The main innovation in this training was the use of new stainless steel molds that I commissioned from our neighborhood steel fabricator in Pyin Oo Lwin. I got two sets made up – one for a 5 inch stove and one for a 6 inch stove, for around $35 per set. The molds were not quite as successful as I had hoped, as we had difficulty extracting the bricks, without breakage. However, we learned quite a few lessons and I expect the stainless steel molds to be a standard part of the Solar Roots repertoire in the future. It is my plan to leave a set of these molds in the village after each training, as they are very robust and should be able to be used to make thousands of bricks in their lifetime.

I arrived back in Burma in December, fully hoping to take the first steps in building the Solar Roots Renewable Energy Training Center. But that proved to be difficult due to the local political situation in the Gorka village. The village headman and the Abbot were not seeing things eye to eye. I was advised to put my plans on hold until things cooled down. It was a salutary lesson for me in politics of religion and the lack of tolerance and trust still widespread in this country. We'll see what 2015 brings.
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So I moved back into my old room at St Mathews Orphange Center and started doing trainings.
New Years was spent with the kids who delighted in the Kachin tradition of pounding sticky rice to within an inch of it's life, and then  eating copious quatities of the resulting flattened glutinous stuff.

Naung Taung Monastery

In February I got an invitation via my good friend Jim, to visit Naung Taung monastery near Taunggyi. Jim had been training teachers there and told me that there was great interest in Renewable Energy and that the existing stoves were  crude smokey affairs that should be improved. I made a preliminary visit and was very impressed by the Abbot and his commitment to progressive ideas and his dedication to improving the lives of his flock. He is ably assited by an irrepressible young monk called U Pin Ya. 
Curiously, the young monks are actually a joyous and mischievious bunch, always ready to drop back into childish games at the least excuse. I wonder if they will turn into the wizen old fossils that one sees enshrined in faded photos upon the monastery walls?
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One incident with the novice monks did get my ire however: they got into my suitcase one night to play with the tools and they set the combination lock so we couldn't open the case the next day. Unfazed, the bold U Pin Ya hunched over the case, listening to the the numbers tumble, like he was a Monte Carlo safecracker! Unfortunately, the whole lock was made of plastic and no clicks were heard. Later, another participant flattened a nail in imitation of a key and opened the case no problem!

I saw my time at Naung Taung as an opportunity to improve the existing stoves in their kitchen, so the first part of the training was dedicated to this task. We first put in a raised grate, then added some insulation to the inside of the stove, and finally connected a 6-inch chimney. All of these improvements cleaned up the emissions of the stoves and improved their fuel efficiency. One of the challenges in improving stoves in a Burmese monastery is getting the 'stakeholders' on your side. Unfortunately, the cooking is done by young monks who would much rather be listening to their mp3 player and who certainly don't want to expend any more effort splitting wood than they abosolutely have to. Only if the Abbot is present do my entreaties for a change in behavior get heeded, and of course, as soon as he leaves...

Emmanuel Children's Home, Kalaymyo

Through a mutual acquaintance at SMOC, I was invited to visit Pastor Joel at Emmanuel Children's Home in Kalaymyo, which is in NW Myanmar, near the border with India. This is a remote area that is somewhat neglected by the central government, a fact that was made clear by the ubiquity of solar panels on many houses - the local power supply is completely unreliable. Joel has taken in a dozen orphans and abandoned children from the border area and he says there are many more, if he only had the funds to look after them. Until we arrived, (Hamish Lee, our New Zealand volunteer and myself), the children's home had only received electricity two hours per night from a local entrepreneur with a generator. This was expensive, as they had to pay a monthly fee per light bulb. Hamish, a recently graduated Mechanical Engineer, proved to be a great help, being open to everyone and a quick learner. Click here to check out his account of the experience.

After Kalaymyo

On the way back from Kalay we visied a meditation center near Kanphyu village, which is about 40kms north of Mandalay, right on the banks of the Ayerwaddy River. A friend had contacted me about designing a PV system to replace the creaky old generator and I was delighted to oblige. Hamish and I stayed there a couple of days, measuring distances and counting lights and outlets. As it turned out, the monastery later decided to replace the diesel generator with a rice husk burning type of generator. I'll be very interested to see that in operation.

On the return journey, we took passage on a cargo boat going down the Ayerwaddy to Mandalay.  At first it seemed that the boat would make it to Mandalay in less than the predicted 4 hours. But, since it took 2 hours just to leave the original location, and another hour to stop at inumerable little jetties to pick up more cargo, it was seven hours later that we waddled into Mandalay!  But it was a memorable journey with very friendly and generous fellow passengers.

Solar Pumping at Seya Peter's Farm

Another side project was the installation of a solar powered irrigation pump on Seya Peter's organic demonstration farm.
I bought a 12V DC pump locally and found that it worked well direct from the solar panel, but it tended to overheat. Lacking a sophisticated controller, the answer was to put a battery and charge controller into the system. This smoothed out the power supply and the pump ran cooler. Although it drove the cost up by another $175, it was worth it, as I am searching for water pumping solutions using locally sourced equipment.
The 300W panel is mounted on a manual tracker, which allows the user to follow the sun throughout the day, considerably increasing output.

Mangrove Services Network (MSN)
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Through Roger, my translator in Lashio last year, I was introduced to the good folks at the Mangrove Services Network, which works mainly around Bogalay and up into Rahkine State. The vast mangrove forests of the Ayerwaddy Delta have been cleared to make way for shrimp farms and to be converted into charcoal and it is MSN's mission to reverse that destruction. Their main thrust is to experiment with the many varieties of mangrove trees to find the most suitable ones for replanting and to demonstrate technologies and enterprises that locals could use as alternatives to cutting the mangroves.​

One of MSN's more ambitious projects is a training center on an island in the middle of the Bogalay River. This "island", is actually 30 acres of mangrove trees with one one acre of high solid ground above the water line. They backfilled this high patch with sand and dirt and now with tree planted, it is becoming very stable and useable. They have a training center where classes are given in such subjects as tree planting, stove building and alternative income enterprises. Prior to our arrival, they used a diesel generator for electrical power, which was quite expensive as fuel had to be brought down river at a high cost. Also, they had to run the 10,000W generator even when the load was only half a dozen 60W bulbs! So, everyone was delighted when I offered to install a PV system that would cover all of their electrical needs, except when large scale trainings were being conducted.

Part of this year's Solar Roots activities was to bring over some US students to volunteer with us and experience Burma from a closer, more involved point of view. We recruited two graduate students from UC Berkeley, Mike and Lisa, and they stayed 3 weeks, both in Pyin Oo Lwin and down in the Delta. Our first job in the Delta was the MSN training center and the students had the opportunity to get some hands-on expeience with PV and work alonside the Myanmar people. It was great to spend a few days on the island, with everything so watery and green. Rainy season had begun and there were dramatic downpourings of rain that left as quickly as they came. Needless-to-say, the heat and the bugs were equally epic!
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Kan Daw Village

After leaving MSN and the Bogalay region, Mike and Lisa and I traveled to Kan Daw, a Pwo Karen village, which is near Pathein, in the western part of Burma. This visit was arranged by my good friend and collaborator, Kehzer, who works for Alin Ain and specializes in setting up lending groups, as a tool in building community. I have worked with Kehzer and his groups in the Delta, several times before, but this visit stands out for the unparalelled warmth and generosity of the villagers in Kan Daw. A relatively prosperous rice-growing village, Kan Daw started a savings group 2 years ago and now it has over 100 members and is a key institution in stabilizing the community as it faces the challenges of the impacts of globalization, climate change and the encroaching modern world. I gave a two-day PV course, which Mike and Lisa helped with, and I demonstrated some of the new individual solar kits that I had recently sourced in Yangon. Previously, we had used a system that required the batteries to be brought to a central location for solar charging, but based on requests for individual home systems, I brought 10 units for distribution to savings group members. Like before, recipients pay back the cost of the system to the savings group and that money is used to buy more systems. Solar Roots provides the seed money for the first set and it's self-sustaining after that. I was particularly pleased to find a Myanmar solar company, (Asia Solar), in Yangon that assembles the kits in-county. Kehzer told me recently that, even before the first kits have been paid for, the community has decided to buy another 10 units - so pleased are they with the new solar lights and phone charger.

The villagers of Kan Daw are Buddhist, all belong to the Pwo Karen group and are very active in preserving their language and culture. As part of their generous hospitality to us, we were given hand-woven Karen tunics and treated to a lively display of traditional Karen dances by the local youth. Mike and Lisa actually joined in and learned some of the more exotic moves!

Other Stove Projects
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After the stove training at Naung Taung, I determined to upgrade the materials of the combustion chamber for increased longevity, so Hamish and I built  an institutional-sized stove with an 8"X8" stainless steel combustion chamber. Later, this stove was installed in the SMOC kitchen and is undergoing testing as I write. Stainless steel may not be the final answer, due to it's relatively high cost and specialized tools needed to work it, but it's one more step in getting closer to the design that will really reduce smoke, reduce wood consumption and be affordable for locals to build.
Another material that I am experimenting with is made from a mixture of cement and rice husk ash in equal proportions. I learned about this mixture from the work of Alex Belonio in the Phillipines, though I have adapted the molding shapes. For some time, I have had difficulty producing clay bricks that were sufficiently hard to withstand the rigors of daily use in a stove and I'm hoping that this new mixture will be able to take the heat. Normally, cement is not considered a good material for stoves, but Mr Belonio assures us that by adding the rice husk ash, the cement can be made into a refractory (heat resistant), material. I used the same molds for the 5-brick stove mentioned at the beginning of this blog and plan to make up a few samples with thinner walls and get them out for field testing in January.
One exciting contact I made this year was with a group of potters who make large flower pots for export and who have great expertise in the area of clay and kilns. In their factories located in the Dry Zone, (near Shwebo), they are having difficulty with the cost and availability of wood to fire their pots. We have arranged to co-operate on our respective areas of knowledge next year - they will help me learn about clay and firing and I will help them find more efficient ways to fire their kilns, hopefully using rice husk as a fuel. It's going to be an exciting year next year and I hope you will follow our progress and support our projects.

The training lasted 11 days and was held in the Metta demonstration farm, just outside town. Set in 30 acres of forest and paddy fields, this site was perfect. The participants were from all over Myanmar, from Mytkina in the north to Bogalay in the south – I was honored that people had traveled so far to take my training. These participants were a somewhat specialized group in that they were already employed as community activists and technicians. They indeed proved to be a hard group to impress with my renewable bells and whistles, but by the end, I had won them over and they genuinely thanked me for the new knowledge they had gained.

As always, I myself learned some valuable lessons during the training. This time, I discovered that there are better clays than the one I had used at the two Asia Light trainings, which did not produce really strong bricks. Mr Lum Po, the farm manager kindly showed us where the best clay was to be found. It turned out that at the bottom of the irrigation ditches feeding the paddy fields there was a rich black clay and elsewhere there was a an outcrop of thick brown clay. These proved to be far superior to the clays I had used before. Mr Lum Po also showed us some termite hills and knowing that repairs to brick houses in Madagascar were made with termite clay, famed for it's stickiness and strength, I thought I would try that too.

The Stove training followed the usual pattern, making the angled bricks from clay and insulating material,(charcoal and rice husks), in molds. I had had these heavy metal molds made by my favorite welder in Pyin Oo Lwin, and although very rugged, they still didn't produce a brick with exactly 45 degree sides. But as the bricks can be “shaved” after firing, this isn't a big problem.

We were surprised to discover that the termite clay did not produce a strong brick, when mixed with insulating material. Mr Lum Po was especially surprised as he had previously made a clay rabbit from this same termite material and even without firing, it had turned out “as hard as a brick”! I obviously still have a lot to learn about clays and how to produce a strong, yet insulative, brick.

The PV course took place while the bricks were drying in the sun and although often turgid during the theory periods, the pace picked up during the hands-on sessions. I must learn how to enliven these PV courses, incorporating more practical sessions and inventing games that illustrate the principles I wish to communicate. The farm already had a PV system, but as usual, it had an old car battery and some very tenuous electrical connections. I had brought two 80W PV panels with me to demonstrate the water pump but I decided to use them instead for a second system in parallel with the existing one. The new PV panels were mounted on a manual tracker, made from common plumbing fittings, that allows the user to follow the sun during the day, and obtain the highest solar yield possible. 

Passing On
This year's trip was strangely accompanied by reminders of our mortality. In January, just before arriving in Myanmar, I rushed back to Scotland to be with my family and our mother, Mary, at the moment of her passing. I feel very grateful to have spent so much time with her, both in Scotland and California, at a period in our lives, when “the pressure was off” and we could relate more as equals and friends. She will be dearly missed by all those who knew and loved her.

One day in Pyin Oo Lwin, our friend Patrick took us to visit a local Buddhist nunnery, which he supports and which has a hard time making ends meet. The number of little nuns, about 100, is being added to weekly from the on-going conflicts in Kachin State. As we watched the little nuns sing their songs and carry in huge armfuls of wood for the kitchen, no-one had any idea of the tragedy that was about to unfold. At the moment we were making our donations to the head nun, there was a rumbling noise from the rear of the compound, followed by screams. A wall had collapsed and two little nuns, five or six years old, had been crushed to death. We offered our truck for transportation, but the two little ones were beyond any help the outside could offer. We could do nothing, but take our sad farewells and leave the distraught head nun and her charges to to grieve the loss of these two young souls. 

Jumping on to Madagascar, I did a great deal of 4x4 travel to reach remote areas where I repaired solar systems in clinics, and this sometimes involved going up roads which were imfamous for bandit attacks. On four occasions, we had to travel on a road which although adjoining the major north-south Route National, was well-known for sniper attacks. Indeed, only one month earlier, a Malagasy Catholic priest was shot dead as he passed through in his car. This unfortunate incident was a tragic case of mistaken identity, as the shooter thought the priest was the money collector for the local beer company and that there would be a large haul in the car. Each time we passed his monument, a frisson went through all of us and the driver sunk a little lower down in his seat!

Lastly, when I arrived back in Tanzania I found out that Joseph ChaCha, my driver from three years ago had died in a car accident. A flat tire had caused the car to flip over and crash. No more will Joseph barrel across the plains of the Serengeti. 
Rest in Peace, Joseph.

Solar Roots Training Center
On another site visit with Patrick, (a Burmese friend with an adopted name), we visted a Gorka village on the edge of Pyin Oo Lwin. The Gorkas (or Gurkhas) are of course, the Nepalese tribe famous for their bravery in the British Army. They were brought to Myanmar during colonial times, and have carved out a niche for themselves, particularly in the higher altitude, ex-hill stations of Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin) and Kalaw.

Ostensibly, the visit was to see what we could do help this marginalised community, but after meeting the Sayadaw (head monk), of the village monastery, Patrick asked if I would like to buy a piece of land around there. This was not entirely out of the blue, as I had told him I was looking for a plot on which to build a house.

The village is made up of houses interspersed with fields of vegetables and flowers, grown for market. After looking at several plots for sale, we found one, at the end of the road, that perfectly fit the bill. It's a field of about half an acre, with a dozen or more jack fruit trees down one side and a beautiful view out back onto a jungle-covered “spirit mountain”, where the nats live. The trees will never be cut on this hill and a clear spring descends from high up to water the adjoining fields. 

I plan to return in December to build a modest bamboo house and later, the structure which will be used for Solar Roots training sessions. I envisage this now-barren field being full of fruit trees and flowering shrubs, with maybe a pond in the center. It's a dream and a glint in my eye at the moment, but the first step has been taken and I can't wait to take some more.

As it turned out, Ogre Island is a wonderful place. Partly due to the fact of being an island, Mon village culture is still widely preserved. The houses are built close together, with constant visiting through doors that are only closed when everyone goes to sleep. It's one of the most peaceful and relazed places I've ever been. That's not to say that the people are just lazing around, chatting the day away. I was taken to see, (as I suspect, most visitors are), a family-owned rubber band factory and a woodworkers' shop that exports to other SE Asian countries. As an extra treat, I was taken to an ice making machine that is driven by a diesel engine, with producer gas from a rice husk gasifier added for fuel savings. Funky doesn't even begin to describe it. I was thrilled!

The land is flat and fertile, and were it not for the fierce heat and stratospheric humidity, Ogre Island would be high on my list of places to retire to, (whenever that will be!).

The flagship project this year was the installation of a Solar Hot Water system at St Mathews Orphanage Center (SMOC), in Pyin Oo Lwin. I was ably assisted by our first volunteer, Cory, a solar professional from Canada. He and several SMOC helpers put the system together in record time, easily overcoming the few technical hitches that ocurred. We had to hoist the larger items up to the roof, but that proved to be no problem.

The solar collectors, purchased in Mandalay, are of the evacuated tube type and work very well, even in low light conditions. One of the tanks proved to be defective but I was able to exchange it for a new one. This was very surprising, as the Warranty in Burma usually only lasts from the shop door to your taxi!

We set up 5 showers each for boys and girls and by 12 noon, the shower water is already extremely hot. Showering, instead of a dreaded obligation, has become a popular past-time! ​

I want to make a special mention of the great people at St Mathews: Mr Ting Hkaw and his wife, Mr Kiang Hkaw, Mr Tu Mai and Mr Sai Mai, all of whom looked after Cory and I, like royalty. They gave us acommodation, three wonderful meals per day and best of all, their friendship. Many thanks!

Expecting not to have the hot showers we had gotten used to at SMOC, Cory and I modified some locally-built watering cans and converted them into individual-sized solar water heaters. Counting on two well-known phenomena, (the albedo and greenhouse effects), we painted the cans black and put them inside clear plastic bags. They worked a treat!

It was fascinating to see the Myanmar and foreign participants get on so well together. Part of the thrill for the foreigners was to actually be living in a Buddhist monastery and to be interacting with Myanmar people on a more intimate level that the usual tourist-local dynamic. All in all, our part of it was a great success, and we received many accolades from the participants.

Maungmya is located in the northwestern part of the Ayerwaddy Delta and is a very pleasant small regional market town and administrative center. I've been re-reading “Finding George Orwell in Burma” by Emma Larkin and coincidentally, Orwell was posted to Myaungmya for several months in the 1920s. The town still retains many old colonial era buildings and a relaxed back-water atmosphere.

Father Benjamin started the Ayerwaddy Homeland project over twenty years ago and it's main goal is to provide community livliehood and education while conserving the traditional rural lifestyle through sustainable agriculture. This is a noble task and Father Benjamin is deeply committed to helping his community be as self-sufficient as possible. I visited both the community living in the forest and the hostels for students in Myaungmya and the nearby large port city of Pathein.

In their search for sustainable and integrated agricultural practices, the AH project has started a piggery, worm composting, build their own rice mill and grain storage, and planted rubber trees interspersed with pineapples, without damaging the forest. They have their own machine shop and will undertake any project with a real 'can-do' attitude.

Although they already have a small solar system in the forest community, I brought down 4 of our small Candle Replacement Kits for individual homes. These were given to the volunteer teachers in the forest school and they were received with great joy and appreciation. Just before I left Yangon to continue on to Madagascar, I arranged for the purchase and delivery of one of our large 24 home kits, with central solar charging. This will provide light to almost every home in the forest community and should reduce costs, as well as improve indoor air quality and safety.

Next, it was back to the Delta near Pyapon, with my good friend, Kehzer, and the Alin Ein savings group. First, we returned to Mayanwa village where we had installed the first Candle Replacement Solar Kit last year. I was delighted to hear that everyone was happy with their lights and batteries. There had been some equipment failures, but in typical Myanmar fashion, people were able to make repairs or find substitutes. The best news was that after only 10 months, the entire cost of the solar system has been recouped by the savings group, through the fees for battery charging, and therefore, another complete system can be purchased and given to another savings group.This way, Solar Roots provides only the seed money for the first system, and after that, it's a self-sustaining project, run by the local community. This is the kind of “development” model I've been searching for!

So, on this trip we brought another complete solar kit to get one more community started on the path to solar independence. Normally, the villager spends 100 Kyats (12 cents US), per day on candles, but the solar charging fees work out at only 50 Kyats per day, and the light is much stronger, safer and healthier. Another project of Alin Ein is to help the Savings group organize the purchase of boats for their members. During the 2008 Cyclone Nargis, most people lost their small boats, which are essential in an area with no roads, but dozens of rivers and waterways. To rents a boat costs 8-10,000 Kyats ($8 -$12), per month. But a new boat can be purchased for 100,000Kyats ($100). So far, 16 boats have been purchased, and the beneficiary only pays 2% on the loan.

The Delta is one of my favorite places in Burma – flat, verdant, watery – with extremely kind, resilient and open people. We spent a very enjoyable week there, giving another PV training and visiting old and new friends. The weather is extremely hot, even during cool season, but it somehow feels healthy to me. The air is clean and the food is great. This year I was treated to deep fried field mice and rats. The taste was OK, but the crunching of the bones was just too much for me, and I had to turn down the offer of a second mouse! The Karen are famous for eating anything that walks, slithers, swims or flies. I cracked a joke that was much appreciated : “In my next incarnation, I don't want to be born as a small animal, anywhere near a Karen village!”.

Mandalay had enjoyed a brief period as the capital of Burma, just before the annexation of Upper Burma by British forces in 1885. Several previous, much more ancient capitals , such as Sagaing and Amarapura are located nearby, but they are now dusty backwaters, eclipsed by Mandalay’s rise as the new commercial center of Upper Burma. Commercial ‘epi-center’ might be more apt as Mandalay is the prime destination for much of the Chinese investment in Burma and distribution center for products from China. From only 5% of the population 10 years ago, Chinese residents of Mandalay are now estimated at 20%. Large multi-story hotel blocks are springing up everywhere, new car showrooms proliferate, all financed by Chinese dollars and even Chinese schools are opening for business. Many Burmese are beginning to feel resentment over the power and domination of their neighbor to the North. To adapt the old Mexican adage, “Poor Burma! So far from God, so close to China!”

I had arranged a stove training through a Muslim school which prepares students to attend universities in Singapore and Malaysia, for which there is a great demand. Interestingly, although there are many universities in Burma, graduates tell me that they learned almost nothing during their years there. The classes are designed so students will pass the final exam, but not so they will be able to practice their trade as electrical engineers or lawyers. A bizarre system of cronyism that gives one pause for thought when crossing that new suspension bridge or contemplating a visit to the dentist!

My course took place in a workshop that trains young people how to weld stainless steel furniture, (a popular item in Burma), and the trainees were obliged to be in my class. Unfortunately, they were little interested in stoves for poor villagers and they were usually dragged away to weld yet more shelves and clothes racks. At first disappointed, (to say the least), I later regained my composure and used my free time to explore other Rocket stove designs which address some of the complaints I had heard from new users. The main complaint is that one has to carefully manage the small sticks in a Rocket to maintain a lively fire and people resent the time and effort this requires. In the literature I rediscovered the Down-feed/Downdraft design and I had the workshop weld me up a prototype. I was completely blown away by how well this new design worked. It solved many of the problems associated with the classic Side-feed model. It was a Damascus Road moment for me and the whole Acme Stove Works enterprise. I decided there and then to concentrate on the Downfeed. We will see if I can solve some of the design problems that have led other stovers to eschew the Down-feed in favor of the Side-feed. Stay tuned.

The Delta

My next project was to give a 4-day solar training in Yangon, with my friend Kezar and his group, Alin Ein. Most of the participants were from the Delta of the Irrawaddy River, which was devastated during Cyclone Nargis in 2008.   They had traveled all day to be there and their expectations were high. I gave them the full ‘Introduction to PV’ course and most of them were able to understand a great deal. Introducing people to accurate conceptions of Voltage, Current, Power and Energy is always difficult, as the terms are often confused and used interchangeably. 

The high point of the training came when we made a visit to the Delta area and it was quite a trip to get there. First we took a ferry across the Yangon River, then a very bumpy two hour taxi ride to Pyapon, then a two hour journey by long-tail river boat. What a different world this was!  In contrast to many parts of Burma, which are dry and dusty, the Delta is lush and verdant. It is more water than land, but the land is very rich and productive. It indeed, the ‘rice bowl’ of Burma. 

The primary reason for making the journey was to install a solar battery charging station, which was a new joint pilot-project between Alin Ein and Solar Roots. Alin Ein has been helping people in the Delta recover from the devastation wrought by Nargis in 2008. Over 140,000 people were killed outright by the cyclone and the entire infrastructure and economy of the region was decimated. The government contributed little to the relief effort and actually delayed aid offered by foreign governments and NGOs. Most of the initial relief was provided by the Burmese people themselves and the nascent civil society organizations. It’s been a long slow climb back to where they were before the disaster. 

The solar system consisted of 24 small batteries and 24 ultra-efficient LED lights, a 30W solar panel and 4 charge controllers. We conceive of it as a ‘candle replacement’ program, where instead of spending 100 Kyat (12 cents) per day on candles, the homeowner will pay 100 Kyat per week to have their  battery charged at the solar station . Thus 24 homes will have safe, more environmentally friendly light, and the funds generated will go on to jump-start other community projects. The latest news is that the lights are very much appreciated, the batteries are being brought in for charging on time and Alin Ein wants to roll out several more systems next year. As those of you who know me well are aware, I am a great Mississippi Delta blues fan, and I’ll return to follow the backwaters of the Ayerwaddy, because, as the song goes, “my heart is in the Delta”!

The following week I went up to Taungoo, near Nay Pyi Daw, the new capital. There I had a large class of over 20 people, several of whom already had solar systems, but who still had many questions. There were the same explanations to be given  around why a car battery will never work well in a solar system and why discharging a battery down to zero is the worst thing you can do to it. These are hard lessons to accept for people who are totally stretched just to buy that old car battery.

Asia Light Monastery

My last training for this trip was a great experience for me and the participants. It was arranged by my good friend Patrick, (an adopted name, as he is a Pyin Oo Lwin native), and was held at the Asia Light Monastery, just out of town. Asia Light, under the direction of its forward-looking SayaDaw, (head monk), has embarked on an innovative program of trainings for monks, nuns, monastic teachers and lay people. They have already given courses in organic gardening, adobe brick building, globalization  and alternative education. Having heard about my stove training at SMOC, they now wanted a helping of that too. I was really excited about training the monastic teachers because they came from all over the country and worked with hundreds of students back in their home towns and villages. But simultaneously I was apprehensive as it was just after Water Festival and buying tools and materials was not a sure thing. But in the end it all worked out and the young teachers and I had a wonerderful time together.

Schools in monasteries are responsible for picking up the 50% of children who do not attend a government school. The young teachers, mostly women, are paid a very low salary, if anything at all, but are extremely dedicated to helping their communities progress. An added bonus was the presence of two nuns, a young monk and an older, aloof monk, who eventually came around and opened up. I started off with stove theory as always and after 30 minutes, I could hear the yawns and see the eyes glazing over. (I must find a way to spice up this section of the training!).

But next day it was on to practical brick making and that delighted everyone – hands got muddy, a little competition developed  between groups as to who could make the best-looking bricks etc. I wanted to concentrate on my new pet idea, which is adding a Downfeed tube to the existing Sidefeed Rocket stove and this seemed the perfect group to try it out with. At first they were skeptical – wouldn’t the flames escape from the Downfeed tube and not even go into the chimney? But a quick demonstration on my welded steel prototype soon convinced them. I am constantly amazed at how well Burmese people work together, take on responsibility and find inventive ways to solve problems cooperatively. This group was set to study together for the next two months and the training was an excellent opportunity for building team spirit. At first the participants were a little shy of me and of each other, but the end , they were getting down and rocking.

I loved the way they pushed back the tables I had so thoughtfully provided for them and they crouched together in very tight circles, banging away with hammers, chattering and joking! They worked with energy, precision and thoughtfulness, and were indeed, a very easy and pleasant group to train. One of the wonderful benefits of working in Burma is the great respect given to older people and teachers, two groups I can now count myself a member of. 

We finished our stoves with the new Downfeed tubes and they worked great. Our clay to charcoal mixture still wasn’t right and the bricks turned out a little soft, but it was a good lesson for everyone. On the last night we had a “party” in the Sayadaw’s quarters and the group really started getting wild. We danced free-form to Shan music and in a sweet gesture, they presented me with a beautiful traditional Shan tunic and matching baggy pants. I feel we bonded closely and I look forward to meeting my students again next year. I especially want to renew my contact with the Sayadaw, who is a very progressive monk and sees clearly the important role to be played by monasteries in the development of Burma.

The Ceramic Society

I made a day visit to Twante, about two hours outside of Rangoon, to visit the Ceramic Society of Myanmar, as I was very interested in finding someone with ceramics experience to help me make Downfeed stoves out of clay. I came to the right place. The Director welcomed me warmly and explained how Twante had been the center of the Burmese ceramics industry for hundreds of years, specializing in Celadon pottery. Celadon is a more eco-friendly glaze that uses ashes instead of lead to get the typical brown-green color and sheen.

Tragically, Twante was right in the path of Cyclone Nargis, and almost all of the kilns were destroyed. Now over 600 families have nowhere to fire their  pottery. The Ceramics Society is busy trying to revive the industry by building new kilns and finding markets for the potters’ products. Among other things, they are making a clay stove, and next year I hope to help them make it more efficient. Twante is a quiet place on the edge of the Delta and I look forward to staying there and learning more about Burmese life in a small town.

Downtown Rangoon was laid out by the British during their colonial occupation from 1852 till 1947 and there are still many impressive Victorian buildings gently falling down from their former glory as physical expressions of British imperial will. But it is the people that impress most. At the time of Burmese independence in 1947, Rangoon was largely populated by migrants from India, some involuntary, but many seeking opportunity in a less competitive environment. Most left following Independence or in the purges after 1962.  However, the remaining residents of Indian descent still dominate the street culture of downtown, with their restaurants, street stalls, tea houses, temples and mosques. There is, of course, a Chinatown, and that’s where I go to get my solar panels. Rangoon sits on a bend in the Yangon River, which can handle ocean-going ships and it still has many of the warehouses and go-downs from when Brittania ruled the waves. An odd connection for me is that during the colonial period, commerce in Burma was dominated by Scots.  Steel Bros (Rice), The Bombay-Burmah Trading Corporation (Timber), Burmah Oil and The Irrawaddy Flotilla Company were all in Glaswegian hands. It’s a city of glaring contrasts – if you raise your eyes to take in a gleaming new tower, you risk falling 6ft into an open sewer. As Paul Simon so aptly put it, we live in an era of lasers in the jungle!

Note on spelling of place of names:
In 1989 the government changed the name of the country from Burma to Myanmar and also the spellings of most of the major towns. Rangoon became Yangon, Bassein became Pathein, Moulmein became Mawlamyine etc. Most people inside the country use the new versions. While many opposing people outside the country use the old ones. In my blog I use both, according to familiarity, poetic resonance and whim. Actually, most names are really the same word, in the Burmese form and the romanized form. Bamar/Myanmar was changed to Burma by the Brits, it is the also the name for the Burman people and their language, but don’t get me started on these intricacies!

Recent Developments

​Burma is opening up its economy quickly to outside investment. Real estate development is booming. Previously, one had to have crisp, unfolded $100 bills and change them under the table at Scott Market. Now government banks exchange currency and today, I saw several ATMs being installed outside new banks from which they were just removing the plastic wrapping. Chinese money is pouring in, confidence is high that investments will be more secure than before, (not hard!). I just wonder what will happen to the people-counter vendors and the Indian street urchins amid all this?  More (urban) jungle than laser for them, I fear. Rap music is huge, dyed hair is everywhere, and Burmese males follow the English Premier Football League as if their lives depended on the results. Thirty years ago, Burma was an isolated backwater, now it’s at the crossroads of Asia, poised between the two new giants, China and India. It is developing quickly, but the transnational corporations are circling, looking to exploit its abundant natural resources.

Pyin Oo Lwin

​My first scheduled training was in Pyin Oo Lwin, formerly called Maymyo, which was a garrison town and hill station during the colonial period. It’s still a garrison town and the weather is still pleasantly cool at around 3,300ft in altitude. There are quite a few vestiges of its previous occupants, like large brick Tudor-style villas, horse drawn buggies and a significant Nepalese population. It is the main supplier of cool weather vegetables and strawberries for the entire nation.

I had visited St Mathew’s Orphanage Center (SMOC) last year, got on well with the director and agreed to return with a solar pump for their farm. This year, we started first with a Rocket stove training. The form was very similar to the training I did at Nu Po camp, (see above). We still didn’t have our brick firing technique down cold, so the bricks were more crumbly than was useful. However, we made some really pretty good looking stainless steel combustion chamber stoves that worked just fine. In these trainings I don’t offer the “perfect stove”, but rather, some new ideas and stove building principals that I hope participants will then use along with their own creativity to build stoves from local resources that will really suit their needs.

While we were waiting for the bricks to harden, we did a one-day introduction to Solar PV and then took the opportunity to visit the farm to install the solar water pump. The SMOC farm is 20 miles out of town along the old WW2 “Burma Road” to China, then 10 miles off-road through a devastated treeless landscape that was a forest less than 30 years ago. Pressure on land in this area has led to the wholesale cutting of all the forest as far as the eye can see. Being this close to China is a double-edged sword that cuts deep when your neighbor holds the hilt. On the farm they grow rice, wheat and vegetables for their own table and sell the surplus. The problem is that the all-year stream is 5ft below the level of their fields. Until now they have been carrying water in buckets to irrigate the crops – a back-breaking and time-consuming job. Enter the Shurflo pump and Solar Roots. I had already used this pump at Jim’s farm in Sangklaburi, so I knew it was up to the task – to lift the water from the stream and pump it 350ft horizontally, all day if necessary

Previously, we had made the one and a half hour trip to Mandalay to buy the solar panels and sundry materials. Along with the pump, I had brought a special controller from the US that optimizes the panel output to match the pump’s requirements. To make the system just perfect we installed the panels on a rotating mount, (built from plumbing parts), with which they can track the sun to squeeze every last gallon out of the available sunlight. The SMOC people are good Christian folks from Kachin State, but they have heard the Solar Gospel, and they saw that it was good!

On my day off, I had the good fortune to visit the only tea plantation in the area and a demonstration farm belonging to the Lisu Theological Seminary. The unfortunate thing that links these two properties is that the new controversial oil and gas pipelines headed for  China, go right through them. At the tea plantation the manager insisted I take a packet of his export grade tea as a present, despite my attempts to pay. I thought ruefully about these California wineries where they charge you considerably more for a bottle of their wine than you would pay in your neighborhood supermarket. Just for the unique experience, you know!