Wilfrieda's back

Well, it's about time I think, but she and her husband are back. They had a great trip and learned a bit while they were gone too about various things. We headed out to Mawe Hai this morning and I talked to her husband a lot while we were there about different thing's I've researched while they were gone and their feasibilities.

As we looked at the moringa seedlings I noted again the poor germination rate. Tomorrow we are going to replant the seeds in the pots that didn't germinate and I'm taking the seeds to Maji tonight and I will soak some and take some and do a germination test. If the test shows poor germination, then there is nothing we can do. If it shows high germination rates, then we have a problem and need to change something.

While we were at Mawe I heard him yelling to someone about compost. While they were gone they learned about compost with turning the piles and many different techniques. Where they learned toted 18 day compost which is very reasonable, so that's what they want to try. I was super excited about that because like at Maji, Mawe Hai wastes a lot of matter. They often just leave the matter in piles to rot slowly and under the rain and slow decomposition, a lot of the nutrients are washed away from the finished product anyways. One day while they were gone I actually designed an experiment for different composting methods, so I think we will probably go ahead with that very soon.

He was very interested in ethanol production from the sugar cane. That came about because they didn't have gas for the water pump so they were carrying the water up from the lake by hand. It didn't look very fun to me. I asked about what happens to the sugar cane and it is all just for human consumption. They do not make sugar or molasses from it here in North Kivu (where Goma and the fighting is). It would be very possible to get some sugar cane and start doing experiments on distillations, but we still wouldn't have anything to run it in. I need to find out how to convert water pumps or generators to run on ethanol and then maybe we can go forward with that. Me researching that is limited by my non-mechanical background, but I'm pretty sure if I try I can figure it out, or at least figure out if it is possible or not.

We talked about different legume trees as well and there are three for sure at Mawe Hai. The one they forgot what it was but one of the workers knew. Tomorrow I'll have them write it down so I can research them. The legumes fix nitrogen from the air into the soil and are also high in protein so they are good animal feeds.

Cooking oil was another thing we talked about. All the oil is imported here and while it would take 3 or 4 years for the oil palm trees to bear fruit, that is an option to consider. He was very interested in the process and the design of simple presses so I think I have my work cut out for me. I'm going to try and summarize a lot of the stuff I've been thinking about and bring them up over the next couple days to Wilfrieda and her husband and when Lyn gets back we can all talk about it.

It was also a good day because I am trying to use as much Swahili as possible and going to Mawe Hai is a great place for that. I know that if they mis understand me, it's not too bad (unlike if I go to buy something and get misunderstood and I end up with a bus, a chicken and a hammer when I really wanted a shirt) and they are always trying to help me. It is cool to finally be able to start saying things in Swahili, although understanding people is still hard. My vocabulary isn't big enough to catch all the different ways people say things, but that will come with time.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm slightly excited to be doing something again. As we replant tomorrow I'll enjoy actually working again (and maybe if I'm lucky, I can help with building the shed at Mawe too (check out the pics in album 2)).