- My time here came and went faster than I could possibly have imagined
- I really miss you all and am excited to see you again soon.
- My time here has been really awesome. Change the world while I was here? Yeah right. But I have learned a ton and feel prepared to serve in the future.
So far my blog has been mostly cool random things I have done, but now I'll try to tell you a bit about the work that I have done here.
A lot of my work here has been dealing with these bad boys. If you don't recognize this, consider yourself lucky. You either don't use computers very much, you own a Mac, or your really freakin lucky. This is a not-so-affectionately named BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), caused by a stop error in a faulty Windows machine. Those seem to happen a lot in Burkina, and when they do they call me!
I swear we didn't pick these barrels on purpose. One could not get more beaten up and the other is BP. But looks dont matter when your filling a barrel with a slush mixture of poo and water, right? One morning, a pile of goat manure, a paint mixer drill attachment, and a funnel got this project rolling. That partially inflated inner tube on top? Thats methane gas for gas stoves. Wicked cheap/awesome renewable energy source, plus an improvement over the smoky wood fires the Burkinabe use. I'm probably going to be trying this out when I get home.
This sweet contraption is a solar hot water heater. Its been sitting in the shed here in Mahadaga for a while, but these cold (60 degrees.. brrrrr!) December mornings have convinced Matt to finally set it up. Its relatively small and most houses don't have the necessary piping for hot and cold water. So for now its just the Walshes that are enjoying hot showers! We weren't sure how hot the water would actually be by 6 am after cooling all night, but it sounds like it works like a charm! (Again, not that I've experienced it; but its OK, I'm back in Ouaga living the life of warm-showered luxury anyhow!)
When I came to Mahadaga my networking experience included setting up a WiFi router at my house... and thats about it. Now thanks to time spent in Mahadaga and my tutor, Google, I'm a pro. DD-WRT is a pretty amazing third party router software that gives you about a million networking options. I flashed this onto several routers and tweaked the options on several more. Network connections for the SIM station, CSPS dispensary, CCFC school, and Handicap Center are up and running.
Renewable Energy! I think this picture should be on the logo for the new Mahadaga power company. From top to bottom: Wind Turbine trickle charging our batteries, Solar panels pumping water from the well, Water tower storing our water supply, Jatropha plants - the first batch of plants for future bio-diesel production.
Matt has a grand-master plan to eventually do a large scale Solar/Wind/Bio-diesel Power company in Mahadaga. One of the first steps in preparation for that was to put up the wind turbine you see in the picture above. Once it arrived from Niamey, prep involved mounting the turbine on a 20-foot pole, runnning the 'power lines' through the trees to the battery shed (that involved me climbing a lot of trees, really a lot of fun), and attaching guy wires to the pole. Then came the precarious job of actually getting the turbine in place. Matt and I stood on top of the 25-foot water tower while someone on a ladder lifted the pole up the side. Once we actually got the pole on top of the tower, already in a vertical position, we had to lift it 4 more feet in a circus-like balancing act to get the pole into its base on top of the tower!
It was kinda like this. Only in reverse. Luckily there were also 4 people holding the guy wires that steadied the top of the pole. Still. It was precarious to say the least. But its solid now, and producing a little bit of power for us. Its not exactly ideal - the turbine still doesn't quite clear all the trees and there is a good bit of loss in the power line run to the battery shed (it should be #4 for how long it is and it is #10 or #12). But its good to get some experience with wind power to get a better feel for using it on a larger scale in the future.
Back to the Jatropha. Jatropha is a pretty amazing nonfood bio-diesel plant that grows like crazy and animals won't eat it. Here's more about it http://www.jatrophabiodiesel.org/
Until that power company dream actually becomes a reality, this is our station power supply. I learned a bit about the ins and outs of solar power along with the pains of lead-acid battery upkeep. The burden of a Mac-laden video team in October proved a bit much for our power supply and exposed some bad batteries. Most nights the power would go out around 3 am as the batteries didn't last through the night. We did some specific gravity testing to figure out which ones are going bad. If only the new batteries had ever made it to Mahadaga from Niamey... That will be a job for the future.
Last but not least, I did a lot of reading while in Mahadaga. Before coming I barely ever read books aside from required school books. Now I've asked for a Kindle for Christmas. There are two books that I can absolutely recommend: The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, the CEO of World Vision. This isn't just another run of the mill book on development. It is a stirring call to action that it no way minimizes the immensity of the problem yet incredibly optimistically tackles what we can do to fix it.
Read the reviews: http://www.theholeinourgospel.com/endorsements/
Here I've made it easy for you, buy it! http://www.amazon.com/Hole-Our-Gospel-Expect-Changed/dp/0849947006/ref=dp_return_2?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books
The other book is Small Is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher. This book is a little tougher read, but has really some great ideas on economics, people, politics and development.
So all in all, my time here has been great. I've learned a ton and helped a bit. It wasn't all fun and pleasantries.
Things broke.
Bikes crashed. (All healed now though =)
But I have been blessed by my time here. Thank you all for supporting me and keeping me in your prayers. Like I said, I'm really excited to see you all again. I will have plenty of stories to tell!
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