AfriGadget

I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time to recognize the amazing work being done by Dipesh Pabari at the Kenya Coast.

When he told me he was turning snares set to kill wildlife into art I didn’t imagine it would look quite like this.

Then he embarked on turning pollution in the ocean into another work of art. This whale shark is the outcome of his labor of love, it’s beautiful and meaningful. Hopefully we all get the message ‘stop killing wildlife and stop polluting the natural environment”. The project is getting a quite some attention.

Last summer as part of their Ocean Project, Camp International, a volunteering organisation running trips to Africa and Asia, coordinated 7 beach cleanups involving gap year students from the UK to cleanup the Kenyan coastline. Over 200 bags of litter were collected which included over 7000 flip-flops. The Camp Kenya School Team Expedition then worked with local artists to create a life size whale shark made out entirely of the recycled flip-flops picked up from the beach.

While hiking in the rift valley recently I came across a cow wearing this plastic gadget on his nose. It’s made from an old plastic container …..the local herdsmen said it was to stop him from suckling his mother – which is especially critical due to the severe drought in the region.

Simple and effective I’d say!

And here’s another one from Dominic Wanjihia – he calls it his vertical shamba

and it’s water efficient and space conserving… perfect for a tiny yard.

Here’s another clever use of plastic water bottles – bird feeders are impossible to find in Kenya

So Maina Maina fabricated this at Kitengela Glass where virtually nothing is thrown away

These feeders have pieces of mirrors attached and attract a huge assortment of birds at all times.  He’s selling them at Ksh 200 (US $2.50 )

I’m scrambling to put my bags together for Ghana, as I leave in just a day for Maker Faire Africa. There’s only one problem, I don’t have everything that I need, and I’m waiting on a shipment from a California bag company. The good news: I’ve just been told that I’m no longer sworn to secrecy, so I can begin telling the story. Here is the FLAP bag project story (from my perspective) and AfriGadget’s involvement in it.

A little background

Four months ago the Pop!Tech team approached me about their collaborative project with Sheila Kennedy of the Portable Light project, who showed off her solar TB blanket at Pop!Tech 2008, and Timbuk2, the well-known messenger bag company.

Their plan was to develop a bag that has the potential to bring the benefits of portable power to selected global communities around the globe, and they were hoping the I could help with distribution and testing within the African communities that I frequent, where power is crucial. Of course, I jumped right in, this was just too intriguing to not do so, plus I have great admiration for all of the players: Pop!Tech, Timbuk2 and Sheila Kennedy.

The FLAP bag project

FLAP stands for Flexible Light And Power. The flap on the messenger bag has the single solar panel on it, connected to the tech tray, which has an on/off switch, an LED light and a USB connection. So, in concept, the bag can be used as a portable lighting and power supply unit for anyone. Most useful however, to those lacking consistent power for devices or an electric lighting option.

Image: How to charge the FLAP bag

This bag will be the official Pop!Tech 2009 bag, and will also be sold by Timbuk2 sometime after that. It’s a unique bag that has the potential to change the way a lot of people (not just in Africa) do things. I don’t have detailed information on any of that, so look to the Pop!Tech team for more information on availability.

AfriGadget’s part in this

Due to my fairly extensive travels, dealing with just the right cross section of potential users for the bag, I was in the right place to distribute some test bags for feedback from end-users. My job, over the next three weeks will be to find the right types of people to give a bag to, interview them before and after, and report back on my findings.

My first stop is Ghana, then on to Kenya and Uganda. I have 10 FLAP bags, with plans to hand out 4 in Ghana, 4 in Kenya and 2 in Uganda. To do the interviews, I will have the help of Henry Addo in Ghana (also a colleague or mine at Ushahidi), and with David Ngigi in Kenya (a young videographer and friend). Pop!Tech has supplied us with small video cameras that we’ll be using for the interviews, as well as some starter questions and types of individuals that they would like to see get the bag.

My objective is to find people from many walks of life, from taxi drivers to citizen journalists, and from roadside food ladies to seamstresses. One of my questions is this: can much of this bag be created from locally available materials?

My main goal: find out if it is useful, usable and if its adaptable to everyday life in Africa.
The Challenge: asking people how they would adopt these kits, looking for inventiveness.

I won’t be sugar-coating my own reviews, nor those of the people who we interview.

Tune in for more tomorrow

My next post will be pictures of the kits, unboxing of the items that I have received and my initial opinions on them. I’ll also be doing some personal interviews (video diary) of myself throughout the weeks ahead, giving some insights into the day’s events and overall thoughts on the FLAP bag project.

[Update: Day 1 video diary]

I’ll also be using Twitter for updates, and though I manage the @AfriGadget account, when I get on the road I usually just post from my personal @WhiteAfrican account.

Additional updates from the manufacturer and from the project team will be found on the Pop!Tech blog and the Timbuk2 blog from time-to-time.

Just last week two African inventors won recognition for inventions that involved scrap, bicycles and mobile phones.

William Kamkwamba grew up as a farmer in Malawi, at the age of just 14, he had built his own wind generator.

During a drought his families fortunes collapsed and he spent his time in libraries reading and discovering about wind energy. He found components for his invention in a scrap  yard; a tractor fan, shock absorber, PVC pipes and a bicycle frame.

When his prototype was able to run four bulbs people arrived to charge their mobile phone. William has just appeared on TED  Global conference in Oxford this week to the conference to tell the audience how he did this.

Another inventor has already appeared on Afrigadjet and has just been discovered by the BBC. Pascal Katana, 22 who with Jeremiah Murimi, 24, has gone beyond fish and has invented a dynamo-powered “smart charger” to help people without electricity in rural areas to charge their cell phones. The system costs $4.50 and it takes an hour to fully charge a cell phone.

These two young men developed the idea during summer break. Wish I had so much energy in my holiday.  These guys should be at Maker Faire in Ghana this August.

A ’stick-up’ Light Bulb like the one shown below sells on Amazon for $3.99

Sample the version we got from Gatundu, Thika District in Kenya. It goes for KSh. 100 ($1.20)

M-Pesa Everywhere

Well, now you don’t have to be at the pub to buy me a drink…

Pascal Katana, a Fourth Year student at the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, developed an electronic device that ‘automates’ fishing. The trap employs amplification of the sound made by fish while feeding. The acoustic signals are radiated and attract other fish who head toward the direction of the source thinking there is food there.
Once a good catch is detected by a net weighing mechanism, it triggers a GPRS/GSM device attatched to the system and the fisherman gets a call/sms informing him that his catch is ready. Pascal is in the process of developing a by-catch control system which will ensure that his contraption doesn’t cause overfishing.

In a previous post we told you  about the Kenya Ceramic Jiko, a fuel efficient stove, it’s such a common stove, we all have one at home.   But did you know that it was invented by Maxwell Kinyanjui?

I recently I “discovered” another amazing jua kali fuel efficient stove – I was at a private party enjoying a fantastic barbeque meal with 100 other guests. I stole around to the kitchen where there was no oven, but out back a tiny aluminium stove that was producing enormous amounts of food with an impossibly small amount of charcoal.

I’ve since come across it again at a private ranch where only the cook knew how to operate the thing to bake the most amazing cakes.

Baking Bread in Baringo

And at Roberts Camp 100 miles north on the shores of Lake Baringo where the chef told me that one only used a tiny amount of charcoal, he lets it cool down somewhat and then let the bread bake without opening the oven until done (I guess he can tell from the smell?)

Fuel efficiency stoves

In recent months I’ve noticed these wonderful stoves everywhere, on roadsides and in jua kali markets.  I don’t know why I didn’t see them before. They come in a variety of sizes and openings are offered (two door or top hinged). They go for US $100 for a small oven (big enough to bake 4 loaves), and a little more for the bigger varieties. Great for baking, they provide important business opportunities for communities, and underprivileged groups like the Jacobs Oven making business for women and feeding orphans.

This is another of Maxwell Kinyanjuils inventions and it’s called the Kinyanjui Jiko. Maxwell is a household name in Kenya, founder of Woodlands 2000 Trust, he is associated with plantations, experiments with trees for fuel, furniture and new designs of fuel efficient stoves including the Kenya ceramic jiko!  Because of the deplorable state of our forests, Kenya is well known for efforts in improving fuel efficiency through  stove inmovations - many of which can probably be attributed to Maxwell Kinyanjui.  – the man gets two gold stars from me! I went to see Maxwell at his Kitengela Arborretum near Athi River just outside of Nairobi. He laughed when he heard that I was the proud owener of a clone. Yes, his inventions are sold only in Nakumatt and Uchumi. In good spirit he was pleased that the oven has been replicated with some modifications … all good business for the jua kali sector.

I bought one and was just amazed that this stove uses such a ridiculously small amount of charcoal. It is great for baking and slow cooking of vegetables and meat but not so good for traditional nyama choma. A well known Nairobi chef told me that he uses it to perfectly finish meat that has been braised on the traditional bbq. As a food loving vegetarian, I find it is brilliant for slow cooked vegetables –mixture of onions, garlic, potatoes, pumpkin, beetroot, aubergines, chopped on a tray and sprinkled with some salt, rosemary or other herbs, and olive oil  …absolutely spectacular results at a very low cost. Bread and cakes have so far eluded me.

Want one? Order it here

Musaki Enterprises Ltd.
Po Box 23058, Nairobi
Lower Kabete
000804
Phone: 0724690352 or 0713564768
Email: teddykinyanjui@hotmail.com or musakitrade@yahoo.com

While visiting a rural community in the dry bushlands of Elementata I met some Turkana women who were absolutely captivating

Turkana mama

Turkana woman

Turkana girl

Dancing Turkana woman

Did you notice the creative head dresses? Zippers may have been invented in USA but nobody would have imagined they’d be used for head dresses.  I was so awed by the outfits that I forgot to ask where they got all those zippers from – I can’t get rid of the image of all the village men wondering about with gaping flies.

Honey is one of the most valuable products of the drylands of Africa. It can be obtained by following a little bird called a honey guide to a bees nest in a tree, whereupon one raids the hive. Or bees can be farmed…in most places a bee keeper simply hollows out logs to make perfectly acceptable hives for local consumption. for commercial purposes however, Langstroth hives are universally thought to be superior to the traditional log hives found in Africa – the box shape make them easy to stack and move around,  and the movable frames guide bees to build combs in an organized manner making comb extraction easy. These hives also have a queen excluder, a mesh grid, usually made of wire or plastic, sized such that worker bees can pass through but the bigger queens cant. This keeps the queen from laying eggs in the honey combs called supers leading to cleaner honey. There are so many NGO’s, GOs and religious Orgs introducing these bright yellow langstroth hives across the Kenyan landscape.They don’t always catch on though – in rural areas people still prefer the logs…

Traditional hive

Traditional log hives are hollowed out logs usually cut from specific tree species with the permission of the local chief. They are hung high in trees and the inside is rubbed with leaves of plants that attract bees – a practice that has been going on for eons. The bees enter the hives through a tiny hole and build their combs willy nilly throughout the space, it’s inefficient and the honey is of a lower quality as the larvae are all mixed up with the honey combs. Not very good for a business approach… or should I say Beesness?.

Langstroth hive in Baringo Kenya

Logic would suggest that the Langstroth hives which produce cleaner honey and they save trees should be favoured right? Wrong! These modern hives are produced by experts in cities and cost a good $100 – far beyond the reach of anyone living in rural Kenya. It’s also rumoured that these hives are easily broken into by honey badgers, over heat in the dry climate of north Kenya driving bees away, and are expensive to maintain. On a personal note, I for one, find them extremely ugly too.

Modified traditional hive

One bee keeping cooperative in Bogoria has figured out a cunning way of modifying traditional log hives to produce more honey. A bee excluder is made using coffee mesh.

Symon demonstrated how beeswax tracks are laid down to guide the bees where to build their combs in neat lines. Cost? One third of the Langstroth hive.

Bucket of raw honey

The honey is collected at night by naked men (yes totally naked …) they say that this prevents one from getting bees stuck in your clothing… I asked about the possibility of getting stung in sensitive places, they said the bees were far too civilized for that…but yes, people had fallen from the trees and been found comatose and butt naked at the tree base…

Honey extractor

Raw honey with comb is sold to the local cooperative where wax is separated from honey. The machine is another jua kali item bought in a workshop in Nairobi.

Home made bee smoker

Bees are smoked out of the hive using a home made smoker.

Production by 40 bee keepers was 8 tons last year, each Kg of raw honey was bought by the cooperative for Ksh 80 ($1), and sold on raw at Ksh 100, or processed and honey sold at Ksh 600 per kg ($8).

8 tons of raw honey were collected in 2008 – this is valued at Ksh640,000 for the 40 bee keepers in the business.

The wax is not wasted but converted into candles which sell for Ksh 10 each ($ 0.12).

Candle making gadget

Using a jua kali gadget for making candles, comprising a string, a piece of conduit pipe and two beer caps….ingenious!

Bees wax candle

Producing the sweetest smelling cheapest candles I’ve ever used. They claim they burn much longer than paraffin candles. Besides they smell delicious

Some sweet facts

· The dry lands of Kenya are the important honey producing districts in Kenya – the semi arid climate, diversity of flowering plants and easy access to fresh water makes it perfect for bees. Kenya is the fourth largest producer of honey in Africa 22,000 tons, China is the worlds largest producer at 299,000 tons (USA produces 70,000 tons) (figures for 2005).

· The group in Baringo produced 8 tons of honey last year.

I love their motto for hard work - "never expect magic from no where".

· Kenya is a world center of bee diversity with over 3,000 species (about 10% of the worlds total number of species)

· Only 150 species or thereabouts produce honey in Kenya.

· Contrary to popular belief, most bee species are harmless… they have no stings

· The Kalenjin people immunize themselves to bees by purposely stinging babies with bees

· In many pats of Africa, honey is an important component of dowry or bride price – a kilogram being made as part payment for the bride – symbolic of the sweetness of sex – or so I’m told

· Bees pollinate most of the crops that we eat

· Bee keeping is most productive in natural habitats, and is a one of the few forms of resource extraction that does not destroy the environment.

The sour facts

· Bees in USA and Europe are disappearing fast – a condition described as colony collapse disorder (ie. Nobody knows why it’s happening). Africa is unaffected so far making honey production a very sweet deal.