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Tenth Epistle from the Border - Nu Po News

3/1/2012

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​I was invited to give a Rocket Stove workshop at Nu Po Refugee camp a few weeks ago and gladly accepted. It would delay my arrival in Myanmar by two weeks, but the prospect seemed well worth it. In the end I decided to give a solar PV training too and in order to transport all my material there I had to hire a pick up truck and driver for the day. One hundred dollars, but well spent, as I no longer had any restriction on the amount of gear I could bring. In order to get there,  we had to take the famous “Highway of Death” between Mae Sot and Umphang, which was so vividly described in my Fourth Epistle from the Border, see above. This crazy piece of road engineering has 1,200 bends in 160kms! If that were not enough to merit the above-mentioned moniker, during the 60’s to the 80’s there were many deaths from snipers belonging to the Thai Communist Party and local opium growers, two groups who sternly resented the interest the Thai government was taking in their respective affairs. However, those days are long gone and now tourism and the business generated by looking after Burmese refugees are the only games in town.
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One of the 1,200 bends along the Highway of Death
PictureHow I looked after my last Highway trip!
​My host was a genial Dutchman called Ton, who teaches at an economic development school in the camp and who has dedicated the last 15 years to this work in various camps up and down the border. Hats off to you, Ton!  He is a movie buff too and within a couple of days, the Nu Po Roxie was up and running.  Nu Po is very close to the Myanmar border and is set in beautiful mountain surroundings. Although only established five or six years ago, it has over 15,000 residents and they make up a diverse community indeed. Since it is just opposite Karen state, most of the residents are Karen, but there are also Kachin, Shan, Burman and many moslems. The moslems are the merchants and the teahouse operators.  Curiously, many camp residents did not need to flee for their lives, they came for the free educational opportunities or to try to be resettled in third countries. However, many others have harrowing tales to tell. One of my students had to flee Kachin state when his brother became a ‘person of interest’ because of his political activity. Another, older gentleman , a Burman, clearly had been an intellectual or a functionary of some kind and had to flee five years ago, leaving all behind him. These two were my most enth
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Market day inside the camp
PictureSifting crushed clay to get the fine powder
​On planning the stove training I decided to make insulative clay bricks for the combustion chambers and use square cooking oil tins as the containers. Luckily, there already existed demonstration videos on Youtube and I was able to project them for the participants to study. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I wonder what the calculation is for a moving picture? Although I had studied the videos carefully myself, I had never actually built any of these stoves or indeed fired any bricks. In the videos the clay came out of nice neat paper bags, clearly purchased from the neighborhood pottery supply store. I knew that wasn’t going to happen in Nu Po, but I trusted that at least one of the resourceful Karen would have some clay working experience. I was not disappointed. We dug the clay from an existing hole on the school grounds, pounded it into smaller pieces then sifted that through some fine mesh to obtain the clay powder we would need.
PictureThe wet bricks will lie in the sun for two days before being put in the kiln
For insulative material to mix with the clay we had three available choices, fine hardwood sawdust, rice husks and powdered charcoal. We used all three and experimented with proportions, as the videos were a little vague in that area. We made the brick molds from plywood and lined them with plastic sheets to make removal of the wet bricks easier, (or indeed, even possible!). Our kiln was a 55-gallon oil drum with the lid cut off and our heat source was rice husks.  I had chosen two different bricks shapes, one we called the Africa brick and one we called the Lao brick, after the origin of the videos we were watching. So, after making enough bricks for three Africa stoves and two Lao stoves we loaded up the kiln and held an official lighting ceremony. I was anxious that the husks would keep going out, but once well lit, they burned surprisingly consistently, until they hit the mass of clay bricks. We had packed the bricks too densely and there were not enough husks around them to sustain a burn. But after 48 hours, each brick got at least one side well cooked. The students repacked and another 48 hour firing was started. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the second firing was finished and I am waiting to hear news about the results.
PictureOur makeshift kiln was a regular puffin' Billy!
​While the kiln was in action we were not idle, no siree Bob! I explained the function and benefits of Pot Skirts and the participants brought their own pots for custom fittings. 
The older gentleman, mentioned above, took his creation home at lunchtime and came racing back in the afternoon with a pot twice as large, saying that his wife loved it and that she wanted another one for her gas stove. The advantage she saw was that it directed the heat away from her face.
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Several solar devices and testers were employed to illustrate basic electrical concepts
For the next four days I gave an introductory training in Solar PV. After much classwork and occasional sleepiness, we would emerge into the bright sunlight to demonstrate and test what we had learned with my show-and-tell bag of solar cells, fans and lights. The basic electric concepts of voltage, current, resistance, energy and power are difficult to master for most westerners and doubly so for those who are meeting them for the first time. However, without a decent grasp of these terms, no-one can design or troubleshoot a PV system. ​
PictureMr Cowboy checks to see that everything is flowing as it should
​We also visited three existing PV systems in the camp, which was extremely instructive, as all three suffered from one maladie or another. The batteries in the  large system at the camp administrative office had been allowed to boil off most their acid and thus were ruined.  The man charged with looking after the system, affectionately nicknamed Mr Cowboy, was not there when it was installed and had never received any maintenance training. What had been a good powerful system, now could only power two lights for 30 minutes before shutting down. Next we visited a private home where there was a panel and two batteries, but no charge controller. Normally, this is a no-no, but having two batteries ensured that there were never enough hours in the day to overcharge them. I recommended that the two batteries be joined together in parallel to equally charge them both. An amusing incident, (for everyone except the victim), happened at this house. Upstairs we met the family, including a chubby infant, and after reviewing the solar system, we descended to the ground floor to partake of some instant coffee. After a few minutes one participant started patting his head with a questioning look on his face as he surveyed the ceiling for the source of the droplets raining down on him.  This merely illustrates the ancient Karen proverb that goes “People who live in bamboo houses must always be ready for the occasional golden shower”. The last site visit was a shop where the panel was facing almost due North, and of course, contributing very little to the health and welfare of the batteries. We sorted that out and soon were on our way home, having learned much and help a little bit too.
PictureFamily selling cabbages at the market
​At the risk of boring the non-battery afficiandos in the audience, I would like to explain about how many of the camp residents get their electricity. There are several small hydro turbines and motor generators that put out occasionally wildly erratic voltages. These are used to charge old car batteries that are then connected to Burmese made-inverters to deliver a loose approximation of 220V for TVs and lights. The short life and poor performance of these batteries are due to several perfect-storm circumstances that not even the most valiant electro-chemical device could withstand. Here’s the sad tale: the batteries are only pressed into domestic service after they will no longer start cars, if they get water, it will be muddy stream water or rainwater, (rarely the mandatory distilled water), they will be discharged to within an inch of their lives on a daily basis and recharged by people who have only the vaguest idea about battery maintenance and no financial incentive to learn more. Oh, and did I mention that car batteries will inevitably have a short and unhappy life if used in deep cycle applications?  I had hopes of being able to improve the situation, but when one man asked me why he should take his battery back to the recharger before every last watthour had been squeezed out of it, I couldn’t come up  with a reason that made financial sense to him. Why take your pail to the dairy with some milk still in it? They’ll only charge you for your own milk! My entreaties about long term investments fell on deaf ears, as well they might for people who are grateful to still be alive and out of prison. ‘Nuff said about batteries.
PictureWe tried to hurry along the sun drying with a little turbo charge from the parabolic cooker!
​As the bricks gently cooked, we also installed a new solar system on the library building. I had intended to just purchase a small 12V system, as much for a teaching aid as anything else. But my purchase choices were limited and we ended up with a slightly larger 24V system, that will actually supply much of the electricity needed, much of the year. After 3 days of lectures and demonstrations, the students were ready for some hands-on work. Either I’m getting much better at this, or these participants were really bright, (a combination of the two I’m guessing), but the install went very smoothly with only discreet oversight and the occasional suggestion from myself.
PictureThe new 185 Watt panel on the Library building
With only two days left, the bricks were still not baked, so I started a new rocket stove design featuring a sheet metal combustion chamber. This was done to illustrate the use of another material and the example built by our Kachin participant was an object of beauty. This galvanized metal will only last a month or two, but I did bring some thicker stainless steel that they can use for the r​eal thing later on.
PictureSerious looking graduates from the solar class
​So ended a very successful and satisfying two weeks. All the participants were extremely grateful for the knowledge and skills imparted, including the megabytes of pdf documents on every subject from gasifiers to greenhouses. Solar Roots left behind a nascent collection of tools for stove building including an angle grinder and cordless drill and I hope some positive feelings about technology transfer and East-West cooperation.
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View from Vietnam

1/23/2012

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I came to Dalat, Vietnam to work with Dr Paul Olivier on his gasifier stove project and learn about his other innovative endeavors . He envisions closed-loop recycling systems, where the ‘waste’ from one element becomes the resource for another. These technologies have particular application integrated ecological agriculture. For example, one can ferment cabbage trimmings, (100 tons per day produced in Dalat), and feed them to pigs, the pigs’ feces can be fed to black soldier flies and composting red worms, the BSF pupae and red worms can be fed to fish, the worm castings can be sold for a high price as fertilizer……………. and so on.
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Dr Paul communing with the radiant energy
His gasifier stove operates on rice husks and coffee husks, both of which are waste products in most parts of the world. Gasification is the process where the biomass, (husks etc), is heated to the point where it releases a combustible gas that is then burned at another location, several inches or even many feet away. It is much less smoky than direct combustion and is the only feasible technology for burning small, loose, evenly-sized biomass like husks. It also produces biochar as a by-product, which is useful in increasing soil creation and fertility.  However, small scale gasifiers for domestic kitchen use are in their infancy and there are several problems to be addressed before they will be widely adopted by cooks. One breakthrough that Paul and I made was the addition of a wire mesh grill above the flame that transformed the energy from hot gases into radiant energy, which is much more focused and efficient. It was one of these serendipitous moments when we were out of ideas on how to focus the burner flame, then Paul found an old kitchen sieve lying around in the workshop and popped it onto the burner – Hallelujah and Eureka!
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The kitchen sieve really transforms the efficacy of the gasifier!
I was very fortunate to come across two young Americans, Loren Cardelli and Will Rutherford, who are in Dalat to help local farmers adopt ecological agricultural techniques and to work with Dr Paul. Check out their non-profit, A Growing Culture at http://www.agrowingculture.org/. They invited me to share their rented house and to open the Dalat Roxie, which is enjoying great popularity. Loren is an expert in stock raising, particularly pigs, and Will’s forte is plant raising. They are helping local farmers learn about living beds for pigs, natural fertilizers like Effective Micro-organisms and cover crops like perennial peanuts. The economy in Vietnam is expanding rapidly and agricultural production is keeping pace. However, there is excessive use of chemical pesticides, herbicides and other destructive agricultural practices. Dalat, being high in the mountains, has a cool climate, ideal for vegetable and fruit production. There are greenhouses as far as the eye can see, many of them stuffed, not with vegetables, but with flowers. The chemical run-off from these operations is starting to create a real pollution problem.
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Terraces, hacked out of the hillside, get plastic greenhouses, in which to grow flowers, smothered in chemicals. Is this really development?
We recently visited a small farm where the main product is rice wine, but pigs are also raised. The farmer spends a great deal of money on coal to boil the rice, on feed for the pigs, and the pig waste is simply channeled into the adjacent stream. From an ecological agriculture point of view, it’s a disaster. Inputs are being imported at high cost, outputs are being lost and pollution is rampant. Will, Loren and Paul are discussing an integrated system where the pigs would occupy a living bed (absorbent material that traps the urine and is healthier than the current concrete floor), the rice would be boiled by a rice husk gasifier, and the pig feces would be collected in a pond covered with duckweed, which would be fed to the pigs etc, etc. Introducing new technologies like these requires gaining the confidence of the adoptees and avoiding disruption of their income stream. As with many situations in the development field, the technology is the simple part, it’s the cultural and economic part that is tricky.
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The huge pile of pig feces which ends up in the stream, with the help of the poor man who spends his day shoveling it.
I also met a French couple with whom I immediately bonded and who are leading an interesting and courageous life in a Montagnard village just outside Dalat. The Montagnards  are a minority people made up of many tribes, whose presence in Vietnam predates the arrival of the Vietnamese themselves. They live outside the majority Vietnamese society, surviving on the margins. Like other minorities I have met, (the Karen in Burma for example), the Montagnards get on well with outsiders and they formed alliances with the French and the Americans to fight against the Vietnamese in the 1950s through the 1970s. This, of course, did not endear them to the ultimate victors, the Vietnamese communists. The Montagnards have a split personality where they are on one hand, kind, gentle and almost naively innocent and on the other hand ferocious hunters and warriors, who excel in the jungle setting and who have for centuries conducted savage warfare against the Vietnamese and also, fellow tribesmen. The French couple, Pierre and Virginie, both have strong family ties to Vietnam and they are committed to helping the Montagnards with development projects. They introduced me to an sweet elderly couple called Baung and Maung, for whom Pierre and Virginie had purchased a small flock of sheep. But instead of raising the sheep for sale and slaughter, Baung fell in love with them, and now he will not part with a single one! Pierre is an expert beekeeper and along with growing and marketing coffee, he and Virginie are embarking on a new life in a new land, dedicated to helping those who are less fortunate.
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Virginie, Baung and Pierre. The sheep are peacefully grazing elsewhere, under Maung's watchful eye.
My other impressions of Vietnam are diverse and perhaps not representative of the country, as Dalat is a prosperous corner in a large and rapidly changing society. I borrowed a moped from Paul and I have been braving the crazy traffic patterns here, all the while marveling that there aren’t more accidents. The main danger concerns vehicles joining the traffic flow from the right, (from the left or indeed any direction!), as the driver never looks to see if the spot he has chosen to enter might be occupied by another vehicle. He just pulls in and all other traffic has to swerve to accommodate him. Traffic lanes are observed only if there is not a good reason not to observe them. Here, might has right and size does matter. Many times I have had the pull off the road to avoid being crushed by an oncoming bus or truck. So far, there has always been somewhere to go. The key is never losing your vigilance of what is happening all around you at all times, no small feat!
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Perennial peanut seedlings that Will and Loren are propagating at Dalat University Agricultural Dept. They will be planted between rows of coffee and banana trees, fixing nitrogen in the soil and avoiding the application of herbicide.
The Vietnamese economy is on steroids. After decades of central planning and a stagnant economy, Vietnam is emerging into the mixed blessing of deregulation and the globalized market. Investment is evident everywhere and the Vietnamese, known as the world’s hardest workers, are reverting to type and grabbing the opportunity with both hands. These are people to be reckoned with. However, in the headlong rush towards industrialization, the country risks losing much of great value. There are laws regulating pollution and the conservation of natural resources, but they are not enforced, due to the endemic corruption at all levels of society. Consciousness of natural processes and balance have been cast to the winds, as Vietnam goes down the road pioneered by China, leading to rapid economic growth coupled with massive industrial and agricultural pollution. It is a salutary lesson to observe the development of the various countries I visit each year. Madagascar is so isolated economically and politically, Haiti is trapped in its benighted history, Burma is emerging from decades of isolation to be  surrounded by forces that would strip it bare and Vietnam is growing at an unsustainable rate that will leave it heavily polluted. However, I do have confidence that the Vietnamese people will rise to task, whatever that task turns out to be.
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Ancient knowledge meets modern technology as the venerable herbal healer consults his plant identification guide while his brother's grand-daughter looks up the same plants on her internet-connected tablet.
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Malagasy Journal #5

9/1/2011

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Another trip overseas is finished and it’s time for reflection and planning for next year. But first another excerpt from my Malagasy Journal.
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Sunrise over Ambohimahamasina. During the PV project I stayed in the new accomodation for trekkers - very comfortable and now with full electric lights and plugs.
I arrived in Madagascar this year with hopes and plans and enough funds to execute both. However, from Day One, it was to prove my most difficult trip, from a psychological and emotional point of view. I was depressed and despondent much of the time and being attacked by a modern day cut-purse, whose razor sliced right through my bag, notebook, t-shirt, and trousers shortly after I arrived, set me off on negative attitudinal decline that I only fully pulled out of at the end of the trip. But, as always, there were delightful moments and some real achievements, a few of which I will recount here.
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M.Donne, my most experienced helper, preparing to attach the mount frame for the solar panels. The roof was so steep that we had to use safety ropes at all times.
Ambohimahamasina Revisited
One of the two large projects I had pre-arranged with Sam, of Ny Tanintsika, a local NGO, was to install a 420 Watt PV system to power the Soamiray women’s basketry co-operative in Ambohimahamasina. A new two-storey building had just been completed with funds from Prosperer, a private sector/state funder that supports rural enterprises. They also funded the solar system, though not quite to the extend of the 1,000 Watts I had originally asked for. If I had been in charge of the purchasing, we could have bought the larger system for the same amount of money, but that’s another story! I had the metal racking for the panels welded up in Fianarantsoa and made the usual rounds of the covered market in Tsaralalanana, Tana, to get the best prices for tools, and cable etc.
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The finished solar array - 560 watts of PV power. The array is oddly positioned because the roof faces North-West and I needed to face the panels due North. Now there's plenty power to go round.
I had asked for 3 helpers to assist with the heavy lifting and to train up as knowledgeable maintenance men. But in the end, it turned out to be a jobs-program, where two were on-the-ball enough to grasp the fundamentals of PV and electricity, but three were restricted to heavy lifting under strict supervision. Luckily, the winter weather In  Madagascar is a delight to work in – a bit like summer in the Bay Area – cool, even foggy, mornings and evenings, with a pleasantly hot afternoon. The orientation and tilt angle for the panels was a bit of a challenge as the roof pointed north-west and it already had a 30 degree slope. But as all those who attended my later training sessions will , I hope, know, the panels must face due North in Madagascar and in Ambohimahamasina, should be tilted at about 22 degrees. I left a space on the racking for two more panels, should the funds ever become available. In short, the installation went very smoothly and we were even able to provide power for the local electricians who did the interior wiring of the lights and plugs. Three of the upstairs rooms of the Vannerie (basket weaving), building are dormitory rooms where tourists who come for trekking can stay. The co-op ladies manage this little business and it is another source of income for them. All in all, there are now 26 lights and 15 plugs, all powered by solar energy. The system was heralded by the whole community as a great success. I later came across a cheap source of what seemed like reliable panels in Tana, so purchasing two, I returned to Ambohimahamasina to complete the installation.
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The road to Solila - enough said!
PV Trainings
This year I held three PV training sessions – one in Tana for professionals or people wanting to break into PV, one in Solila and one in Ambalavao. The last two were attended by people who were already responsible for solar system attached to schools and clinics. The Tana one I gave in French as usual, but for the other two I was able to teach in English and have it simultaneously translated into Malagasy. This was a big improvement – many thanks to my translator Mamy Ives! Another innovation this year was the formalization of the curriculum for the Introduction to PV course. It took me 10 days of combing through all my reference books to come up with a 10-page document.  But now it’s done and each new training can be tailored to the participants using this curriculum. Mamy Ives is translating it into Malagasy and I’m sending it off for translation into Karen and Burmese.
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Translator Mamy Ives explains the use of the multimeter.
Sambavy
Another fun project this year was a quick visit to the village of Sambavy, near Fianarantsoa. This is the location of a large tea plantation and is tucked away in beautiful hills about 25 kms out of town. This was another small pilot project where we gave LED lights and small batteries  to 12 householders and a solar panel to one responsible person, who would operate the charging station as a small enterprise. I had brought the ultra-efficient lights from Burma and bought the rest of the equipment locally. Unfortunately, the high cost of the batteries and solar panel means that the charging fees and replacement costs will be much higher than in Burma. The batteries are brought back to the charging station twice a week and the latest report is that the pilot program is a great success.
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The two ladies tasked with charging the batteries everyday. Having had no warning of our coming nor any prior experience of batteries, they did a great job of mastering the details in a short period.
So another trip to L’ile Rouge was concluded and I was happy to head back to California, via Thailand. Eight months on the road is a long time and I plan to manage my schedule next year with more attention to rest and relaxation. We’ll see!
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I spent an afternoon at a battery repair shop, right there on the street in Fianarantsoa. The batteries are cut open, the ruined plates removed and replacements installed. The same acid is poured back in and you are out the door for $30! If they last another year, it's economically viable, but it's a dangerous, toxic business.
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Malagasy Journal #4

8/16/2011

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PictureMatching lambas during a dance performance
Malagasy Style
The Malagasy people are actually very stylish dressers in my opinion. Perhaps not in a style recognized by the international community, (a bit like their government), but in a style at once personal and idiosyncratic. The love of bright colors is evident in the sheets, blankets and lambas that people swathe themselves and their babies in. The lamba is a multi-purpose sheet of cloth that is used as a sarong, a baby carrier or head wrap. It has deep significance in Malagasy culture and was traditionally woven from local thread. Now most women wear a mass produced lamba of printed fabric. One of the fashion idiosyncrasies is that men often wear garments in delicate hues and to see a man sporting a shirt in flaming pink or very feminine lime green is not so unusual. The further one is from the city and foreign influence the more individual stylistic expression reigns. One amazing phenomenon is the access Malagasy people have to very stylish and well tailored clothes second-hand from Europe. Many times I see people in $120 North Face or Polar Tec jackets that they picked up for $5 in the market. These clothes are donated to the equivalent of the Salvation Army in Europe and sold by the kilo to entrepreneurs who sell them at the local market.
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Fringed hat and lamba from above
​To my eye, perhaps the most stylish expression is to be found in the variety of head gear available. Many straw hats are sold, but not Panamas; they are more like the pork pie hats made famous by Lester Young and Dizzy Gillespie, with a beautiful line of pink woven through them. Of course they are worn at a jaunty angle, sometimes pulled down to shade the eyes. Women often wear straw hats with a bowl crown, a large brim with a tattered edge and the resulting dappled sunlight on the face is quite, quite alluring. The French influence is evident in the proliferation of berets and caps worn by city men. In fact, this year after visiting Laos, Vietnam and Madagascar, all ex-French colonies, I conclude that the main cultural legacy left by these gaullic invaders comprises of berets, baguettes, and petanque!
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The little multi-colored bowler hat is popular too.
Stovin’
I had intended to concentrate on improved cook stoves  this year, but the best laid plans on mice and men and well-meaning vahaza, (foreigners), gang aft aglay. However, I did make some inroads into learning about what stoves are available on the local market and I actually started a working relationship with two stove producers, M. Mamy and M. Roland Berma. M.Mamy and his extended family are really aluminum smelters to trade, producing spoons,cocottes (pots), and jewellery, all made from recycled aluminum window frames doors. By a great stroke of luck, I was led to their door and discovered that they had made the covers/pot supports for a series of stoves ordered by ADES, a Swiss NGO working principally with solar cookers. Straight away, I commissioned 10 new stoves to be built, that I named the ‘Apro-Acme’, since the design was actually spawned at the Aprovecho Research Center. I didn’t get much opportunity to test them out, but just before leaving I did discover that there has been design drift leading to the covers/pot supports being shorter than the original specification which diminishes the draft through the stove. Next year I will bring them a new cast iron model that will get them back on track to the original specs.
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The new 'Apro-Acme' stove
I did have M.Mamy make two pots with integral pot skirts, that is, another another  pot without a bottom that surrounds and is attached to the first one. This skirt captures the heat that is normally lost at the sides of the pot and forces it to scrape against the sides of the pot, thereby increasing the heat transfer into the pot and its contents. Increasing heat transfer into the pot is the Holy Grail of Stovers and it’s said that a pot skirt can reduce fuel consumption by 20-30%. We’ll see, I’m taking one back to the Aprovecho Research Center laboratory for testing.
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The new Acme integrated pot skirt hits the catwalk!
Malagasy Taxis
Most city taxis in Madagascar are old Renault 4s, sometimes up to 50 years old. There are a few Deux Chevaux, and a few more modern Renaults (from the 70’s), but the field is utterly dominated by the farmer’s friend, the Renault 4. It has numerous advantages including a really spongey suspension that survives well the many cobbled streets in Tana and other towns, it is extremely simple to repair, with all parts being easily available or easily fabricated locally, it’s economical on gas as there really isn’t much metal in it and you can still pick up a completely refurbished one for $3 to 4,000. At first I was puzzled by the constant smell of petroleum inside the taxis, until I realized that the one-liter plastic bottle at my feet was in fact always full of gas! This is because the high cost of fuel forces taxi drivers to buy only one liter at a time.
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When the Peugeot breaks down, there's always the ox-cart.
However, in the countryside, la brousse, the chariot of choice is the venerable Peugeot 404 pick up. These vehicles are unbelievable in their ruggedness and longevity. They have metal dashboards and so many welded repairs and replacement parts that they look like my uncle’s axe, that had 6 new handles and 3 new heads, but was still the best axe I ever had. Like the human body, the Malgasy Peugeot 404 seems to change its entire cell structure every 7 years! The only way to go from city to city is to take a taxi brousse which will usually be a 15 seater mini van, Toyoya or Mazda. This year I broke a couple of my personal bests in terms of cramming human bodies into vehicles: 25 into a 15-seater mini van and if you can believe it, 25 into a Peugeot 404 pick up, which had much baggage piled up on the metal cage + canvas “roof”, and  had two bicycles on top for good measure. Needless to say, we broke the transmission on that last mentioned voyage. I once saw a decal stuck on the side of a taxi brousse that, instead of saying “No Fear”, actually said “No Far”! A wee Scottish voice in my head said, “you’re no kiddin’ pal!” My record for shortest journey before breakdown was 500meters. Lastly, in some towns there are no taxis and one has to take a pousse-pousse, a rickshaw. I rapidly found out that there is no bodily position that can assuage the psychological discomfort that accompanies being pulled along by another human being. Arms akimbo, legs crossed or even arm slung casually over baggage – none of it works. It’s impossible to feel a l’aise while someone else sweats and struggles to get you from one place to another.
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Walking the last 7 kilometers with the driveshaft held overhead like a trophy from the hunt!
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A group of adherents in Soatanana watch the ritual washing of traveler's feet.
Soatana
While I was cooling my heels in Fianarantsoa, waiting for a PV project to be funded, I took a side trip with two French friends to the nearby village of Soatanana. Beautifully located next to a steep rock massif, this village is famous for being the center of an unusual Malagasy Christian cult. Founded in the 1890s by a Malagasy man who was seriously ill, then cured by divine intervention, the cult now has thousands of adherents and is to be found in all parts of the country. Defining features of this faith are that the members are always completely dressed in white, (to symbolize purity), their main form of worship is singing, they wash the feet of travelers and they do not pratice “second burial”, (which is common among most other groups). They do however, practice evangelism, which I was less keen on. Never-the-less, they treated us with great respect and welcomed us into their midst. We attended a Sunday mass with several hundred believers and enjoyed greatly their renditions of old hymns, in a distinctive Malagasy style.
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Sunrise in Mahazony. Hallelujah!
Mahazony and Miarnanarivo
Although the funding for the PV system on the new Maison de Vannerie, (basket weaving), in Ambohihamasina never did come through, Samantha at Feedback Madagascar did tell me about three villages with clinic solar systems that could use some help. The first clinic was in Mahazony and served a population of around 11,000. M.Hasina and his wife, the residents medics, put me up me in their house while I diagnosed the problems with the PV system, installed 7 years ago by Electriciens Sans Frontieres. The PV panels still worked, but the batteries were totaled and unbelievably, someone had wrecked the charge controller by brutally removing several of the key electronic components. Luckily, I had an exact replacement charge controller, but it was stored back in Tana, a two-day, several taxi brousse journey away! Since the batteries were only available in Tana anyway, I decided to make the trip.
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Mahazony village on the right, with the white clinic above and towards the center.
Joy was unbounded when I had completed the installation and the 10-room clinic plus the medics house were ablaze with light for the first time in four years. I also brought back a battery for the system in the little rooms made available to family members of patients, (more on that later). This trip I brought my newly purchased mountain bike which allowed me to visit the next village, Miarnanarivo, which has no taxi brousse service. There, the problem was, of course, a set of totaled batteries, but also some strangely low voltage readings on the solar panels. Upon further investigation I found that the panels had been incorrectly wired from the get-go and could never have kept the batteries charged under any circumstances. I rewired the panels, put in the new battery, (which the clinic guard from Mahazony had carried on the back of his bike for 2 hours), and the system fired up like a wee champ.
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Staff, patients and villagers at Mahazony clinic.
The system for the relatives of the Mahazony patients also suffered low voltage disease, so I rewired that panel too and they had electric light, probably for the first time in their lives. I was suddenly the most popular guy in town. A run for mayor of the commune was bandied about for a while, but I told them that I thought I really should learn their language before running for political office!
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The relatives get light, just like the patients.
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The future mayor of the commune with M.Hasina and his wife.
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Laos

4/6/2011

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I spent March and April this year in Lao PDR, the  People’s Democratic Republic of Laos. I had been in the capital, Vientiane, last June to interview with the Lao Institute for Renewable Energy, (LIRE), regarding the possibility of volunteering with them. So now I was joining their team of around 20 people, Lao and foreign, employees and volunteers, engineers and economists. LIRE does feasibilty studies, publishes reports and generally informs the debate on renewable energy in Laos.  I was hoping to head a small team to test charcoal burning stoves and perhaps to do some PV training with LIRE’s founding partner, Sunlabob. Labob is the Lao word for system, thus Sunlabob, the only professional renewable energy company in Laos, headed by an astute German ex-pat, called Andy.
There had been personnel changes since June and a change of focus at LIRE, so I did my best to fit in and be useful. 
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It gets pretty smoky when you light six charcoal stoves all at the same time!
By sheer coincidence, my friends at the Aprovecho Research Center in Oregon had been hired by the EPA to do a couple of workshops in Laos, and their visit just happened to coincide with my stint at LIRE. So, my first contribution was organize the “testing laboratory”, which was the broke-down garage outback of the LIRE office. I got electricity supplied, a good stock of wood and charcoal, fire prevention equipment and a myriad of small items that helped the actual testing go off smoothly. I was able to interface between LIRE, the other participating NGOs and the Aprovecho team, two of whom had not been to Asia before. Their presentation on stove design and testing in a big downtown hotel was well received. The actual testing was good fun as many participants, from different parts of Laos, as well as Vietnam and Thailand had never done anything like that before.
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The Hmong girls are leaning on an ancient stone quern, for grinding grains.
Vientiane is a somewhat sleepy capital, flat and dusty and situated on a bend in Mekong river. With 70% of the population still living in remote mountain villages, Laos is described as one of the poorest countries in the world, but that is not the impression one gets in the towns or the more accessible rural areas. There, the impression is of a country whose economy is really starting to take off, new 4x4s abound, consumer products are easily available and new Mcmansions are being built so fast, you would think that bricks were going to be outlawed next year! This is the same effect that I was to witness a couple of months later in Burma: namely, the energy radiating from the Chinese economy is giving all its neighbors a good suntan! Chinese investment in both countries is enormous and local markets are flooded with Chinese products, mostly of inferior quality. Some electrical statistics on Laos: 80% of the population is on the electric grid, 94% of the electricity comes from hydro electric dams, there are two giant dams already built and 20 more planned, including several on the Mekong itself. Who is financing and building these dams and will ultimately consume all that electricity? Why, the giant to the north, of course.
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Can you spot the MSG?
The Aprovecho team and a LIRE team including myself, spent a week in Savanakhet, the second largest town, giving a week-long stove testing workshop. Savanakhet was laid out by the French colonial administration and has wide boulevards and a spacious feel to it. It is a commercial hub, being situated on the Mekong at the Thai border, with Vietnam only a four hour drive away. Here, we conducted the Controlled Cooking Test, which consists of the same meal being cooked three times, by three different cooks on two different stoves.  As we carefully weighed the ingredients we recognised all of them except one, which was something like salt, but with longer crystals. In reply to our questions, we were told it was called “make better”. After further questioning we realized it was the dreaded MSG, seen above  in the packet with red printing. Over the 18 meals, the cooks used nearly one pound of the awful stuff!
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A family that makes charcoal stoves together, stays together!
The most interesting event during that trip was a visit to a local, family run stove factory. Everyone was involved from grandma to the little kids. Their production techniques were primitive and production low, but their enterprise and hard work were quite evident. Unfortunately, since USAID introduced the original “Thai Bucket” charcoal stove design twenty years ago, there has been quite a bit of “design drift” and use of cheaper materials which has led to less efficient stoves being produced.
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I wonder where the other parts of this vehicle are and what vernacular devices they are part of?
Back in Vientiane, I came across a company I felt sure the FBI would like to find out about. I thought perhaps it was the epi-center of intellectual property theft, (IPT), worldwide, as a huge awning proclaimed “The Idea Copy Center”. But on further investigation it proved to be just a hole in the wall, one machine operation. My dreams of cracking the IPT ring in Laos lay in tatters. Oh well!
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The fish pond in a remote mountain village
But then came the big trip that showed me the real Laos. It was to the north-eastern province of Xieng Khuan, around the area they call the “Plain of Jars”. Due to my presence, LIRE had been hired by a Swiss NGO to troubleshoot a solar water pumping system and to test some new stoves in remote Hmong villages in the highlands. Chanthapaseuth, my sturdy assistant, and I took the overnight bus to Phonesavanne, the regional capital. It’s at about 3,400 ft in elevation and a cool welcome change from the sticky heat of Vientiane. In fact, I was warned that temperatures in April might reach 110 degrees F in Vientiane, so I only brought T-shirts. Oh, the folly, Bruce! This year, nighttime temperatures sometimes plummeted to below 50 degrees and I had to buy a heavy sweater and two extra blankets to survive. But the next night it would be so hot that even a cotton sheet was too much. I blame the oil companies and global warming, I don’t know about you.
Part of our duties up there was to do tests on some Vietnamese-designed fixed cook stoves. These were made of local building bricks with a cement top, pretty massive fellows! We conducted the Water Boiling Test on three of these stoves and one traditional, 3-legged stove for comparison.  The massive stoves performed quite well, though it was a very small sample that we tested and the conditions were somewhat less than scientific.
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Our trainee stove testers take time out for a quick chat and a joke. The massive stove lurks behind.
But the most interesting part of the trip concerned the history of the Plain of Jars, both ancient and modern. Carved out of stone, some of the jars are very large, with mouths about 3ft wide.  Most researchers think that they were originally carved to contain the human remains of tribal leaders between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago. The jars have been knocked over and lie at awkward angles, but this was nothing compared to what was to happen to the region during what is locally referred to the Second Indo-China War, which we know as the Vietnam War.
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A young woman transports her water the old fashioned way.
During that conflict, the North Vietnamese supplied their troops in the South by way of the famous Ho Chi Minh trail, part of which ran through the Plain of Jars. Laos, although a neutral country, not involved in the conflict, became the most most bombed country in the history of the world. Twenty four hours a day for almost nine years, B52s dropped bombs of all kinds, in an attempt to thwart the flow of materiel. Much of that ordinance failed to explode and is still lying under the ground on the Plain of Jars. Every year many hundreds of local people lose limbs and even their lives as they step on unexploded ordinance. The Phonesavanne area is full of reminders of that sad history – a local restaurant called “Craters”, which has shell casings up to 5ft high on its patio, the groups of white jump-suited de-miners who meticulously comb through the fields for UXO (unexploded ordinance) and the houses which sit atop 5ft shells used as support pillars. I was consulting with a family who melt waste aluminum to recast it into spoons and I was surprised to see that they used a shell casing, cut in half as a crucible. They asked me to redesign their wood- burning furnace incorporating the shell casing. When I asked if they wouldn’t run out of shells for this purpose, they looked at me if as I were weak in the head saying, “We will never run out of shells”.
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A US shell casing in the backyard of the headman.
The US has not stepped up to the plate and taken responsibility for this gross violation of human rights. Indeed, Australia provides more funding for de-mining than does America. But, almost unimaginably, the Lao people do not hold rancor in their hearts towards Americans. Most Laotians were not born when these events took place and the  government has pragmatically toned down its anti-imperialist rhetoric since the fall of the USSR.
The Laotians have to be the most mellow people in Asia. There is a regional proverb that I will paraphrase in closing:
“The Vietnamese plant and harvest the rice, the Thais sell it and the Lao listen to it grow!”
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Some of the tourist attractions on the Plain of Jars!
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Ninth Epistle from the Border - All About Stoves

1/28/2011

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PictureEff and I reworking a barrel lid
​I flew into Bangkok in mid-January, planning to take care of some dental work, buy some tools and be on my way to Sangklaburi in a week or ten days. Well, things took longer than I expected – the dental work was difficult, they didn’t have the new microscope necessary to safely do the root canal and I could only see the dentist on Sunday afternoons! It was great to get back to Sangkla and the house I share with Naam, – all my tools,  books and clothes were still there, if a little rusty, musty and foosty after  a 4-month rainy season, where everything starts moldering down and returning to its constituent elements. My friends were all still here and my favorite restaurants were still open – who could ask for anything more?  In fact though, Sangkla has changed quite a bit in the last year. It is now becoming a resort town for week-enders from Bangkok and has even had a write-up in the Lonely Planet, surely the kiss of death for a remote, lake-side village, tucked away in the hills leading to Burma.
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No, I'm not trying to weld the wood to the drum!
PictureCitar demonstrates the 'Acme 38' to a happy customer
​I flew into Bangkok in mid-January, planning to take care of some dental work, buy some tools and be on my way to Sangklaburi in a week or ten days. Well, things took longer than I expected – the dental work was difficult, they didn’t have the new microscope necessary to safely do the root canal and I could only see the dentist on Sunday afternoons! It was great to get back to Sangkla and the house I share with Naam, – all my tools,  books and clothes were still there, if a little rusty, musty and foosty after  a 4-month rainy season, where everything starts moldering down and returning to its constituent elements. My friends were all still here and my favorite restaurants were still open – who could ask for anything more?  In fact though, Sangkla has changed quite a bit in the last year. It is now becoming a resort town for week-enders from Bangkok and has even had a write-up in the Lonely Planet, surely the kiss of death for a remote, lake-side village, tucked away in the hills leading to Burma.
PictureThe 'Acme 64' goes through it's paces
​I hauled the welder and other tools from Bangkok to Sangkla by bus, a feat in itself! But imagine my chagrin and mounting frustration when I plugged in the welder and found it didn’t work. I asked NawPawLulu’s son-in-law, Eff, to help me out. He is a skilled welder and generally, a very handy guy, so I knew he would find the problem. Well, it turned out that a key wire had been left disconnected, inside the welder. I know nothing about welding, (other than it’s potentially dangerous), and I have thus been studying instructional videos on YouTube. The emphasis is on safety and proper attire. So, when I go to weld, I wear a long-sleeved jacket, a leather apron, the best shoes available, dark goggles, welding gloves etc, as per the instructions. So now, Eff goes to test the unit and weld a rocket elbow I had  already prepared – he’s wearing shorts, flip-flops and a muscle shirt!  He did accept my offer of dark goggles, though. Of course, he did a great job and didn’t burn himself. However, after a second day spent with Eff, I noticed that the top of one of his middle fingers was missing.........I think I'll stick with the sweaty protective clothing. My first welding attempts were very poor and very ugly. Now I’m getting the feel for it, although it may be some time till we open the Acme School of Welding (Asia).
PictureA stove and training manual delivered to NawPawLulu's Safehouse
​When I was searching for appropriate cooking pots, I went to Little India, which is a small enclave of people from the sub-continent, relocated inside Chinatown, Bangkok. I asked a young man to help and discovered he was from Nepal, of all places. Everyone he asked about my pots spoke Nepalese. It was quite dis-orienting. Then I met Citar, an employee of Children of the Forest. She is Nepalese too. Apparently, many Nepalese soldiers, (Gurkhas), were brought to this area to fight for the British against the Japanese during World War Two. I knew about the Nepal-Burma connection before, but it was a new twist to meet people who had settled in Thailand. South East Asia is a very ethnically mixed region indeed. I am looking forward to my visit to Laos in March and April, where there are many, many different ethnic groups.
PictureThe pot skirt can improve efficiency with other stoves, like this charcoal burner
​Well, my period in Sangklaburi is now finished and I’m off to Laos tomorrow night. Although things took longer than I expected, I feel I have achieved quite a lot. In the month that I actually spent in the workshop I build 6 stoves; an Acme 11, two Acme 38s, two Acme 64s and one big Mama Acme 200. (The numbers come from the capacity in liters of the barrel that houses the stove). I purchased and distributed about a dozen pots, complete with custom pot skirts. I trained two people in the basics of rocket stove theory and stove building. Lastly, I printed and distributed five training manuals on building rocket stoves. The stoves worked excellently and were received enthusiastically by their recipients. Now I’m looking forward to getting feedback about performance and ease of use, so I can make improvements in the future. The workshop is  all packed away now, but it can be set up again easily and Acme Stove Works (Asia) can go back into production next year. An exciting final note: there is every chance that I will spend the month of May in Burma, meeting with groups who want to learn more about renewable energy. My friend, Jim Connor, has just returned from Burma where he found a nascent green movement that is thirsting for the gospel of photovoltaics and improved cook stoves. Their long wait is almost over.
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These stoves are so easy to operate, you can take a cat-nap while cooking!
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We also deliver!
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Malagasy Journal #2

3/12/2010

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​The Yoghurt King and the Disc Jockey
The event that has dominated my entire stay here in Madagascar is la crise politique. The present regime, headed by a baby-faced ex-radio disc jockey, took power illegally, just over a year ago. The ex-president, a yoghurt factory-owning multi-millionaire is now in comfortable exile in South Africa. The ex-Pres, although being legitimately elected, generally approved of by the populace, and having presided over strong economic growth and significant environmental protection, had difficulty distinguishing between state assets and his own. He also was taking Madagascar out of the sphere of French influence and into the arms of the anglophone world. Most Malagasy people believe that France helped organize the coup that brought our disc-spinning friend to power, with the assistance of a dissident army faction. The result has been an unmitigated disaster for the country and the already long-suffering people. Madagascar has been isolated internationally. The US won’t buy its maquiladora clothes, the tourists have fled in droves and the present regime is selling off everything it can at bargain basement prices. Crime has exploded and the feeling of insecurity among the population is palpable. This state of affairs has cast a pall over my entire stay here and I can only hope that it is resolved soon to alleviate the suffering of these peaceful, hard-working people.
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Malagasy families eat rice three times a day
The Solar Cooker Fiasco
Before leaving the US I was asked to help get some new solar cookers out of Customs in Madagascar and to demonstrate them to interested parties. Sounds easy enough? Little did I know that I would be required to haunt the halls of the Customs Dept everyday for five weeks, have a rubber stamp made up in order to “customize” a document and having triumphantly liberated the cookers from the maw of the bureaucrats find out that the dashed things didn’t even work properly!  I tested the cookers several times, but could only reach an oil temperature of 108 degrees C, whereas John, the inventor regularly reached over 200 degrees C in his native Hawaii. Even my little home-brewed unit, the Acme Windshield Reflector Solar Cooker, out performed the stainless steel giant. John is stumped by the poor performance, but I think that the tubes sent to me were defective and that the next shipment will be good. However, they will have to find someone else to stalk the Custom halls!
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A village lady in Finararenna demonstrates her new Acme Windshield Reflector Solar Cooker
Ambohimahamasina
I found Feedback Madagascar, a Scottish NGO, online and contacted Samantha Cameron, the regional director in Fianarantsoa, a town south of Tana, to offer my services. Through her, I visited the village of Ambohimahamsina to check out a recently installed solar system that wasn’t working properly. I also took a tube solar cooker and a water sterilizing unit, hoping they would be really useful there.  After all the hassle of getting these cookers out of Customs, you can imagine my state of mind when I discovered the tube had been completely smashed in transit from China. The water sterilizer was a big hit though, and my own little Acme Windshield Reflector cooker generated some interest too. I soon found out why the PV system was performing so poorly. In the Northern Hemisphere, we orient our panels towards the South, and in the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite holds true. Well, someone had managed to flaunt this cardinal rule of orientation, with disasterous consequences for the battery. After only 6 months of operation, the $400 battery was ruined.
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Dr Jacqui gives the solar water pasteurizer a careful examination
I decided to completely revamp and expand the system and offered to pay for half of it, about $1,000. This particular system is on a remote rural clinic, which serves over 16,000 people and has a permanent doctor, with whom I stayed. Dr Jacqui, a gusty and gutsy Malagasy lady was always ready with a smile, a joke or a jibe about wimpy vahaza, whichever the situation called for. I had help from two local men, M. Donne and M. Jaques. The first, with some knowledge of electricity, the second, ever-so-sweet, but a walking hazard on a job-site! We installed the PV system in 3 easy days, then spent the next 7 completely rewiring all the lights in ten rooms of the clinic. I was extremely satisfied with the results, given that the village is on the eastern side of the Hauts Plateaux, where the weather was foggy in the morning and cloudy by 3pm. Everyone was delighted with the new system, since now night-time births  are well illuminated, attendants can turn on a light for an emergency and clinic staff get reliable electricity in their modest homes.
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The clinic's new solar array - three times the original size and now pointing in the right direction!
I really only got one day off and with a couple of other volunteers took a hike round a local mountain. Unfortunately, it was foggy all day, but our guide told us where everything was and we just had to imagine the rest! A highlight was a lunch of duck with a local family and a visit to small raffia weaving cooperative. This region is on the edge of the eastern mountain range and is being developed by the local people, with help from Feedback, as a center of hiking and eco-tourism. I was very impressed by the initiative and follow-through of these people. The land is fertile, the rainfall copious and the people industrious, (if somewhat given to over consumption of the local cane spirit). In my next epistle, I will describe two weeks I spent in a village in a region to the west of Tana, en pleine brousse, in what the Malagasy call the “Far West”. Quite, quite different from Ambohimahamasina.
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We climbed this mountain, but on a much foggier day!
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A dance troupe strut their stuff at a celebration in Ambohimahamasina
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Malagasy Journal #1

3/2/2010

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PictureVillagers from Fiadanana, gathered to hear about solar cooking
Madagascar
​It was a quick decision just before I left Berkeley, to pay a visit to Madagascar. Like many people, I was aware of the exotic uniqueness of the flora, fauna and human culture, but it hadn’t been on my radar as a place for Solar Roots, (my new nom de plume), to operate. This is what I found:
Madagascar is the world’s oldest island and its fourth largest in size. It used to be literally jammed in between Africa and India, back when Gondwana was a going concern. Of the 200,000 forms of flora and fauna, a staggering 150,000 are found nowhere else on earth. The Malagasy people first arrived 2,000 years ago and are a mixture of immigrants from what is today Indonesia/Malaysia and the African continent. The culture and the features of the people are a rich mélange reflecting now one backgound, then the other.
PictureAntananarivo, or Tana, looking towards the Rova, (former Royal Palace)
​One arrives in Antananarivo (Tana) and is immediately taken by its cute tall, tiled-roof houses, its cobbled hilly streets, and its active street markets.
After about two days of Tana’s appalling air quality, its hordes of street beggars and hustlers, its ever-present poverty and crime rate, one is ready to take off to gentler climes. That may be the easy way, but it’s not the Solar Roots way! I had to stick it out in grimy Tana for another six weeks. The reason being, I had agreed to get some new innovative solar cookers out of Customs and to demonstrate them to interested parties. I might as well have agreed to run for President of Madgascar, with as much hope of success in the allotted time! By the way, the post of President of Madagascar is available. More on the solar cooker saga and the current illegitimate regime later.
PictureThe Akany Tafita teachers and kids pose with one of the solar cookers
​Antananarivo, means the Place of 1,000 People. This should be updated, as something north of 3 million people now crowd into its hilly streets and its sprawling slums. My own accommodation trajectory is an interesting illustration of the Tana neighborhoods. At the insistence of Ihanta, the founder of Association Zahana, the organization I had first made contact with, I started off in La Residence, a somewhat pretentious, empty hotel costing $40/day. “Because of crime”, Ihanta also insisted that I shouldn’t go out at night, so meals drove it up over $50/day. The neighborhood was fancy, but due to the ban on independent movement, I still don’t know where it’s located. After two days I moved into a Protestant Mission Guest House. At first, I was concerned I would have to have breakfast with zealous missionaries, but thankfully, it too, was empty. This neighborhood is high on one of the two principle ridges that form the core of Tana’s topography. For neighbors I had the Ministry of Justice, the huge Church of Saint Jean Baptiste and Le Bureau, cybercafe. It was very quiet at night. At $12.50 a day, this was more like the thing. But the hilly climbs, the dreadful air from the city center and the fact that it was a $3 taxi-ride away from my solar cookers drove me into the arms of Akany Tafita. Meaning “Nest of Progress”, Akany Tafita is a children’s center operated by the Anglican Church in the bas-quartier (slum) area of Anosibe. At $5 a night, I had finally arrived in Solar Roots territory! I have never lived in a severely deprived urban neighborhood before and I find that I really like it here. It feels less dangerous than the city center, but I do have to be home within half an hour of sunset!  People treat me with a mild curiosity, but never regard me as the key to their economic salvation. Artful Dodgers and Dodgeresses abound, but they pursue their own games and scams, and leave me in peace.
PictureSome folks, homeward bound from the market, appear out of the mist
​There are 18 distinct ethnic groups in Madagascar, the dominant one being the Merina, who arrived 500-600 years ago. They compose 95% of Tana’s population and are the most evidently Asian-looking of all the groups. On the coasts one finds the predominantly African descended groups. The Malagasy people, though composed of many different tribes, are united by a common language and a belief in the power of their dead ancestors. The departed are considered to play an important role in the on-going well-being of their off-spring. They must be remembered, honored and sometimes taken out of the tomb, re-dressed and told about all the family events subsequent to their passing! So-called “taboos” (fady) abound and seem quite strange to the outsider. It’s fady to sing when you eat, (to say nothing of its difficulty!), as you will develop elongated teeth. It might be fady to work the land or hold a funeral on Tuesdays. It might be fady for a child to say his father’s name, or for a pregnant woman to sit in the doorway of her house. These proscriptions vary from tribe to tribe, even family to family. Luckily, vazaha (foreigners),are given a pass on such intricacies, and are not held to book for blunders like standing up while digging the corner post holes of a new house!
PictureIn the Hauts Plateaux on the way south to Fianarantsoa
​The Malagasy language is Indonesian in origin, with Swahili and Arabic additions. It’s not so difficult to pronounce, but knowing just where to put the accent can be challenging, as many words are over a dozen letters long. I’ve stopped talking about socialism in Malagasy, as that requires using the word foto-kevitra miompana amin’ny fitanan’ny fanjakana ny taozavatra sy ny varotra! Beautifully poetic and descriptive, Malagasy language is rich in imagery. Dusk is Misafo helika ny kary, which means, Darken the mouth of the cooking pot. Actually, I’m giving the wrong impression that I’ve made much progress in learning Malagasy. I have learned the basic polite phrases but have been communicating 99% of the time in French. I am thrilled that my French abilities have bounced back amazingly well after 35 years of dormancy. If I have the time, I’ll do a week-long course in Malagasy before leaving. If not, it’ll be my first priority when  return next year.
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Report from La Torti #1 

1/13/2010

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I am sure you are all aware of the recent disaster in Haiti and mourn the loss of so many people. As far as I can tell, all the friends I made in Haiti are safe and well, even if homeless and sometimes hungry. However, the international solar community also suffered a great loss when Walt Ratterman perished in the collapse of the Montana Hotel. Walt was a solar hero, traveling to such remote locations as Tibet, Burma and Rwanda, installing systems and spreading the solar gospel. I respectfully dedicate this report to his memory.
I went to Haiti in November with my friends, Antoine, a native Haitian, and his partner, Denise. They operate a grass-roots non-profit organization called the Bellot-Idovia Foundation, named after Antoine’s grandparents.  We stayed a few days with relatives of Antoine in Port-au-Prince before heading north to the small island of La Tortue, (La Torti in Creole).  In Port-au-Prince we visited the National Museum, which is a mausoleum for several of the heroes of the struggle for Haitian independence. We also walked past the Presidential palace, which later completely collapsed during the earthquake.  The 45-minute plane ride to Port de Paix showed me clearly the extent of deforestation and soil erosion across the country. Deep gullies started in the bald mountains and fanned out to become wide swathes on the coastal plains – conduits for eroded top soil. At Port de Paix we boarded a 30ft sail boat to La Torti. It was a poignant journey for Antoine, as he was going back to his home town. The high-point for me was the a capella renditions of Haitian hymns and folk songs as we glided over the deep blue Caribbean water.
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We stayed in the port town of LaValle with Antoine’s sister, Therese, who after living many years in the US, has moved back to the island to help the local people and to re-establish her father’s abandoned farm. As soon as we arrived, Antoine threw himself into the task of meeting with local organizations, finding out what help the islanders needed and generally, being available to anyone who wanted to talk. During the three weeks we spent on La Torti we visited four schools, all private, and we were surprised to find out that 50% of the island’s children did not go to school, mainly because the $60 per year school fees were beyond the means of their parents. We resolved there and then that Bellot-Idovia would sponsor some children’s school fees in the future. Now that I’m giving you some facts and figures, let me give you some more…….La Torti is 36kms long by 9kms wide, it has a population of 63,000 souls, there is not one policeman on the island and violent crime is almost unknown. La Torti used to be completely covered in lush forest  and be self-sufficent in food production. Now, it’s mostly bare and imports much of its food. The islanders have many problems including poverty, unemployment, severe soil erosion, restricted access to clean drinking water, lack of educational opportunities and no access to credit, but they are left to fend entirely for themselves. There are no outside NGOs operating on the island and for all intents and purposes, it can be considered a “government-free zone”.
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School children singing a song of welcome
 We met with several local organizations that are attempting to address the aforementioned problems. One of the main concerns is the “Ravine”, which runs from the bowl-shaped valley behind the town and in times of heavy rain, concentrates the downpour to produce surges of floodwater that can sweep away people and houses. I recently became interested in mitigating soil erosion and took a few hikes into the upper watershed to see what could be done. As a newly-minted “expert” in soil erosion, I believe that small scale floodwater diversion in the upper watershed can prevent the accumulation of destructive volumes of water reaching LaValle. Next year I hope to do a pilot project demonstrating the diversion techniques.
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Erosion in the upper watershed
Another issue brought up by the local groups again concerned water, but this time, potable water. The area around LaValle is blessed with several sources of fresh water, the most important being La Sous, an hour-long hike from the town itself. It would be wonderful to bring this very pure water down to LaValle, but because the pipe would have to traverse many separate properties and follow the Ravine, but not be swept away by the flood, I couldn’t see a way to do this. For the moment, people will have to continue to use the wells in town, which, since they are within 200 meters of the shore, have a somewhat salty taste. In visiting several other wells and springs, we were disappointed to see so much laundry being done right next to the source, so much chlorine being used with the bottles  discarded right there and cows being watered from the same source as humans. Antoine hopes in the future to pipe water down from the well at Tijonasse to serve the community of Nan Grisgris. (I include this last sentence just so I can show you the cool place-names on the island! Both people and places have great names in Haiti).
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A young girl fills her water jugs at Tijonasse spring
The most concrete achievement of our visit was the installation of a small solar electric system on the clinic in LaVallee. Through me, Bellot-Idovia purchased the two panels and two batteries in Miami and had them shipped to Port de Paix. Since the previous panels on the clinic were stolen, we were determined that it wouldn’t happen again. I went by sailboat to Port de Paix and had a metal frame welded up that allows the panels to be padlocked in place. The installation of the batteries, control equipment and hookup to the existing AC wiring was an easy matter and gave me an opportunity to do a hands-on PV class, following from the two I had previously given. I did the trainings in French, which was a stretch, but it has rekindled in me the desire to finally dominate the language, as we say en francais! The clinic has an examination room, a maternity room, a waiting room and storeroom. All now have a light and functioning plug outlet.
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The solar panels and welded frame go back to La Torti for installation on the clinic
We hiked all over the dry, deforested western end of the island, close to La Vallee. The land rises steeply from the coast up to a plateau, where due the volcanic origins of the rocks, the soil can be quite fertile. However, water is scarce and agriculture is often on a subsistence level. The unusual (for those of us from places with strong property rights!), form of land tenure in Haiti has led to very small subsistence farms, much sub-divided between off-spring and has mitigated against stewardship of the soil and natural resources. The government owns most of the land and many people just squat on it, but without any incentive to improve it.
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A young girl, as sweet as the sugar cane she's chewing!
Thus we come to one of the most serious crises facing Haiti and La Torti in particular, namely deforestation. The once verdant island, is now severely deforested and becoming more so every day. As the population increases, new fields are opened up on steeper and steeper slopes. A typical scenario involves clearing the land of all vegetation, converting the large trees into charcoal and planting a cash crop such as peanuts. The charcoal, exported to mainland Haiti, provides a cash injection at the beginning, but it is still not enough to ward off hunger during the planting season in November and December. Unfortunately, La Torti faces one crisis after another. Having escaped the worst ravages of the recent earthquake, La Torti is now hosting many people who have fled Port-au-Prince in search of a safe location where the basics of life might be available. Therese is reportedly feeding 100 people per day from her own kitchen. Thus, as I sit here in a small town in Tanzania, listening from a distance to local people singing  hymns, they remind me of that first sailboat trip to La Torti, and my heart goes out to the poor and displaced people of Haiti. As the weeks go by and other news stories replace Haiti in the headlines I appeal to you to sustain your interest and continue giving to organizations that are doing such great work there. I recommend giving to Partners In Health, co-founded by Paul Farmer and to the Bellot-Idovia Foundation, both of which can be found on the web.
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A view from the plane of the deforestation near Port de Paix, with La Torti in the background
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Despite all of Haiti's problems, music to stir the soul is all around you
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Eighth Epistle from the Border

3/31/2009

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PictureTi Lai Pa at sunset
Well, my second trip to the borderlands has just drawn to a close. After a very shaky start, I finally settled in, making friends and work contacts and now I am leaving with a great sense of accomplishment. I will return in January 2010 and I expect to have many new projects to work on.
My Projects
The last month has been a blur of activity, much of it bucketing about in four-wheel drive trucks!  One of the most rewarding undertakings was the training of my assistant Tun Ein. He’s a 24 year-old Burmese refugee who already had some electrical and electronic experience. I was able to pay him while teaching him the essentials of solar installation and maintenance. Luckily, we were able to do three installations together and I feel that Tun Ein will be a big help in the future. First we went back to Ti Lai Pa, which I had visited earlier during the dry season. On that occasion, the journey was a very bumpy 4-hour truck ride, mainly criss-crossing a river bed. This time it was an 8-hour slalom over slippery rivers of mud that used to be roads!  Between the three trucks in the convoy, we got stuck more than twenty times. However, it was all worth it as the new clinic is a substantial hardwood structure with a metal roof, the installation easy and the meals provided by our very grateful Karen hosts were unforgettable. Next we did two installations for the Mon National Health Committee. The first one was in Halokhanee camp for internally displaced persons, just inside Burma. This time I had permission from the Thai authorities and the camp was only two hours from Sangkhla, along a surprisingly smooth dirt road. This camp differs from others I have visited inside Thailand, in that it is more permanent and feels more like a village than a refugee camp. However, the reality is the same. The inhabitants are stuck there, with no prospect of returning to their villages of origin. Again the hospitality was memorable and the fish paste probably the best I have ever tasted! Lastly, we did a system at the Mon clinic at Japanese Well, again just inside Burma. They already have an over-sized generator there, but it is ancient and it has an insatiable appetite for diesel. One innovation we employed in the two Mon clinics was to use 3Watt LED lights in the In-Patient Department and the bathroom. These use so little energy that we can leave them on all night.
Another small job was to re-install the solar array and rework the battery configuration on a 500W solar system belonging to Children of the Forest, children’s home. The system had largely been donated by Annex Power, a Bangkok solar supplier.  Some rather basic mistakes had been made and when I diplomatically pointed these out to Annex, they invited me to come to Bangkok to give a short training to their engineers. It was fun to meet them and get a sense  of the commercial solar scene in another country and I look forward to doing business with them in the future.
One promise I had to make good on was to repair some electrical conduit and wiring at Baan Dada’s. This is a children’s home near Huaymalai, run by Richard, a smiling  Filipino man, with over fourteen years of service on the border under his belt. It was extremely satisfying to tear out the hideous attempt at conduit we found, and replace it with some fine looking pipe. Tun Ein was instructed in the joys of taking pride in one’s work and installing conduit that one could actually pull some wire into!
NawPawlulu
Due to donor cut-backs, Pawlulu is searching for other sources of income. I helped her complete the application for a grant from the Japanese government to set up a sewing project for her patients and local villagers. I hope she gets it. I got the final accounting from Nandoe for the funds I had supplied back in December. The results are impressive. The chicken coup was completed and stocked with eight chickens. The two fish ponds were completed and stocked with one thousand catfish and tilapia. The shop front was completed and is now the smartest boutique in town! The patients all got sandals, blankets, mosquito nets and pillows. And there is $100 left over for future projects. My relationship with Pawlulu and Nandoe was  one of the cherished experiences I take away from this place. I am also taking away a huge stock of hand woven sarongs, bags, cushion covers and scarfs, which I will sell at my fundraising events in early winter.
Whispering Seed
I donated a small solar water pump to the project and paid for most of the construction of a hand dug well to put it on. The rainy season has started and Jim has to worry about getting all his kids and their possessions back into Sangkhla before the flooding river cuts them off. I think the well digging will have wait till next year. Hopefully, by then he will have funding for the large solar system we have been planning.
Next Year
I plan to return in January and continue spreading the solar gospel. In addition to Jim’s  system, I hope to work on a large system for the Mercy Team clinic at Japanese Well. Maybe power a safe house for single mothers there also. Solar hot water, solar cooking and solar food drying are also in my sights
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