Our dear friend Bill, who already provided us with this great story on Cameroonian Bamboo Magic, recently also posted another story on the metal workers – les forgerons – in Cameroon on his private blog:
On the outskirts of Maroua, the capital of the Extreme North of Cameroon, is a place quite unlike any other in the country. Here a community of les forgerons—blacksmiths, or metalworkers—practice their craft in the relative cool of a tree grove. Several dozen men with specialized skills are gathered here for a single purpose: to transform piles of scrap iron into finely finished tools, stoves, replacement parts and other useful implements for sale to the local population. Young apprentices learn the craft while operating bellows or shaping wood for tool handles. The production here is performed entirely by hand and on a scale which must be seen to be fully appreciated. ….
I got this photograph from someone who had his teeth repaired in Gikomba – the center of Kenya’s Juakali innovation, and another one of Kenya’s slums . The home made gadget looks pretty terrifying but check out the results!
Looks barbaric but check out the results!
Made from brass and modelled on something much more professional, this manual tooth mould (I’m sure there’s a technical name for this gadget) is cheap and brings smiles back to faces.
Amid the squalor in one of Kenya’s most depressing slums, there is a surprising amount of flashy colour and fun
Njuguna makes these toys because he like to! His clients are local people in the slum but he does sell well outside of that market too.
I was especially enthralled by this scrap metal motorbike but the price was Ksh 2,500 (US$ 30) which may have been a special price for visitors like me – I couldn’t afford it!
Scrap metal gocart – boys in heaven!
Njuguna also makes beautiful micro toys for a specialist corporate market – they had been sold but he had photos
You guessed it – client was Safaricom!
Amongst all the toys were some other serious gadgets that Njuguna had put together for no specific reason -a couple of free standing windmills rotate rapidly in the narrow streets that channel the wind. They stand there like artistic monuments, but Njuguna told me that he made these constructions made from parts taken from broken cars and had put them out and was waiting for an idea to strike him regarding what to apply them to. He called it his research experiment. … somewhere else lay another of his inventions, a waterpump …..(should I have suggested something?)
Kids play by open sewer in Mathare Valley
Visiting Kibera was disturbing in so many ways
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….and yet it was thoroughly invigorating and inspiring – a pleasant surprise . If you ever get a chance, do visit and seek out the Njuguna’s tucked away in narrow streets. These brilliant artists and innovators might live in what seems like the worst hell on earth, yet somehow it feels like they choose to.
These are the kinds of stories and projects that you just can’t make up. We’ve written about Nigerian Mubarak Abdullahi’s home made helicopter a couple years ago from old car parts. It appears that 3 Somaliland men built a helicopter too, using scrap metal and an old van engine.
Much like the Nigerian one, there is no video footage of this one flying. It’s not easy to build a machine that looks and acts like a helicopter, but it’s a lot easier than making one that flies. It does take a lot of drive, thinking and skill to build even these models, but I won’t be truly impressed until I see a video of one taking off and landing.
“The trio, Mohamed Abdi Barkadle, Saed Abdi Jide and Abdi Farah Lidan said the purpose of their helicopter was to be used to fight fire in the city and surrounding area. They receive no major sponsors, financial nor material support from any one including the government, it is a three men vision and ingenuity.”
Now, the question is… Could we get the three (and the helicopter) to Maker Faire Africa in Nairobi this August?
My good friend Jagi Gakunju who runs the Kenyan environmental cyclists club Uvumbuzi club told me about this project which immediately caught my attention. It’s a collaboration with Africans and a Dutch organization.
You can read all about Cycling Blue in Kisumu on their Cycling Blue blog
The Cycling Blue Kenya workshop is providing courses, micro credit for (modified) bicycles and creating of employment, it is aimed to reduce poverty. In the workshop bicycles will be modified to create bicycle carts (for instance bicycle ambulances) for sale. Who buys them? Garbage collectors, local entrepreneurs who want a (modified) bicycle to generate income such as the Cool coolbox, bicycles with extended carriers for transport of cabbages.
Here’s what they are cooking at the moment in Kisumu
The idea that bicycles in Africa get modified and adapted for local uses is definitely 100% afrigadget.
Deep in Kariokor, a slum and a hub of Nairobi’s juakali leather industry, you can’t miss spotting Drogba hard at work at his home made leather press.
Drogba at work
Drogba’s leather press is an assembly of diverse components.
The fly wheels are made up of two used conveyor pulleys full of concrete. These are joined together by two used second hand vehicle half shafts.
The half shafts are connected to an old bench vice screw (hope you are singing along here)
The screw is connected to a press foot
(all together now) “Oh hear the world of the lord” (tune of the kids song Dry Bones)
The print plates are placed on the base of the press frame.
God is able - so is Drogba!
When Drogba spins the fly wheels, he sandwiches the leather between the press plate and press foot producing perfect permanent imprints in the leather
This method is used for most of Kenya’s printed leather products, a huge industry that includes Maasai beaded belts, menu covers, wallets, passport holders, belts, key holders, coasters, handbags, purses, and many fashion accessories and leather souvenir products.
Drogba is 18 years old and works a good 12 hours per day on a casual wage. He has just completed high school and is looking for a college placement. As you can imagine, he’s a huge fan of his soccer celebrity lookalike and namesake.
(special thanks to Dominic Wanjihia for this contribution)
This bizarre fabricated arc welding machine is the unique collaboration between jua kali and mitumba. Jua kali literally means hot sun in Kiswahili, and refers to the informal small traders who work outdoors in the sun fabricating mostly work metal and wood items, fixing cars and other household items. Unable to afford new tools they fabricate their own out of locally available materials. Mitumba refers to the second hand western clothing sold on the streets of many African cities. The arc welder uses stolen scrap and second hand wires that are coated for insulation using strips of cloth torn from unsellable mitumba clothes. This is then wound into the welding machine coils.
God help James if it rains!
I’d gone to Limuru to get a welder for a job on a dairy where I met James Mutahi. He is a typical jua kali wrought iron artisan who operates on the sidewalk outside his street workshop using his own home made tools. I’ve seen jua kali home made arc welding machines before but usually they are housed in a protective box. To save money James dispensed with the casing revealing the guts of his arc welder.
James was making security grill for a window. There’s a huge demand for arc welding in Limuru especially for gates and window bars which are essential in the high risk security zones of Nairobi and other urban centers. Nairobi’s security is the result of the collaboration between mitumba and jua kali!
The picture speaks volumes about the Jua-Kali sector in Kenya– cost saving is paramount whilst safety is overlooked hence no housing box – look for welding goggles, fire extinguisher and other safety gear.
In Baringo one farmer has come up with two rather interesting innovations.
Murray Roberts is in the business of planting restoring grasslands which involves planting grass seeds in severely degraded landscapes.
The primary purpose of ploughing is to turn over the upper layer of the soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface, while burying weeds and the remains of previous crops, allowing them to break down. It also aerates the soil, and allows it to hold moisture better.
A traditional plough comprises a series of blades all facing the same direction.
Murray Roberts has modified his plough so that it has two blades facing each other. These create a hill and furrow effect which is perfect for grass seeding to improve the trapping rainwater in this semi arid part of Kenya. Normally the rainwater hits the surface and sheets off the ground carrying away the valuable top soil and seeds!
But that’s not all. Ever tried to make a fence using barbed wire – you know how tangled it can get? Well not if you use one of Murray Roberts fencing gizmo, it’s basically a tool onto which you thread the barbed wire so that when you go out into the field to fence a plot, you can release the wire in an untangled manner and under tension. Simple and obvious and you don’t need a wire tightening tool.
That’s William Kimosop and Princeton University Undergraduates checking it out – don’t ask me what that dog is up to!
Here’s another interesting idea from Dominic Wanjihia (see links to his other gadgets below) – the fuel efficient Sufuria. A sufuria is the aluminium pan that is used by virtually everyone in Kenya to make tea, ugali and for cooking vegetables. Like all pots that we use, energy is wasted around the sides of the pot. In Africa this is expensive as fuel be it gas, kerosene or charcoal is expensive.
This is what it looks like when assembled
Sufuria Kenya afrigadget
This is what it is comprised of – two sufurias to make one efficient one. Basically a hole is cut out of the bigger sufuria – and the piece cut out becomes the lid so nothing is wasted. To wash the sufuria you just dismantle the pieces by just slipping it out. The heat that otherwise escapes around the edge of the pan, is trapped between the cooking pot and it’s sleeve.
Though it’s not in production, Dominic is using this sufuria at home and swears that it saves at least 50-75% energy on a kerosene stove (his estimate is based on how long it’ takes to boil water).
So if you put a fuel efficient sufuria on a Kinyanjui fuel efficient stove I wonder how much energy saving you could achieve?
Its only where Mama herself is there to put more of her good eats on your plate, that I really feel I’m getting a good meal. Why? Because I can see ever step of its preparation, talk with the chief personally, and share the transcending bond of food with my fellow man and woman.
Now I wouldn’t call myself a street food expert – I’m not discerning enough for that title, but I am observant in the different styles of edibles vendors. In West Africa, I’m particularly impressed by the stock street food cooking apparatus. Simple, cheap, and recycled, I present to you the “Rim Stove”.
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Using the steel rim off a car wheel as the basic starting point, three metal legs are wielded to the outside of the rim. Inside, a metal grate is added to the bottom to hold in the coals, and some form of pan or kettle stand is wielded to the top.
I’ve seen several variations on this theme, but the basics are always the same – the Rim Stove burns charcoal that’s been ignited in the middle of the rim, fed by air from the bottom and heating a cooking container sitting either on the pot stand or the coals themselves.
During on extending brainstorming session, I even tried to think of improvements to the Rim Stove – how it might burn hotter with less customization. My only solution? Make sure a Rim Stove is cooking chips for your fresh grilled fish.
