We have been working the last few weeks with Paul at Concern Universal to re-design a rope pump so that it can be used for deep wells, beyond 24 m, where the weight of water, and the losses in the pump make drawing water a very difficult technical challenge.
After providing Paul with some ideas we had, he suggested we focus on one idea, building a flywheel that will attach to the pump and make drawing the water up easier.
Last Thursday we started at a local metal shop on the fabrication of our flywheel. Over the next four days it took shape and today we took the whole apparatus out to a site known to be difficult for pumps to successfully draw water up. After installing the pump and flywheel to the well, we started it up. Though it was still difficult, after priming the system for about 20 turns, we had a good steady flow of water coming up from the deep.
Our idea worked marvellously. There are still some minor modifications that we will be making over the next few days, but from the outset, we were able to achieve a flow rate of 24 litres per minute for a 21 metre deep well (or if you had the endurance, more than 1400 litres in an hour). It's not the best flowrate i've ever heard, but is up there on the scale of success, and places our design within the realm of feasible we were hoping for.
some traditional hand pumps can deliver 1000 l/hr, while a horse drawn pump (i don't even know what it would look like) has been measured to deliver closer to 3000 L/hr.
Needless to say both Megan and I are pretty proud of what we have accomplished, and in only 1 week of fabrication. One of the modifications we'll be making will allow the user to pull on a rope to spin the flywheel. It was a last minute idea by our manufacturing guru, Cham, but we tested it out on site and it worked very well... the modification we need to make is ot allow the rope to slip/twist, as when we tied it, it was wanting to twist on itself.
We have conquered one of the most difficult wells that Concern Universal has in their database.
Today was a very good day!
Pictures will be posted up soon.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Being a real tourist - boat trip up the Gambia River to Fort St. James
So we had an interesting experience on Sunday, as our trip is starting to wind down (only 15 days remaining as I write this), we thought it would be sillyy of us not to take a trip up the Gambia River, which is one of the main tourist things to do while here, aside from sit on the beach drinking beer.
We signed up with a 1 day trip to leave from the Banjul Seaport (where the ferry departs from), and travel upriver about 20 nautical miles to the village of Juffreh. It was nice to meet other Toubabs while we were on the boat, and struck up some lively conversation with several other people enroute. Being on the boat made me very homesick.... well maybe more appropriately, boat-sick... missing the lazy days spent on top of the boat, laughing, swimming, and relaxing.
We arrived in Juffreh for our tour around a 'traditional African village'. It was kinda heartbreaking, as the village was of normal construction, but the relationship to Njawara or Sanyang, where we have spent considerable time on this trip ends at that point. The village has focused itself on these boat trips for its income, and as a result, is anything but 'traditional' or 'authentic'. As we walked along the road, children were dancing in the street and banging on improvised containers trying to receive some money or candy from the Toubabs passing through. The whole culture of the village was different than what we have had the great luck of witnessing first hand. Everyone who came up to you spoke in English, and wasn't just wondering about who you were and where you were from, but was trying to get you to buy something from them, or give something to them. They even sold in large bags, the candies the kids were begging for. Talk about a supply and demand situation.
All in all it was more eye-opening than enjoyable. The vast majority of the tourists we were travelling with were respectful, however there were the handful who were completely ignorant and in some cases outright offensive to the locals. One man carried an open bottle of beer off the boat with him, into a Muslim village, was walking around without his shirt for nearly the whole time, until I told him he is about to meet the village Alkalo and should, out of respect, clothe himself. They had a replica of a slave boat in the museum we visited. We were asked outright not to climb onboard, that didn't stop them in anyway, and as we were leaving, we noticed a large contingent of children surrounding the two. It occurred to us immediatley that, again although being asked not to give the kids anything, but to place candies, books, pencils, whatever we had into a communal collection to be given out to the children at a later time... this both to ensure fairness, and to discourage children from skipping school everytime a Toubab boat pulls in, that these two people were handing out candies to each of the children. At one point, one of the guides took a handful from the woman and placed them in the collection. As they were at the edge of the village, a persistent girl who had stayed with them to this point was rewarded with a candy. She ran back towards us, and her two friends, showing it off. I'm reasonably certain she would have been beaten up by the other girls over this small candy. Glad we Toubabs are so generous!
It just made me really disappointed at this culture of 'gotta go to Africa, gotta see the poor black kids, gotta make them love me by giving trinkets and candy so I feel better inside. These people have now 'seen' the real African village, and can go back to their 4 and 5 star hotels completely satisfied they made the world a better place by spending 15 minutes with less advantaged people. It made me not want to ever be that 'tourist' again.
After spending about 1.5 hrs in Juffreh, they took us across the water to Fort James Island. This was the staging ground for the West African slave trade. Boats would arrive from England and Europe, unload cargo, load up with slaves, who had been led to Juffreh by captors, and sold by traders, then loaded onto the slave boat to go to the Americas. The island we saw was only about 1/6 of it's original size, it is being lost into the sea by tidal erosion. We were able to walk around the remaining ruins a bit, and get a sense of how cramped and unbelievably crowded the spaces these people were crammed into actually are. It gave me pause to think of some of the atrocities we have committed in our drive to success.
We then returned to the boat for our trip back to Banjul. Along the way we were treated to seeing some dolphins swimming in the river. A few came withing 150 feet of our boat. It was a nice ending to the day.
I think, above all else, what I gained from the trip today was a realization about how narrow minded we can be, and how incomplete our understanding of the world really is.
We signed up with a 1 day trip to leave from the Banjul Seaport (where the ferry departs from), and travel upriver about 20 nautical miles to the village of Juffreh. It was nice to meet other Toubabs while we were on the boat, and struck up some lively conversation with several other people enroute. Being on the boat made me very homesick.... well maybe more appropriately, boat-sick... missing the lazy days spent on top of the boat, laughing, swimming, and relaxing.
We arrived in Juffreh for our tour around a 'traditional African village'. It was kinda heartbreaking, as the village was of normal construction, but the relationship to Njawara or Sanyang, where we have spent considerable time on this trip ends at that point. The village has focused itself on these boat trips for its income, and as a result, is anything but 'traditional' or 'authentic'. As we walked along the road, children were dancing in the street and banging on improvised containers trying to receive some money or candy from the Toubabs passing through. The whole culture of the village was different than what we have had the great luck of witnessing first hand. Everyone who came up to you spoke in English, and wasn't just wondering about who you were and where you were from, but was trying to get you to buy something from them, or give something to them. They even sold in large bags, the candies the kids were begging for. Talk about a supply and demand situation.
All in all it was more eye-opening than enjoyable. The vast majority of the tourists we were travelling with were respectful, however there were the handful who were completely ignorant and in some cases outright offensive to the locals. One man carried an open bottle of beer off the boat with him, into a Muslim village, was walking around without his shirt for nearly the whole time, until I told him he is about to meet the village Alkalo and should, out of respect, clothe himself. They had a replica of a slave boat in the museum we visited. We were asked outright not to climb onboard, that didn't stop them in anyway, and as we were leaving, we noticed a large contingent of children surrounding the two. It occurred to us immediatley that, again although being asked not to give the kids anything, but to place candies, books, pencils, whatever we had into a communal collection to be given out to the children at a later time... this both to ensure fairness, and to discourage children from skipping school everytime a Toubab boat pulls in, that these two people were handing out candies to each of the children. At one point, one of the guides took a handful from the woman and placed them in the collection. As they were at the edge of the village, a persistent girl who had stayed with them to this point was rewarded with a candy. She ran back towards us, and her two friends, showing it off. I'm reasonably certain she would have been beaten up by the other girls over this small candy. Glad we Toubabs are so generous!
It just made me really disappointed at this culture of 'gotta go to Africa, gotta see the poor black kids, gotta make them love me by giving trinkets and candy so I feel better inside. These people have now 'seen' the real African village, and can go back to their 4 and 5 star hotels completely satisfied they made the world a better place by spending 15 minutes with less advantaged people. It made me not want to ever be that 'tourist' again.
After spending about 1.5 hrs in Juffreh, they took us across the water to Fort James Island. This was the staging ground for the West African slave trade. Boats would arrive from England and Europe, unload cargo, load up with slaves, who had been led to Juffreh by captors, and sold by traders, then loaded onto the slave boat to go to the Americas. The island we saw was only about 1/6 of it's original size, it is being lost into the sea by tidal erosion. We were able to walk around the remaining ruins a bit, and get a sense of how cramped and unbelievably crowded the spaces these people were crammed into actually are. It gave me pause to think of some of the atrocities we have committed in our drive to success.
We then returned to the boat for our trip back to Banjul. Along the way we were treated to seeing some dolphins swimming in the river. A few came withing 150 feet of our boat. It was a nice ending to the day.
I think, above all else, what I gained from the trip today was a realization about how narrow minded we can be, and how incomplete our understanding of the world really is.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Independence Day in The Gambia
Hi Everyone,
sorry for my delay in posting a new post for a while now. I wish i could say i was incredibly busy every day, but the truth is i was just negligent.
We finished up our work in Sanyang last Friday (Jul 17). It was a bittersweet farewell, although we will be returning on Aug 2nd for Aminata's (the middle child in our host family) birthday; it was at the same time the last time we would walk up and down the streets talking to people and being a part of the community. While at times it was frustrating to not be able to go anywhere without being questioned, at the same time, we felt we had been welcomed and incorporated into the community well.
Our last week of work in Sanyang was a little frustrating, because 2 of the 3 days there wasn't work for us to do... Gammol had received bad information on a pump and when we arrived it was working without a problem. The garden, we reached a point we could no longer be of service to the garden and ended our work there a day early.
Last week we returned to Fajarra, where we are gonig to spend the remainder of the trip working with Concern Universal to re-design the Rope Pump they use.
We came on Friday hoping to get a start Monday. As with most things in Gambia, it runs a little behind. On Monday we met the 'shop' where we are going to be doing our work... it's an outdoor yard, with tools holed up in a shipping container. But they can weld and they can cut, so we're in business. The manager/owner there had to go get materials for us to use, which was Tuesday, then today is Independence day, so everything shuts down, ergo, we shall begin our fabrication tomorrow.
Since it was Independence day today, Megan and I went into Banjul to see the festivities. Pictures are/will be posted to picassa soon. I think it qualifies as the worst parade i've seen in all my years.
We arrived about 40 minutes late from when it was supposed to start. It hadn't started yet. We soon after we arrived, saw them march the army, police force, navy, national guard and anyone else with a uniform up the main road all in formation, then take their places... where they stood for nearly 1.5 hrs waiting for the president to arrive. That was the whole 'parade'. It was pretty interesting watching the president arrive. He has, at all times, a contingent of about 30 cars, plus police on motorcycle. To 'welcome' him, he arranged to have a massive crowd, probably numbering between 200 to 300 people, who they call the 'green boys', to run, chanting, singing, screaming and clapping alongside his car while he makes a 200 m drive from his residence to the end of the red carpet leading to Arch 22.
Both Megan and I commented that it's incredibly strange to spend so much time in a country with such blatant propaganda. The president actually authorized the printing of a cloth with his face on it, and a message stating that he's sent by god to lead the Gambians. Everyone we saw today was wearing an outfit made from this cloth. It's incredible how readily they have all swallowed up this stuff. Just imagine if you saw people on Canada day wearing a dress with Stephen Harpers smiling face on it. The idea makes me laugh out loud, bu there it's commonplace. I'm honestly startled by it. Everyone here honestly and thruthfully believes that he's solely responsible for all the benefits that come to The Gambia. On the side of every schoolbus it actually reads - donated by the president, as if he paid for the buses out of his own pocket, instead of using tax revenue, or aid dollars to purchase them. I agree it's great to have them, but the name of the president should not be attributed to their purchase.
Regardless... it was good to go and see what was happening in the capital. Shortly after we saw Jammeh, we left Banjul and just headed back here for the rest of the afternoon.
it wasn't quite what i would call a standard day, but had it's enjoyable parts.
In 3 weeks from now i'll be back in Canada and sharing all my stories with you.
I'm looking very forward to being home again. This trip has been a marathon.
Love,
Justin
sorry for my delay in posting a new post for a while now. I wish i could say i was incredibly busy every day, but the truth is i was just negligent.
We finished up our work in Sanyang last Friday (Jul 17). It was a bittersweet farewell, although we will be returning on Aug 2nd for Aminata's (the middle child in our host family) birthday; it was at the same time the last time we would walk up and down the streets talking to people and being a part of the community. While at times it was frustrating to not be able to go anywhere without being questioned, at the same time, we felt we had been welcomed and incorporated into the community well.
Our last week of work in Sanyang was a little frustrating, because 2 of the 3 days there wasn't work for us to do... Gammol had received bad information on a pump and when we arrived it was working without a problem. The garden, we reached a point we could no longer be of service to the garden and ended our work there a day early.
Last week we returned to Fajarra, where we are gonig to spend the remainder of the trip working with Concern Universal to re-design the Rope Pump they use.
We came on Friday hoping to get a start Monday. As with most things in Gambia, it runs a little behind. On Monday we met the 'shop' where we are going to be doing our work... it's an outdoor yard, with tools holed up in a shipping container. But they can weld and they can cut, so we're in business. The manager/owner there had to go get materials for us to use, which was Tuesday, then today is Independence day, so everything shuts down, ergo, we shall begin our fabrication tomorrow.
Since it was Independence day today, Megan and I went into Banjul to see the festivities. Pictures are/will be posted to picassa soon. I think it qualifies as the worst parade i've seen in all my years.
We arrived about 40 minutes late from when it was supposed to start. It hadn't started yet. We soon after we arrived, saw them march the army, police force, navy, national guard and anyone else with a uniform up the main road all in formation, then take their places... where they stood for nearly 1.5 hrs waiting for the president to arrive. That was the whole 'parade'. It was pretty interesting watching the president arrive. He has, at all times, a contingent of about 30 cars, plus police on motorcycle. To 'welcome' him, he arranged to have a massive crowd, probably numbering between 200 to 300 people, who they call the 'green boys', to run, chanting, singing, screaming and clapping alongside his car while he makes a 200 m drive from his residence to the end of the red carpet leading to Arch 22.
Both Megan and I commented that it's incredibly strange to spend so much time in a country with such blatant propaganda. The president actually authorized the printing of a cloth with his face on it, and a message stating that he's sent by god to lead the Gambians. Everyone we saw today was wearing an outfit made from this cloth. It's incredible how readily they have all swallowed up this stuff. Just imagine if you saw people on Canada day wearing a dress with Stephen Harpers smiling face on it. The idea makes me laugh out loud, bu there it's commonplace. I'm honestly startled by it. Everyone here honestly and thruthfully believes that he's solely responsible for all the benefits that come to The Gambia. On the side of every schoolbus it actually reads - donated by the president, as if he paid for the buses out of his own pocket, instead of using tax revenue, or aid dollars to purchase them. I agree it's great to have them, but the name of the president should not be attributed to their purchase.
Regardless... it was good to go and see what was happening in the capital. Shortly after we saw Jammeh, we left Banjul and just headed back here for the rest of the afternoon.
it wasn't quite what i would call a standard day, but had it's enjoyable parts.
In 3 weeks from now i'll be back in Canada and sharing all my stories with you.
I'm looking very forward to being home again. This trip has been a marathon.
Love,
Justin
Monday, July 13, 2009
One more week in Sanyang, then redesigning a rope pump for 3 weeks
Hi All,
So we have spent the last week in Sanyang, working with our partners The Sanyang Community Garden, and Gammol. We spent a day mixing concrete for the garden to build an access area to their garden for large trucks to drive on, and helped to fix an India Mark II pump with Gammol as well. Very laborious for sure, but rewarding to be doing something.
We had a recouperating weekend back in Fajarra where we met with our partner at Concern Universal about re-desigining the rope pump. We're going to take one of the ideas we had for improvement and build a prototype while we are here.
There is now less than a month until we are back home. It's strange to think how fast it seems to be going by, but at the same time, to reflect on how long since I saw any of my friends or family, makes the trip seem as though it's just crawling by.
There are a few more pictures posted up of a lightning storm we got caught in last night, so I snapped some very sweet pictures wiht my camera by using an exposure time of 2, 5, or 15 seconds. Have a look and enjoy. I'll post more pictures and blog posts once we return from Sanyang this weekend.
Miss you all,
Justin
So we have spent the last week in Sanyang, working with our partners The Sanyang Community Garden, and Gammol. We spent a day mixing concrete for the garden to build an access area to their garden for large trucks to drive on, and helped to fix an India Mark II pump with Gammol as well. Very laborious for sure, but rewarding to be doing something.
We had a recouperating weekend back in Fajarra where we met with our partner at Concern Universal about re-desigining the rope pump. We're going to take one of the ideas we had for improvement and build a prototype while we are here.
There is now less than a month until we are back home. It's strange to think how fast it seems to be going by, but at the same time, to reflect on how long since I saw any of my friends or family, makes the trip seem as though it's just crawling by.
There are a few more pictures posted up of a lightning storm we got caught in last night, so I snapped some very sweet pictures wiht my camera by using an exposure time of 2, 5, or 15 seconds. Have a look and enjoy. I'll post more pictures and blog posts once we return from Sanyang this weekend.
Miss you all,
Justin
Saturday, July 11, 2009
What a wild week....
My apologies for the delay in posting. It's been a bit crazy, but the week has resulted in some amazing opportunities (are you hooked yet?).
So we finished our time up at the Njawara Agricultural Training Centre (NATC) on the North Bank. As i wrote previously, the facility is well run, well managed, staffed by highly qualified individuals and dedicated to fulfiling it's mission of reversing rural-urban migration by providing rural farmers the tools and skills necessary to move from subsistence farming to full productive farming.
Unfortunately, neither Megan nor I are keenly interested in agriculture, but did still manage to have an enjoyable time there, learn a few lessons, and meet some wonderful people.
While we were there we also became quite adept at surviving without electricity, cell phone service, occasional running water, or internet. I have never in my life been as hot as I was there. If you don't believe it can be that bad, I broke into a full body sweat while I was writing in my journal! Now holding and manouvering a pen is a strenuous activity.
The trip back from Njawara was pretty much as close to "Trains, Planes and Automobiles" I've ever been.
We had to wake up at 5 AM to catch a bush taxi at 6 am. The bush taxi was complete with a live goat tied to the top of the vehicle. We arrived at the ferry terminal just in time to get to wait nearly 2 hrs for a ferry to arrive, and managed to wrangle a truly great seat in the open air top of the boat just as the sky opened up and poured down on us a massive storm. I was actually dripping wet. It took us another nearly 2.5 hrs to make the crossing, disembarke teh boat, negotiate a cab to Serrekunda, and find my way to clean, dry clothes and a shower.
Needless to say, that by 11 AM,I was pretty well ready for a drink.
Monday mornning we met with a new contact we made, Paul at Concern Universal. Concern universal is a British NGO that works to alleviate poverty, promote equality, improve health and sanitation and deliver safe drinking water throughout Africa.
We met with paul to hear about a problem he has with a rope pump (google it for more information). Most rope pumps being used cannot be used past 25 m because the column of water is too heavy and the losses of water too great to make it useful.
He posed to us the problem and wants us to work ot extend the pump to 40 m deep. Its a completely appropriate and necessary project that both Megan and I are inspired to work on.
We have decided to cut short our time in Sanyang by 2 weeks so we have an opportunity to work with Concern. So we will work in sanyang this week and next, then return to Serrekunda around the 19th of July and remain there until we come home.
Needless to say I'm incredibly excited about the prospect of working on this project and we have already come up with 5-6 interesting modiifications we are excited to invesitgate further.
We've been in Sanyang for 2 days now adn are getting settled back in our Host families home. It's nice to have the kids around and we are generally enjoying our time and work here.
I'll post some more probably when we've moved back to Serrekunda (unless you're really lucky :)
That's all for me now. I hope all is well at home.
Love,
JP
So we finished our time up at the Njawara Agricultural Training Centre (NATC) on the North Bank. As i wrote previously, the facility is well run, well managed, staffed by highly qualified individuals and dedicated to fulfiling it's mission of reversing rural-urban migration by providing rural farmers the tools and skills necessary to move from subsistence farming to full productive farming.
Unfortunately, neither Megan nor I are keenly interested in agriculture, but did still manage to have an enjoyable time there, learn a few lessons, and meet some wonderful people.
While we were there we also became quite adept at surviving without electricity, cell phone service, occasional running water, or internet. I have never in my life been as hot as I was there. If you don't believe it can be that bad, I broke into a full body sweat while I was writing in my journal! Now holding and manouvering a pen is a strenuous activity.
The trip back from Njawara was pretty much as close to "Trains, Planes and Automobiles" I've ever been.
We had to wake up at 5 AM to catch a bush taxi at 6 am. The bush taxi was complete with a live goat tied to the top of the vehicle. We arrived at the ferry terminal just in time to get to wait nearly 2 hrs for a ferry to arrive, and managed to wrangle a truly great seat in the open air top of the boat just as the sky opened up and poured down on us a massive storm. I was actually dripping wet. It took us another nearly 2.5 hrs to make the crossing, disembarke teh boat, negotiate a cab to Serrekunda, and find my way to clean, dry clothes and a shower.
Needless to say, that by 11 AM,I was pretty well ready for a drink.
Monday mornning we met with a new contact we made, Paul at Concern Universal. Concern universal is a British NGO that works to alleviate poverty, promote equality, improve health and sanitation and deliver safe drinking water throughout Africa.
We met with paul to hear about a problem he has with a rope pump (google it for more information). Most rope pumps being used cannot be used past 25 m because the column of water is too heavy and the losses of water too great to make it useful.
He posed to us the problem and wants us to work ot extend the pump to 40 m deep. Its a completely appropriate and necessary project that both Megan and I are inspired to work on.
We have decided to cut short our time in Sanyang by 2 weeks so we have an opportunity to work with Concern. So we will work in sanyang this week and next, then return to Serrekunda around the 19th of July and remain there until we come home.
Needless to say I'm incredibly excited about the prospect of working on this project and we have already come up with 5-6 interesting modiifications we are excited to invesitgate further.
We've been in Sanyang for 2 days now adn are getting settled back in our Host families home. It's nice to have the kids around and we are generally enjoying our time and work here.
I'll post some more probably when we've moved back to Serrekunda (unless you're really lucky :)
That's all for me now. I hope all is well at home.
Love,
JP
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Living without a mirror
Ok, this is going to sound very conceited and self centered, but for the last week, while we were in Njawara, we have had no access to a mirror.
Just stop for a moment and think of how many times in a day you look at yourself in a mirror.
When you first get up
when you get out of the shower
when you put on makeup (some of you)
In the front hall before you leave
in the car
in windows as you pass
that's just getting out of the house. For the last week I have not seen myself at all. I didn't even know how badly I needed to shave until I got back to Fajarrah today and looked at myself. It's pretty scary.
I guess this is just one more of those realizations I've had on this trip that sometimes its very easy to let go of all that, without even really realizing it.
This hopefully will go down as the strangest blog post I've made yet. It seems that way writing it.
Just stop for a moment and think of how many times in a day you look at yourself in a mirror.
When you first get up
when you get out of the shower
when you put on makeup (some of you)
In the front hall before you leave
in the car
in windows as you pass
that's just getting out of the house. For the last week I have not seen myself at all. I didn't even know how badly I needed to shave until I got back to Fajarrah today and looked at myself. It's pretty scary.
I guess this is just one more of those realizations I've had on this trip that sometimes its very easy to let go of all that, without even really realizing it.
This hopefully will go down as the strangest blog post I've made yet. It seems that way writing it.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Njawara - It's hot, but we like it
We've gotten ourselves quite settled here at Njawara. The first two nights were somewhat unbearable because of the heat. We're in a hut with a thatched roof, so to keep out the mosquitos, you have to close the door/window, but that makes the room basically a closed oven. I woke up drenched in sweat the last two nights. Also, because of the solar power, the fans don't work at all. Last night I kept my window open and made sure to seal my mosquito net completely. It helped immensely with the heat. Still swated a bit, but it was manageable.
Tonight we're starting to get a very good storm roll in, so i think it'll be plenty cool enough. It came up in only about 30 minutes, from a clear sky to completely stormy. I'm a little worried about the thatched roof and being water-tight... I'm hearing drops coming through... I'm goign to close up my computer adn write more when I'm certain of being dry.
Miss you all...
OK... so the storm has now passed. it's Thursday morning here.
The Thatched roof wasn't exactly water tight lets say. I had a number of drips that
came through the thatch, but only a few that came through the second ceiling they put in (made of old rice canvas/woven plastic bags). All in all it was a pretty wild storm. Megan and I went out after I turned my computer off and took some pictures. It was good even for a storm in Canada (think the one or two really wild ones we'd have throughout the year). The storm really helped to cool the weather down here and I actually only woke up once last night. It feels wonderful to have a good night sleep. The current here even on for at least 4-5 hours (the two previous nights we had 45 mins and 13 minutes respectively). I think it's because only Megan and I are here now. The two nights prevously there was a permanent VSO volunteer and another guest staying here. Plus I think one might have been using a hair dryer.
But I've digressed... We're really enjoying our time here. It's unfortunate that the work here isn't more engineering related, because the facility is well equiped and even more well run, the people here are very nice, the local villagers have been incredibly welcoming and we've shared many laughs with them, even last night over attaya, long into the night.
We've mostly been working in the community garden here on every day tasks. We did get to repair a water hand pump they have here. It had broken a few days previously and I was inspired to take something apart, so we opened it up, fixed the belt that had fallen off it's track, replaced it and watched as the water started to flow (pictures will follow when the internet allows me to upload).
Today is supposed to be chicken day. The centre has a small chicken nursery they buy 1 day old chickens, nurse them for 1 week, then deliver them to the surrounding communities. Megan and I are really looking forward to it. Tomorrow we have normal work in the morning, then a chance to take a river tour up and down the river (not The Gambia River, there is a small tributary only 100 m behind the centre here. I'm not sure the name, but will try to look it up when I post pictures).
Saturday we're going to go on a community/farm tour to see the operations of some of the graduates of NATC (Njawara Agrictultrual Training Centre), and what they have done with their training to improve the agricultural practices of the local community. Then on Sunday we are heading back to South Bank.
We would like to spend more time here. I've actually gotten quite used to not having electricity. (Last night the power came on around 8, and both Megan and I barely touched it until we went to bed to charge her cell phone and I had my fan going while I slept). Unfortunately, it seems strange to look this far out and say we're running out of time, but we're running out of time. We want to get back to our projects in Sanyang, as well, the other guest who was here the night before last works with a group called Concern International. She has a contact there with some serious sounding engineering problems (how to draw water from a 30 m deep well with no electricity), and another potential contact at a government office in Brikama looking at and developing new appropriate technologies for use throughout the country.
We may be altering our schedule 3-4 more times before we actually leave here, but that's what we pretty much expected.
Ok, time to get started on my day. I'll post more when I can.
Justin
Tonight we're starting to get a very good storm roll in, so i think it'll be plenty cool enough. It came up in only about 30 minutes, from a clear sky to completely stormy. I'm a little worried about the thatched roof and being water-tight... I'm hearing drops coming through... I'm goign to close up my computer adn write more when I'm certain of being dry.
Miss you all...
OK... so the storm has now passed. it's Thursday morning here.
The Thatched roof wasn't exactly water tight lets say. I had a number of drips that
came through the thatch, but only a few that came through the second ceiling they put in (made of old rice canvas/woven plastic bags). All in all it was a pretty wild storm. Megan and I went out after I turned my computer off and took some pictures. It was good even for a storm in Canada (think the one or two really wild ones we'd have throughout the year). The storm really helped to cool the weather down here and I actually only woke up once last night. It feels wonderful to have a good night sleep. The current here even on for at least 4-5 hours (the two previous nights we had 45 mins and 13 minutes respectively). I think it's because only Megan and I are here now. The two nights prevously there was a permanent VSO volunteer and another guest staying here. Plus I think one might have been using a hair dryer.
But I've digressed... We're really enjoying our time here. It's unfortunate that the work here isn't more engineering related, because the facility is well equiped and even more well run, the people here are very nice, the local villagers have been incredibly welcoming and we've shared many laughs with them, even last night over attaya, long into the night.
We've mostly been working in the community garden here on every day tasks. We did get to repair a water hand pump they have here. It had broken a few days previously and I was inspired to take something apart, so we opened it up, fixed the belt that had fallen off it's track, replaced it and watched as the water started to flow (pictures will follow when the internet allows me to upload).
Today is supposed to be chicken day. The centre has a small chicken nursery they buy 1 day old chickens, nurse them for 1 week, then deliver them to the surrounding communities. Megan and I are really looking forward to it. Tomorrow we have normal work in the morning, then a chance to take a river tour up and down the river (not The Gambia River, there is a small tributary only 100 m behind the centre here. I'm not sure the name, but will try to look it up when I post pictures).
Saturday we're going to go on a community/farm tour to see the operations of some of the graduates of NATC (Njawara Agrictultrual Training Centre), and what they have done with their training to improve the agricultural practices of the local community. Then on Sunday we are heading back to South Bank.
We would like to spend more time here. I've actually gotten quite used to not having electricity. (Last night the power came on around 8, and both Megan and I barely touched it until we went to bed to charge her cell phone and I had my fan going while I slept). Unfortunately, it seems strange to look this far out and say we're running out of time, but we're running out of time. We want to get back to our projects in Sanyang, as well, the other guest who was here the night before last works with a group called Concern International. She has a contact there with some serious sounding engineering problems (how to draw water from a 30 m deep well with no electricity), and another potential contact at a government office in Brikama looking at and developing new appropriate technologies for use throughout the country.
We may be altering our schedule 3-4 more times before we actually leave here, but that's what we pretty much expected.
Ok, time to get started on my day. I'll post more when I can.
Justin
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