AfriGadget

I have a talk that I give when people ask me to speak on AfriGadget at conferences that is called, “What do you see?”. It’s a visual and interactive quiz where I take the audience through different images of AfriGadget and ask them what they’re looking at. It’s a lot of fun, and it proves to everyone why it’s so hard for people in the West to come up with contextually relevant life hacks in Africa.

Below are some images from an old family friend who has spent his life working in rural Southern Sudan and Kenya. Under each image you’ll see why it’s interesting. By the way, I too missed the relevance of the flip flops at first glance…

Making use of available resources for a hinge. I really like the way that Ben has used these old slippers and shoe for the hinge of his small kiosk/shop at Butere.

This old chair at Mahanga in Western Province shows the ingenuity of the local carpenters in making use of available resources, with the carton and stuffing from sisal and wood shavings.

Using available containers in a nursery for medicinal plants in Asembo area of Western Kenya.

Making use of a Fanta bottle to channel water from the rainwater downpipe to a storage container in Nairobi.

A special thanks to Roger Sharland of REAP East Africa for sending in the pictures.

Our good friend Forsty sent in the following picture of a “climatised” bus he took in Mopti, Mali the other day:

While it may not be the perfect example of an AfriGadget, it still helps to illustrate how people make do with what is available.

For some folks this may just be an unroadworthy vehicle, for others it’s a comfortable bus that will take you from A to B. Hey, and did we mention it’s air-conditioned?

Few things make Monday really special. Here’s a photo posted by Alen Wekesa on Twitter. Alen describes himself as a sassy Kenyan who loves advertising, music and the arts. iPhone, Twitter, Facebook junkie. Soon to be millionaire with a big heart for charity. Reliable. He is in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but I’m not sure where he took this photo. Enjoy! (Sorry for the dud link earlier folks, here’s trying again)

Follow Alen on Twitter @iAlen

The Il Chamus or Njemps tribe still exist as they did thousands of years ago fishing in the spectacular lake Baringo using a hand made rafts made of reeds….not a new invention but still something very innovative and obviously successful otherwise it would have been abandoned centuries ago.  They are unique people, though linguistically related to the Masai and Samburu, they have broken from tradition and also fish which is taboo among the Maasai tribes who will not even touch let alone eat fish.

The raft is made from reeds called ambatch harvested from the shores of the lake and it takes only a day to build one. The balsa wood reeds are strung together and tied using sisal fibres and paddles are traditionally made from planks of hand sized planks of wood. Today most fishermen used plastic pieces cut from used jerry cans. The rafts last for over a year and though they look flimsy and unstable, they are well adapted to the lake which is very flat and calm. How but how they escape from the hundreds of hippos is anyones guess.

Living on the islands in the middle of Lake Bogoria boats are critical or the survival of the Il Chamus. Each boat seems to be one man outfit and men have carved out territories on the lake in which they fish. Each fisherman works in the early morning hours and using line and nets, he catches a variety of small carps and lungfish for home and sale to passing people. In a day one man can catch only a handful of fish and will earn about US $1.50 through sales. The Il Chamus are one of a handful of tribes left in the world that use this kind of traditional method of fishing.

To preserve fish they are smoked in traditional smoking houses. Fish are laid on top of the wire mesh and smouldering charcoal from wood of various indigenous species of trees are placed in the entrance.

Il Chamus are agro pastoralists and still live a very basic lives. They move their livestock from islands to mainland – but their rafts can carry goats and sheep but not cattle so they simply drive cows into the water forcing them to swim across the lake, which is 8 m deep. The herd is guided them from rafts.

If you live in Kenya and haven’t been out to Lake Baringo – you are missing an amazing piece of living pre-history.

There’s hardly any information available online on this amazing tribe - if you have any or know where to find more information please let me know.

As the BBC originally reported, Cote d’Ivoire now has some new buses rolling around the country; specifically in the capital of Abidjan. While this story is seemingly uninteresting, it needs to be stated that these are their own buses, produced within Cote d’Ivoire by domestic transportation company, Sotra.

Above and beyond employment, the bus engineers from the Ivorian “reaspora” (those who returned to their home country after time abroad) had good reason to build domestically, “In Europe the technology is very sophisticated with lots of electronic devices. In Africa we don’t need this. We just need robust buses because our roads are not very well done like in Europe. This is an African design for Africa.”

There are initial jitters from people about the reliability of the new buses, but given that Sotra has been building water buses and been involved in the transportation sector for some time, the worries will most likely go unfounded.

Miquel Hudin is the co-founder of and lead developer for Maneno, a blogging platform developed specifically for the requirements of bloggers in Sub-Saharan Africa. He writes regularly on African issues at Subsaharska on Maneno.

[H/T Timbuktu Chronicles]

Madmoet Abrahams has been living and working on the street for more then 20 years now. He found a great way to make a living. Everyday you’ll find him in the streets of Cape Town, South Africa collecting White paper. 1 KG of White paper will pay him 23 South African Rand (approximately $2.35) at the paper scrap yard.

Per day he makes more or less 50 Rand. He is a hard worker. I met him in the pouring rain, which didn’t stop him from spitting through the bins in search for more paper. He saved money and bought a bicycle for 300 Rand last year. The bicycle, in combination with his creative re-use of a wheeled carriage for babies connected to it, allows Madmoet to make twice as much money per day! His big dream is to have a paid job and a house.

This friendly, clever and hard working man can be reached under the Sunlam bridge in Cape Town or somewhere on the street…

Ruud Elmendorp, a video journalist living in East Africa, has done a more in depth interview with the young Morris Mbetsa who we recently talked about with his mobile phone-based car security system.

“You don’t need a computer, you don’t need a monthly subscription fee, you just need your mobile phone.”

He’s now looking to start a company that manufactures and installs these systems in Kenya.

[Blog link | Video link]

On a recent trip to the worlds greatest natural wonder (well, ok, one of!), the wilderbeeste migration in the Masai Mara, we had the pleasure of discovering an extraordinary bush vehicle repair outfitters in the lovely slum village of Talek, after our extortionately expensive rental car suffered from not one, but three flat tyres.

If you haven’t been to the Mara during the spectacular migration, then you might find it hard to imagine our frustration - try rousing 5 kids and 4 adults at 5 am, pack them and lunch and head off to the Mara River to witness for the first time in our lives, the crossing of thousands of wilderbeeste, zebra, gazelles, lions, - images of crocodiles leaping for the bleating calves … adrenaline racing with anticipation…..and then “poof”, a flat, right at the edge of the Mara reserve.

No big deal right - just change the tyre and continue. Five minutes delay? No, 3 hours later,  we’re screaming at the rental agent because the key for the spare tyre’s lock does not work! Aaarrrggghhhh

With second car we head to Talek hardly expecting to find an outfitter who can repair tubeless tyres.

This is what we found.

A modified wheel barrow full of silty water and a bit of detergent to find the holes. We stopped counting a  15 - it was very depressing! I don’t even remember  going over a thorn bush either!Should have been my first warning - these tyres were seriously worn and thin.

The air compressor system comprised a tank and engine and a compressor unit - the last part was an adaptation from an airconditioning unit off a vehicle! Very creative.

In the end we had to opt for converting a tubeless tyre into a tube tyre - and this is the gizmo that was used to remove the tyre. It was completely home made and very effective. We found an old inner tube with just about the right dimensions at one of the tented camps, 350 shillings and 3 hours later we were on the road again!

It was well worth the hell to get to the crossing point - and of course this is where we experienced puncture no. 2! Crazy place for a puncture as you aren’t allowed to step out of your car while animals are crossing. Hours later It was back to Talek jua kali puncture repair for us!

After 3 days of stunning experiences we headed back to Nairobi on what may easily be described as the worlds worst road. That was where the new tubed tyre went totally bezerk on us and exploded ripping the tube completely in half! Turns out the tyres were so worn that the wires in the tyre  simply ripped the tube open. Nice one!

We discovered that the spare lock could be opened with a good whack! with a tyre spanner and off the lock fell. Away we went.

Words of advice to anyone renting a 4×4 to go on a major trek to Mara or anywhere in Kenya - check everything  before you go, take rental company managers personal cell no with and make sure you have credit and full phone charge, take a second car if you can, and a fundi (without my brother I’d probably still be on the road side - thanks a million Dom!). Despite the annoying hassles of the rental car and the unbelievable road, the trip was well worth it. I refused to pay for the lost day and was so glad to see the back of that damn rental car - the agency didn’t quarrel.  Gonna buy my own safari car now.

Not all inventiveness is utilitarian (or, business can be fun and fun can mean more business…).

Such is the case with this video by Eric Kabera – the maker of the genocide film “100 days” and inventor of Hillywood - Rwanda’s version of Hollywood. In it he interviews Alphonse Maniriho, an unschooled young 23 year old with an idea: take the classic “Black Mamba” bicycle and completely customize it.

Being a smart young businessman, Alphonse uses his unique bicycle to his advantage, getting extra business from young men who want to ride with him so they can listen to the beats along the way.

A quick list of customizations:

• A watch, set in an old shoe polish can
• Lights, that flicker in the front and back at night
• Radio, for his passengers to listen to

A little background on what being a taxi man is in East and Central Africa is probably important for most who haven’t been to Africa. They have a seat on the back of the bicycle and use that to take passengers around. In East Africa they also go by the term “boda boda” (because they originated around the border of Uganda and Kenya).

Bonus: at about the 8:30 minute mark there are some nice videos of the wooden bikes used around Africa.

[Hat tip: a special thanks to Paula Kahumbu of Wildlife Direct for pointing me towards this story.]

Makeni is a small town in Sierra Leone. Like the rest of the country, it is trying to recover from years of internal strife. Unlike the rest of the country, they have the Binkolo Growth Centre, a small industrial project near Makeni where the manufacture of small farm implements, tailoring, carpentry and blacksmithing takes place, and includes the use of disabled people. Two VSO volunteers, one from Kenya one from Canada, work to train and bring new ideas to the centre.

One such idea was to create a fuel replacement for their pickup by using local palm nuts, a by-product of the palm kernels, which are generally fed to pigs or used for fertilizer. Since diesel fuel for their truck runs approximately $5/gallon, it wouldn’t hurt to try.

It became clear that in our poor country the chief hurdles were getting the chemicals and the right equipment. The search was on for the chemicals and after quite a treasure hunt and more than a few bribes we managed to find 4 litres of Methanol and 5 kilos of Potassium Hydroxide (enough to make a good bomb I think)…

…Actually the whole scene was quite amusing. Here we were hoping to compete with the big oil producers in the back yard of a small village and using an untried collection of old car parts, old pipes and taps attached to a used chemical container, all put together in an image downloaded from the internet. Nonetheless we were fuelled by much excitement, with much of the local community looking on, wondering what on earth we were up to.

Read the rest of this great story, and see a lot more images, on Paul in Sierra Leone’s Blog!

(hat tip Emeka)