find willing entrepreneurs for such technologies. He agreed that biogas technology like ours can save a lot of time and fuel for communities.
After TaTEDO, we went to the AJISO office (Action for Justice in Society) where we spoke with Virginia Calist Silayo, a director there. AJISO provides legal aid to those who could not otherwise afford it. She said that many problems involve land rights. For example, people may plant trees but not have the rights to the produce of the land. There are also many gender inequities that AJISO works to correct. Traditionally, it is common for men to farm coffee and women to farm vegetables. Because coffee is more profitable, this gives the men control of a disproportionate share of family income. This income is often distributed inequitably. AJISO tries to educate people about the laws regarding such circumstances. We also learned about how environmental issues affect women the most (e.g., when girls are responsible for cooking dinner after they get home late from school). We should be able to get more information on environmental policy from AJISO next week.
After a highly satisfying lunch, Kimario took us to his office at TRETA. A solar technician there gave us a demonstration of the solar and LED technology he is working on. They sell a solar PV system that can power four LED panels after a day's charge. For TSh 8,000 (about $7), Natalie and Melea purchased one of the LED lights for their suite at Brown this year... they are very excited.
~Adam
TaTEDO also helps teach people in villages how to produce charcoal more efficiently so that less biomass is required. Another project involves biodiesel and fuel from the jatropha plant, which can be used to generate electricity. They hope to scale up, although it is difficult to find willing entrepreneurs for such technologies. He agreed that biogas technology like ours can save a lot of time and fuel for communities.
After TaTEDO, we went to the AJISO office (Action for Justice in Society) where we spoke with Virginia Calist Silayo, a director there. AJISO provides legal aid to those who could not otherwise afford it. She said that many problems involve land rights. For example, people may plant trees but not have the rights to the produce of the land. There are also many gender inequities that AJISO works to correct. Traditionally, it is common for men to farm coffee and women to farm vegetables. Because coffee is more profitable, this gives the men control of a disproportionate share of family income. This income is often distributed inequitably. AJISO tries to educate people about the laws regarding such circumstances. We also learned about how environmental issues affect women the most (e.g., when girls are responsible for cooking dinner after they get home late from school). We should be able to get more information on environmental policy from AJISO next week.
After a highly satisfying lunch, Kimario took us to his office at TRETA. A solar technician there gave us a demonstration of the solar and LED technology he is working on. They sell a solar PV system that can power four LED panels after a day's charge. For TSh 8,000 (about $7), Natalie and Melea purchased one of the LED lights for their suite at Brown this year... they are very excited.
~Adam
Friday, August 1, 2008
Back again
Everything is pretty much exactly as I remembered it. I had forgotten how Tanzania smells, and as soon as I stepped off the plane, the slightly spicy, earthy aroma came back to me. Melea, Adam, and I have all met up and are staying in the same place as last time. The weather is a lot colder than last time, it rains everyday or night, and I am wearing pants and longsleeves almost everyday.
We have met with Ibrah a few times, visiting him at his work at CCS (Cross Cultural Solutions). He's been helping us with contacts around Moshi, and has been great for just meeting up and chatting over dinner. We've also met with Kimario yesterday. We can't go to Uru yet because the roads are too wet, but we will next week. From talking to Kimario though, it sounds like 5 of the digesters are working great, and it saves the women a lot of time. Kimario said they have been able to put more time into working on their gardens, growing more produce, and therefore able to have more to sell. It was really rewarding to hear this, as I admit, I have had my doubts about the suitability and need for the stoves in Uru. This doubt and concern was one of the main reasons for the trip this summer, and I'm relieved and happy to have this outcome! I'm also excited to actually go and visit the families we worked with last time- they were so much fun to be with. Jerome Komm, the son of one of the families we worked with is a student at the University of Dar es Salaam. He volunteered for Kimario to conduct a survey of the digesters and stoves a while ago, and we will be hearing back from him next week. (so keep reading!!)
Kwaheri,
Natalie
We have met with Ibrah a few times, visiting him at his work at CCS (Cross Cultural Solutions). He's been helping us with contacts around Moshi, and has been great for just meeting up and chatting over dinner. We've also met with Kimario yesterday. We can't go to Uru yet because the roads are too wet, but we will next week. From talking to Kimario though, it sounds like 5 of the digesters are working great, and it saves the women a lot of time. Kimario said they have been able to put more time into working on their gardens, growing more produce, and therefore able to have more to sell. It was really rewarding to hear this, as I admit, I have had my doubts about the suitability and need for the stoves in Uru. This doubt and concern was one of the main reasons for the trip this summer, and I'm relieved and happy to have this outcome! I'm also excited to actually go and visit the families we worked with last time- they were so much fun to be with. Jerome Komm, the son of one of the families we worked with is a student at the University of Dar es Salaam. He volunteered for Kimario to conduct a survey of the digesters and stoves a while ago, and we will be hearing back from him next week. (so keep reading!!)
Kwaheri,
Natalie
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