Last Trip to Babati

Hi everybody!

Yesterday was my last visit to Babati for a while. We picked up the third maize sheller prototype. Gaspar, the farmer who was using it, shelled 1000kg of maize over a period of two days. According to his estimates, the machine was about twice as fast as manual shelling—and much less work.

It turns out that Gaspar is also a welder, and he’s interested in producing the bicycle stand Rosy designed. The Phoenix brand bicycle, by far the most common around here, comes with its own stand, but it’s pretty flimsy. I see Phoenix bikes on the streets or in the villages every day, and I’d guess fewer than a third of them still have the original stand. Even if they do, the stand isn’t stable enough to support a person on the bicycle. That’s why each sheller comes with a Twende-designed stand made out of angle iron. We left one with Gaspar for reference, and we’re excited to see how he improves the design and how many he’s able to sell.

Since I probably won’t be back to Babati soon, here are a few more pictures…

Lake Babati

This farmer lives close enough to the lake to irrigate his fields. He runs a big hose down to the lake and pumps up water. Here he’s moving some soil to direct the water to different rows in his field.

Nane Nane

We have electricity today!

 (knock wood)

 For the past few weeks, the power has been cutting out in the morning and (usually) returning in the evening. This happens regularly, but not quite regularly enough to predict when our neighborhood will have a few hours of power and when we’ll sit in the dark. TANESCO, Tanzania Electrical Supply Company Limited, has commented only vaguely on the outages. Official word is that they’re overhauling the infrastructure, and they’ll be done in December or in “we even don’t know” depending on whom you ask.

Anyway, now seems like a good opportunity to post some details from the Nane Nane agricultural festival. The festival started on August 1^st and built up to a climax on the eighth—8/8, or “Nane Nane” in Swahili. Twende and GCS demonstrated and sold products from a tent in the main fairgrounds surrounded by other tents with food, agricultural machinery, music, and dozens of other vendors. Our workshop is also in another corner of the festival grounds, so we spent the week surrounded by the celebration. Due to power outages, we weren’t able to get enough shellers manufactured to sell at the tent, but we drummed up plenty of interest with a bicycle set up for people to try out. The machine performed consistently for the whole week that it was on display, and we’re starting to receive calls from people who heard about it and want to know more.

When we weren’t busy demonstrating products or greeting guests to the workshop, we explored the festival grounds, learning about other agricultural organizations and tasting tasty things grown across Tanzania. During the day, the grounds were packed with families, school children, and vendors selling an interesting mix of anything from electric juicers to secondhand jeans. In the evenings, bars and restaurants from around the city promoted themselves with temporary stages for dancers and competitions. We had an exciting week, but between the long work days and the hectic energy of the festival, I think we were all ready for a bit of rest and quiet by the end.

Babati Field Test Results

Hi everybody!

Last week we started wrapping up what I’ve come to think of as our first round of field testing. Of the three farmers testing maize shellers in Babati, two have shelled all their maize for this season using the bicycle-powered maize shellers.

Our first customer, in Galapo, owns two farms, each around 5 acres. He used the bicycle-powered machine for a total of 26 gunia (2600kg) of shelled maize from both farms. He did all the shelling with help from his children. It took five days on one farm and four days on the other, but they shelled for only a few hours at a time each day, so we’re not sure what the exact throughput was. This particular customer is a little wealthier than our main target market. In past years, he’s paid 1000 shillings per gunia to shell his maize with a motorized machine instead of using cheaper manual methods. With the 20000-shilling rental price, that means he saved 6000 shillings this month. In most seasons, he would have harvested much more maize, increasing his savings. However, he still said that the bicycle-powered maize sheller would be a good purchase for him because with it his wife and children could take care of the shelling while he tended to other crops.

In Singe, one of our pilot farmers also shelled all of his maize using the bicycle sheller. He shelled 7 gunia of maize from his two-acre farm in just one day. This farmer usually uses the kupiga method for shelling, so the machine saved him a lot of labor and possibly some money as well since he didn’t have to pay anyone else to work with him. Our other customer in Singe wasn’t able to finish shelling because the bearing on his machine was loose. We’d fixed that same bearing earlier, but obviously not permanently enough. So we replaced the faulty sheller and brought it back to the workshop to study. He said he plans to use the new machine for all the maize he’s harvested this season.

Harvest and shelling season in Babati seems to be drawing to a close. We’ve heard a lot of good feedback from our three testers, including some findings that make me worry that sales might be difficult. Based on the three villages we visited and everyone we’ve spoken with in Babati, it looks like the harvest was extremely small this year. All the maize fields we’ve seen are rain-fed and this past rainy season was drier than usual. Babati farmers have told us that in a good year they can grow ten or even up to twenty gunia of maize per acre. But this year they are averaging closer to three gunia per acre. Several farmers have told us they’ll need to buy more maize just to feed their families throughout the year. Last year, we’re told, Babati had the opposite problem—the maize harvest was so bountiful that farmers struggled to sell off their crop for low prices before it spoiled. These two examples highlight the importance of efforts by groups like Echo and MVIWATA to help increase resilience to climate change and the resultant weather fluctuations. We’re grateful to all the farmers who helped us out in Babati and we hope that their other crops will be more successful.

Looking around here in Arusha, I can see maize almost ready to harvest. At the workshop we’re preparing for another round of field testing.  Now that we’ve ironed out the biggest technical details, we’ll hopefully be able to run better tests on factors like shelling throughput and willingness to pay.

Continuing the Solar Work

The time since my last update has been spent teaching more school workshops and putting the final touches on the teachable solar USB charger, which now has a box to contain it. Before, the circuit was very fragile but now that we’ve found a way to fix it within a box it is much sturdier. With our design finalized, we’ve begun teaching others how to build them. I realized there is definitely a trade-off in how many people we invite to come learn how to make the solar chargers and how much they learn. With a small number of people, they can be involved in the entire process from reading the diagram and building the circuit to making a hole in the side of the box for the USB. With more people, in order to make sure the workshop runs smoothly we have to prepare more for them. We could draw out where to put each component on the project board, but then they wouldn’t learn how to build a circuit from a diagram. We could cut the acrylic box lid for them, but then they wouldn’t learn how to use a hacksaw. We started with teaching just two people, and this weekend we are planning on inviting five more. We plan to grow it slowly and figure out a process before inviting large groups. Over the past couple of months I've learned a lot about solar power, and I am even helping the neighboring organization outfit their office with solar panels.

With the end of my internship approaching quickly (next week), continuity is on my mind. I was hoping that instead of going to the schools and teaching the students, we could teach the teachers how to lead a simple workshop on how to make an LED circuit. In addition, I’ve been working closely with Chris. Chris is a Tanzanian working at Twende with an interest in electronics and in teaching. Yesterday I taught Chris how to build a circuit from a schematic, and introduced him to Instructables.com so that he can teach himself more. Tomorrow we’re going to walk him through the process of building the solar phone charger, so that he in turn can continue teaching more people after Odawa (the Kenyan electrical engineer I’ve been working with) and I leave. Chris owns a small store, and he is planning on using the charger we build to charge customers phones for a small fee. With the constant power outages these past few weeks in Arusha, such a service would be valuable to many.

In addition, I’ve had a number of conversations with people who are living in Arusha and have a lot of experience in international development. I’ve been collecting ideas, and I definitely see a need for new ways of distributing projects… similar to what the neighboring organization to Twende, Global Cycle Solutions is doing. There are opportunities to use mobile networks to get more feedback on products. In addition, there is a need for inexpensive remote payment tracking. I am considering doing a self-study this fall as a way of further investigating some of these ideas and potentially building a prototype.

Week 7: I am taking a Leave of Absence in the Fall!

* I received a question of how my parents responded to my interest in taking an LOA. The additional information of their reactions and role in this process is written in blue. 

My decision to take a leave of absence (LOA) for the Fall semester 2015:

As many of you are aware, I have summer internship in India working with a social venture called ayzh that focuses on infection prevention and promoting best practices in labor and delivery, as well as infant care, in order to improve women’s health and livelihood.

I have been working on the development of the newborn kit and have also become involved with some of ayzh's research by helping write a research proposal, beginning a mini-study on women's perceptions of the clean birth kit and doing a literature review for ayzh’s monitoring and evaluation work. So far, my experience with ayzh has been great because I have stimulating work, I have been well-taken care of, and I love the people I am working with. Because ayzh is small, I know my work carries significant responsibility. For example, who lets an intern sit-in on really important meetings? Who lets an intern begin a mini-study? I want to stay to continue my current work!

Zubaida and Habib, founders of ayzh, have informed me that I would be valuable for ayzh in the Fall to continue my work on the newborn kit, research and impact evaluation. I realized that I definitely want to take advantage of this opportunity! The leave of absence means that that I will not be at Olin in the Fall to continue working with ayzh. 

Deciding to take an LOA was a difficult decision that I have been thinking about for about past 4-6 weeks. The idea first hit me after a couple days with Sanjukta in Banaglore where I thought, “wow! I really love what I did today! Could I somehow continue?”. Then, I met Zubaida and Habib and had more instances of “wow! I really love this,” as well as “I am learning a lot!”

Of course, I have been discussing this decision with my parents throughout this process. When I first presented my interest in taking an LOA, my father responded, “what?! I don’t think this is a good idea” my mother said, “Gosh Kelly, really? Are you sure you want to consider this?” They were both very concerned about how an LOA would impact my education at Olin with graduation, the scholarship. At the end of our first conversation, I asked them to think about it as I investigate whether or not ayzh would allow me to stay and Olin would allow me to take an LOA. I think that my parents thought it would be too late to request an LOA from Olin and that an LOA would not even be feasible. My parents were very apprehensive about me taking an LOA because of how it would affect my education at Olin, but open to the idea because they are very supportive of the work I am doing.

The next time we talked happened to be on my birthday. I did not bring up the topic then because I was afraid would be sensitive, but we did continue the discussion the following day. By this time I had confirmed that ayzh would appreciate me staying in the fall and I knew to contact Alison Black to get started in figuring out if an LOA was even possible and how to request one. My parents became more supportive as we continued our discussion. I realized that we even had similar concerns about my educational path. 

Overtime, I began to feel that taking an LOA would not be a good idea. Will I continue to enjoy my work for an extended period of time? Is taking a break from my school studies a good idea? How will this impact my studies when I return to school? Will I remember how to “do school” when I get back? Will I feel out of place graduating in December 2017 instead of June 2017?

I expressed my situation and concerns with my professors Oscar and Ben. They recognized that an LOA with ayzh was a very unique opportunity because of the combination of:

•  Good, stimulating work with a diversity of projects (newborn kit, research, monitoring an evaluation, & whatever else needs to be done)
• Great people who have come to love
•  The small size of the organization which really allows me to be directly involved and learn

Ben and Oscar helped me recognize that I was scared of the uncertainty with taking an LOA and it was holding me back.

My parents accepted and began to see the value of an LOA once I told them about my conversation with Ben and Oscar where they encouraged me to take the opportunity. With my professors’ encouragement and my parent’s support, I finally gathered the courage to officially decide LOA! I have received positive responses from Olin. I feel very thankful to have the support of my college and family! After receiving my academic advisor’s support and contacting the school, Olin has accepted my LOA request and it is official! J 

Even though I am taking an LOA, I return to Seattle mid-day on Wednesday, Aug. 12^th! I plan to be home for about 3 weeks. I will return to India in Mid-September and come back to Seattle mid-December!

Monday and Tuesday, July 27 - 28^th 2015: I spent a lot of time figuring out the logistics of my LOA with my parents and Olin.

Wednesday, July 29^th 2015: In the evening, everyone went to a nearby hotel to have dinner together and watch the IDDS talent show! It was great socializing! I felt that I was able to get know many of the participants and organizers better. The talent show was quite also entertaining. We had dance performances from India and Costa Rica, an IDDS parody of the song Rather Be, head stands, etc., After the talent show, we all danced, danced & danced! I loved dancing to so many different kinds of international music!

A few participants and I exploring the hotel

Who's got talent?!

 Thursday, July 30^th 2015: I spent the day helping organize and prepare for participant’s final presentations. I ended up writing Habib’s closing speech for the presentations and helping him prepare. Who knew that I would ever become a speech writer? Lol!

Friday, July 31^st 2015: The final event went well! It was great to see the participants present their hard work with such passion on stage! In the evening, I had a really great time just hanging out on the patio in front of the dorms with the participants and organizers to unwind. We played games, talked, danced and watched the stars.

IDDS Final Presentations are over!

 Saturday, Aug. 1^st 2015: Everyone spent the day packing and cleaning up after the event. It’s been hard to say good-bye to the participants and organizers, especially because I do not leave until next week.

That moment when you are in a foreign country and your credit card expires… Good thing I withdrew a enough rupees to get me through Aug. 11^th.

Upcoming this week:

I will be leaving the university campus on Tuesday to return to the women’s hotel in Chennai. I don’t know what I will be doing this week, but I look forward to attending Zubaida’s sister’s wedding on Sunday, Aug. 9^th!