Thank You

Thank you very much for reading my blog. I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

I would like to thank everyone who has been a part of making my placement such an enjoyable and interesting experience: the whole placements team at EWB, Anand Narayan - lab manager at SELCO, Sam Cocks, Joyce and Jitendra - my fellow SELCO interns, my family, and of course everyone I've met at the SDM college hostel in Ujire.

Last days in India :(

Today is my last day in India. The last moments of my time spent in Ujire were spent with a group of about 25 representatives from a company called SAP, which provides software management solutions. They had come to visit the SELCO lab to learn about solar energy provision, how the social enterprise business model works, and sustainable business.

Myself and Sam each gave a presentation on our projects and how we had ended up in Ujire. Also on the agenda was a short trip to Dharmastala, Anand's Farm and a SELCO Solar installation, which had been installed because although the houses were right next to electricity pylons, they were too high voltage to take electricity from. The owners themselves would have had to pay for the erection of the electricity poles. I was lucky enough to leave Ujire by filling a spare seat they had on their luxury AC bus which took them back to Bangalore last night. I will be waking up at 2.30 tomorrow morning to travel to the airport and catch my flight back to London & can't wait to start University again.

I thought I'd finish this blog and my last post with several top lists:

Top 5 best experiences:

• Home-stay visit in rural farmhouse

• Having a guide to take us around Mysore (including the Centre for renewable energy and sustainable technologies)

• Masala Dosa, Ice Cream & Gobi Manchurian

• Meeting and sharing experiences with everyone in the engineering college hostel

• Transporting testing the solar biomass hybrid dryer.

• Houseboat tour of the Keralan Backwaters

  
  

Top 5 worst experiences:

• 6 hour bumpy overnight bus journey from Dharmastala to Mysore (10.30 – 04.30)

• The day of a strike in Trivandrum

• Walking half an hour back in the rain having forgot my Umbrella.

• Loosing my appetite for Indian Food when not feeling well

• Chundering everywhere

  
  

My top initial annoyances for westerners traveling to India:

• Understanding the Indian head wobble

• A huge number of junk calls and text messages on Indian mobile phones

• The possibility chance that every rickshaw driver might overcharge you.

• Lack of pavements on most roads, combined with the crazy traffic behaviour.

  
  

Top questions asked to me:

• How do you find this place?

• How do you find the food?

• What are you doing here?

  
  

My list of top 5 things India is good at:

• Sustainable food production and agriculture

• Hospitality

• Cheap newspapers

• A workforce who are skilled enough to carry out repairs

• Religious Culture

• Maintaining a high population

• Governmental corruption

  
  

NB. I've definitely missed / forgotten many things from these lists.

Two solar dryers have been sent to separate groups in the community. One to a self help group, which empowers women by providing employment opportunities. The dryer will provide them with further opportunities and if used effectively will allow them to make an income by selling dried produce.

Another dryer was sent to a farmhouse where a group 50 rice farmers gathered to share ideas and discuss a system of rice intensification. At this meeting, several of SELCO's products in development were demonstrated. Transporting the dryers over 40km required the hiring of an Omni van. A rice thresher, which was designed by a previous SELCO intern was straped precariously to the roof. The vehicle certainly wouldn't have passed its MOT in the UK and had several very bald looking tyres. Nevertheless, we mad it to our destination, dryer and thresher intact.

A batch of dried bananas was prepared in the dryer a day before the meeting to demonstrate the drying process and the quality of the dried produce. I stayed overnight on Tuesday in the nearby town of Karkala, to save the 2 hour short bus journey from Ujire to the farmhouse. I experienced a small amount of luxury by staying in a lodge which had hot water and BBC World Service on the TV. :)

Their was a lot of interest in all the products. They said they were interested in drying coconuts, and the flurry of hands rushing to try the dried bananas certainly showed that they liked the bananas, even if a couple of people commented that they were smoky.

Last weekend saw the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, and in every town we passed through, huge processions and groups of people filled the roads. (blocking them) In Ujire, there were fireworks and a party atmosphere. It was certainly a strange sight to see hundreds of people 'dancing' to Indian music in the street.

Training It

I haven't blogged in over a week, so this post is longer than I usually bother to write - I've got the time as I'm writing this on a thirteen hour train journey.

Last week, after ironing out any glitches with the current dryer design, I ordered the construction of two solar biomass hybrid dryers. This was much easier than it had been previously as I did not have to explain the designs. On worker commented 'making one prototype is difficult, but making more is much easier. The purpose of these two dryer is to package them and send them to demonstrate drying at SELCO's regional branches.

The last four days I have taken off work to visit the backwaters of Kerala, and was an experience to remember. Out of the eight different train classes, I decided to travel in what I thought was complete comfort on the way, 2 tier AC. I was given a blanket and a pillow, and spent most of the journey trying to stop the freezing cold AC vent blowing in my face.

It occurred to me as I was being driven round the backwaters on a houseboat, how vulnerable the people living there actually were.

• What is development? When should it stop?

• Is an equal world desirable?

• Is the world overpopulated?

These questions arose in my mind because you see so many people living what appear to be very happy lives among the backwaters. For me the answers to these questions come down to vulnerability and sustainability.

I am now heading back to work. My train (non AC this time has just entered Karnataka - I know this because after 4 days in sunny Kerala, it has just started to rain.

Development problems, like the drying problems I have been faced with are difficult problems to solve. As my placement nears its end, I realise what huge achievements and progress I have made, but have to face the reality that unless SELCO sells any of the products developed in the lab, the impact will be minimal.

I hope the product demonstrations are a success, but know that whatever the outcome the lessons learned will make it have an impact on peoples lives in the future.

Written on the 6604 Mavali Express from Trivandrum to Mangalore.

As a side note, last week, having watched the sun set over the tropical treetops, I was lying on my bed in a etherical haze, and I knew where I was... in India.

But then I just chundered everywhere!!!

(Actually I must have eaten something my body didn't agree with)

Scrumptious Dried Bananas

At last! Smoke-free dried bananas, dried using biomass as a fuel. It took just under 30 hours to dry the bananas using 10 kilograms of wood. As this was an experiment, I recorded the weight of the bananas as they dried to determine the drying rate of the bananas.

Testing – It was great to here that many people liked the bananas, especially their colour and sweetness. When asking a couple of students at the hostel if they liked the bananas, they gave a response which even after 8 weeks, I find very confusing – the Indian head wobble!

The next steps of this project are to test the dryer at various sites around Karnataka.

Over the weekend myself, Sam and some of the students rented a Jeep to take up to Charmaddi, stopping off at various viewpoints and waterfalls along the way. On Sunday we had a relaxing day at the beach – and it didn't rain.

Mysore

Distance from Ujire: 240km

Outward Travelling Time: 6 hours (overnight bus)

Return Travelling Time: 12 hours (2 trains and a bus)

Sights Visited:

Mysore Palace

Charmundi Hill & Temple
The Market

Train Journey back to Ujire
The Railway Museum

Mysore Zoo

The National Institute of Engineering (NIE) & the Centre for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technologies

This trip was fantastic, and we managed to pack so much stuff into our 2 days spent there.

More pictures here

Failure

This week I have developed a cheap, sixteen brick rocket stove which can be used in combination with the dryer, giving good combustion once lit and good temperatures.

This however was the only success. The metalwork in the dryer restricts the flow of smoke through the dryer, causing the food to become smokey, a problem which I have been as yet unable to get around. It is difficult to get good heat exchange, good air flow and a simple design.

I visited a steel workshop today, searching for alternative materials for the dryer. It was amazing to see the complete lack of health and safety procedures, with people arc welding in flip flops and without a face mask... but nobody was hurt while I was there.

Good luck to anyone in the UK who will collect their A-level results tomorrow!

Indian independence day

Yesterday was the day that India celebrates it's independence from the British, so myself and Sam thought the best thing for us to do was go join in with the flag raising ceremony at 8.15 in the morning!

Later, I joined some of the students at the college who had hired a jeep to go to the nearby Didupe falls. Eleven of us all piled into the jeep and were driven along the bumpy road and track as far as we could go. The group walked the last two kilometers. A single track path led up to the base of the falls, but at some points this path became part of the stream, forcing us to wade up through the stream.

Unlike Jog falls, you could get right up close to the bottom of the falls and feel the force of the water and wind pounding against your body, crashing down from above. It was a beautiful spot and well worth the slightly slippy walk up the path to get to it.

Now that the concept of the biomass dryer works, I will be spending much of my time trying to get several made, further reducing the smoke, and trying to reduce the costs by better materials selection. I should be able to run product demo's at some of the SELCO branches to demonstrate the concept and receive feedback for further developments.

Anands Farm and Sam's Arrival

,This week I was finally able to collect the Heat Exchanger I'd had designed. On Tuesday I bought the glass for the solar collector and packaged the dryer securely in cardboard boxes.

Sam, the other EWB placement volunteer arrived on Wednesday morning at 5.45am. I went to meet him at the bus stop, but we somehow managed to miss each other, only to meet up half an hour later after I had walked to the town and back.

In the afternoon, we packaged the dryer into the back of Anand's (the managers) jeep and drove to his farm. His farm was a half hour drive along tarmacked roads. 4-wheel drive was needed for the last 20 minutes of the journey, up a steep bumpy track leading to his farm. The farmhouse had fantastic views across to the steep, waterfall covered western ghats on the opposite side of the valley. The fields were terraced into the hill, with rice paddy, ginger, onions and coconuts being some of the main crops grown on the land.

The dryer was built by two of the local farm workers following the instructions I had given them. They had a few problems identifying which piece fitted where, but an hour and a half later they had constructed the dryer – a successful result, proving that the design was sound and my instructions were clear.

Yesterday, went to his farm by bus, walking the last part of the journey up the track. The two local farm workers helped light a fire underneath the dryer, and prepared several trays of coconuts to dry. At first a simple fire was built, which proved to be far too smokey, and quickly smoked most of the coconuts in the dryer. A better, more contained stove was built which gave a much improved result with most of the smoke going out the chimney.

Jog Falls

Over the weekend I visited Jog Falls, the highest waterfalls in India with 4 others from the hostel. The falls were about 300km away, and we took 9 separate buses to get there and back again; a total of about 16 hours spent on bumpy, potholed Indian roads.

We left at noon Saturday and stayed at a lodge in a town overnight, costing 80rs (£1.20) each! The falls were well worth all the traveling for. A viewpoint on one side of the valley overlooked the falls. There were 4 main waterfalls, but in every other corner of the valley smaller waterfalls could be seen. The weather was typical, bright sunshine one minute and heavy rain the next, forcing all the umbrellas to come out.

The steps to the bottom of the falls was closed, but we went to the top of the falls instead, where hoards of people stepped across the slippy rocks to get a closer look at the waterfalls. We traveled back a different, and much more comfortable route, taking only 3 buses, including a night bus, arriving back in Ujire at 4.10 this morning.

Indian Time

In my last post, I said I would have successfully dried smoke-free bananas. This is not the case!

The aluminum workshop rather reluctantly agreed to make my design of heat exchanger on Monday. By Tuesday they phoned requiring clarification on the design. I am still waiting for a phone call to let me know that it is ready to be collected.

On Monday, I also sent a sheet of plywood to be cut out to make the dryer. Unfortunately, the carpenter struggled to read the dimensions on the print out, and as such, when I returned yesterday he had not measured or cut out anything. I spent a good hour yesterday afternoon standing next to him telling him where to put the tape measure.

At this prototyping stage, these problems are not a major concern, but they do delay the project. I suppose I've just got to appreciate that the designs are not conventional, and work done according to Indian time, and not as fast as at home.

This weekend I'm looking forward to visiting Jog Falls – the highest waterfalls in India, which should be a spectacular sight during the monsoon.

House Hopping

On Sunday, I went with two other SELCO interns to a really rural area, in order to interview a number of different farmers about their lives in order to help deliver technology which meets the needs of the customers. The landscape & views of the Western Ghats was stunning!

We were trying to get their thoughts on two products, the solar dryer, and a mobile phone service that would send up to date market prices for produce, preventing them from being ripped off by middle-men. All of the households were very welcoming, and were keen to greet us with snacks and tea. After visiting a few houses I felt very full!

The mobile phone service was perceived as a good idea by most farmers, however the the capacity of the dryer was often too small for their use. A possible future project will be to make a dryer with a capacity of 50 - 100kg rather than 5kg. It was difficult discussing drying when everything around is damp from the monsoon rains. Being able to dry products in the monsoon was definitely perceived as a benefit.

The most incredible experience I had, was staying the night at one of the farmers houses, a friend of one of the local interns. They made us feel so welcome in their house (4 rooms) and fed us a non veg feast. Fish at 5pm, and chicken for dinner at 11. They kept 4 cows, a dozen chickens and owned just over an acre of land, which they grew coconuts, areca, and bananas. Their family lived a very happy, subsistence lifestyle; but a lifestyle which leaves them very vulnerable to outside influences like market price fluctuations and climate change. Only when I woke up, to the sound of a cockerel, did I really appreciate how rural their house was – I had to walk through 2 streams to get to their house.

I've designed a new smoke-proof heat collector and sent the design to be constructed. By Thursday I hope to have dried smoke-free bananas.

Stoves & Heat Exchange

The last few days have been frustrating and time consuming. I have been experimenting with different configurations of heat exchange plates in the dryer (to take heat from a biomass stove and transfer it to air in the drying cabinet) as well as different stove types, including gasifier stoves and rocket stoves. A uniform temperature of around 50 degrees is required to get a good quality product with a short drying time. This is difficult to achieve as wood burns at different rates. I even burnt a hole in the dryer when the temperatures were too high!

Another problem is controlling the smoke. To test this (without a smoke alarm) I tried to dry my sock, which was wet from the monsoon rains. The dryer did dry successfully, but I was left with a very smoky smelling sock. More design changes were needed.

After several experiments and modifications I was able to partially dry some bananas.

Dharmastala

About 12km away from Ujire is the town of Dharmastala which is home to the Manjunatha Temple - visited by over 10000 pilgrims every day. Yesterday I visited the town and the temple. Luckily I met up with one of the local SELCO interns and was able to skip the 3 hour queue and enter the temple directly. After walking around the temple amongst the thousands of people, we were able to have have the free lunch provided by the temple in the enormous dining hall. Rows of small marble plinths spread 100m across the floor. After each row was seated, everyone was given a banana leaf plate, and piles of rice were ladled onto it from a trolly. After most people had finished eating, a man clapped his hands signalling everyone to move out so the next 100 people could be fed.

Other highlights of the town included a museum, featuring displays of everything from artifacts from past civilisations to a whale skeleton, and a huge statue at the top of a nearby hill, with stunning views across the tree covered mountains.

The New Dryer Prototype

I have now been able to put together the flat packed dryer and test its performance, obtaining temperature profiles when heated by the biomass stove. It seems like it has taken a long time to get to this stage, however every small problem normally requires a journey into the town to buy another component and this takes time.

The costs of the project have been about twice as high as expected, but switching certain components for cheaper ones and bulk producing it will significantly reduce the costs. Previous SELCO dryer designs have caused food to spoil by allowing smoke to enter the drying compartment this design does not. Dryers are certainly required in this area of very high rainfall. It has taken from Monday evening to today to get my clothes laundered – it takes a long time to dry clothes!

The project is well on track, and in a couple weeks the dryer will be ready to be tested by local community groups.

New Arrivals & A SELCO Installation

On Monday, I was able to collect the pieces of plywood from the carpenter, which could then be assembled into a flat-pack dryer. This took longer than anticipated because holes had to be marked and drilled in order for it to be assembled correctly. Just like flat pack furniture in the UK, the dryer proved notoriously difficult to assemble, and I hadn't gone 5 minutes before I broke into a sweat, and stripped the heads of countless screws with a screwdriver too small for the job. I will try again later in the week.

Another arrival was an intern into the lab from the USA, who would be staying just a few days to visit some SELCO installations and make notes of peoples energy needs.

Yesterday, myself and another intern, joined a couple of local SELCO technicians, who were installing a small PV system in a small house / hut. A solar system was suitable for this location as a grid connection would have required the owner pay for the erection of five electricity poles. We traveled there with five people and all the equipment, crammed into an auto. The equipment had to be carried across the paddy fields and up a hill to the house before the technicians set to work. The farmer kindly showed us is plantation of rubber trees and led us across his beautiful fields in the rain. Check out the pictures! (click the slide show above)

The mess opens.

For the last 10 days I have been eating out, either at restaurants (known as hotels) or local canteens. Today the engineering college canteen opened, where I will probably be eating most of my meals for the rest of my time in Ujire. I am still unsure about the names of a lot of the foods which has made it difficult when ordering, and it has taken a bit of time to learn the correct technique for eating with my fingers. Most meals consist of a form of carbohydrate, either rice, idli, rotti, buns, dough balls or pancakes, which are dipped in various sauces and vegetable dishes.

Smaller dishes (served with a spoon) include chats, soups, spiced chips, and gobi manchurian - the South Indian interpretation of Chinese. I certainly have not been going hungry! The one meal I am not enjoying much is breakfast, probably because I'm not used to eating anything remotely spicy so early in the morning.

Mangalore and Pananbar Beach

On Sunday myself, Joice and Jitendra (other interns at SELCO) took the 2 hour bus ride to Mangalore. Having not eaten breakfast, we had a massive lunch, which was by far the most expensive meal so far. We visited one of the shopping malls, before taking a local bus 15 minutes along the coast. We got off the bus where the conductor said... which appeared to be in the middle of no-where. After a 15 minute walk past a huge cement factory, we got to the beach.

It was a beach unlike any I have ever seen, mainly due to a lack of any women in bikini’s, and everyone sitting, not lying on the sand. We headed back after the sun set, and took a very sweaty, bumpy bus journey back to Ujire. A fantastic day out.

After visiting the carpenter who will make the solar dryer, I found out that the material costs for the dryer are still too high for it to be economic for small scale producers to purchase. More design adaptations are required!

A classic engineering mistake

Thursday I spent trying to get the ideas I had for the solar dryer out of my head and onto paper. The problems I have identified with the previous dryer designs are: they are all heavy and immoveable, they do not work well in biomass mode because of a lack of thermal energy storage, the flow of air through the dryer (and across the food) is insufficient.

My solution to these problems is to make it flat packed, add an aluminium heat exchanger and add a chimney.

Yesterday, I created a model of my new design of dryer in Google SketchUp. I tried to understand the construction materials available by speaking to one of the interns who speaks the local language. Several hours later I had a model of a new dryer, however only now was I able to speak to the local carpenter who would be making the design. The preferred measurement system for the carpenter is inches. My design was in millimeters, and I had even got the widths of the plywood wrong!

Hopefully on Monday I will be able to get the design made by the local carpenter so it can be assembled, but I am not getting my hopes up as it takes a long time to get anything done here.

SELCO, Ujire (oojeray), and Solar Dryers

I have spent the last few day settling into Ujire and catching up with the progress of the Solar Dryer project from the other interns in the SELCO lab. Most of my time has been spent reading the reports from other interns and the experiments they have completed. As well as this I have been reading about different dryer designs and efficient ways to dry food.

Previous interns have already managed to get the solar collector working reasonably well. What is not working so well is the biomass part of the dryer. A stove heats the drying compartment, taking moisture from the food with it, however the stove only burns for a short period of time. One of my tasks is to retain the heat in the dryer for longer, so the biomass burner does not have to be lit as often.

Yesterday was particularly exciting as I travelled to a local aluminium workshop in the next town with another SELCO intern to collect a heat exchanger (yes – a HEAT EXCHANGER) for the dryer. Getting this complex shape was not an easy task for the craftsmen in the workshop.

Over the next few days, I'm going to be coming up with some new ideas & designs for the dryer and hopefully conduct a few experiments to test it.

The food has been fantastic (even if I would occasionally like something non-spicy for breakfast) and so far I have not become ill!

The SELCO Interns

Busses, Auto's and Ujire

The last 2 days have been such an experience.

On Saturday lunchtime, I visited the SELCO Head office and saw their examples of the solar lighting systems which they install in areas all over Karnataka State. Some of the financing mechanisms which help people gain access to solar lighting was also explained to me.

On Sunday morning after a very good nights sleep, I took an auto-rickshaw to the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens before navigating my way through Cubbon Park and to the MG Road area. I have found Bangalore is very difficult to navigate through, but the backup is to jump on board one of the many auto's which hurtle up and down the cities streets.

I was conned by one of the rickshaw drivers who initially said he would show me to some of the tourist sights and then drive back to my hotel. After taking me to a few sites he insisted on taking me to a number of shops and once you've entered a shop it is expected that you buy something.

Bangalore's 'Majestic' bus stand was huge. It took some time to find the right platform as it was not signed. I travelled in a Rajahamsa Executive overnight bus (sounds more comfortable than it was.) Once again, I had no real idea where to get off but knew it would be about 5.45am when I should have arrived in Ujire.

This morning, I got off the bus in the dark and in the rain after I had seen the engineering college from the road. Kiran, another intern at SELCO picked me up on his moped taking me to the lodge.

I have now settled in to where I will be working for the next few months, and am trying to learn everything I can about Solar Drying from the previous interns I have a lot of reading to do over the next week.

Arrival & First Impressions

I am not quite sure what time it is as I am writing this. I took my flight from Terminal 5 yesterday. After a 9 hour flight in which I did very little except sleep, I landed. Apart from the enormous queue, passport control was quick and easy. I spent half an hour waiting for my bag, wondering if it would ever come.

I decided to take the public bus from the airport to my hotel. After battling through the taxi drivers all wanting to give me a lift, I found the right bus. It cost 180 rupees for the 55 minute bus ride, about £2.50. The one thing which has hit me on arrival is the behaviour of the traffic. The bus seemed to weave it's way along the road, dodging motorcycles, trucks piled high with stuff and blaring the horn at any moment another vehicle obscured its path. How I found the hotel I am not really sure, however the bus seemed to drop me off within 100 metres of it. I even found the SELCO head office before the hotel. All it took was a little help from the conductor, who waved his hand in the right direction.

The poverty is visible: The houses, the women washing clothes and cooking on smoky fires open fires, the cows on the street, the large number of stray dogs and the rubbish. But strangely, this is a place I will get used to and I have been prepared for the culture shock. When I arrived the roads were mainly clear however as its got later the traffic has got heavier, and I have had to re-learn the way to cross a road safely, without being run over by a rickshaw, motorcycle or moped (there are no pavements)

I am being shown around the SELCO head office later today, and am taking an overnight bus on Sunday night to Ujire, where my placement is based. I am hoping to spend some of the day tomorrow exploring Bangalore city centre.

Pre-Departure Course & 6 days to go.

The excitement is really building as I prepare for my placement. By this time next week, I will be on a plane flying to Bangalore.

The last week I have spent on the EWB-UK placement volunteers training course. We spent the first two days being made aware of (and scared by) all the things which could go wrong on our placements, including health problems and security threats. This included an activity involving spotting landmines - I'm hoping I won't come across any of them! The latter half of the course looked at participatory tools in development, and project management. The course ended with one of the best metaphores for learning about development, and one which I will remember for a long time to come.
I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped put on the course and I wish all the other placement volunteers a fantastic time on their placement.

I've got my visa, a had a whole host of immunisations, packed an assortment of pills (including anti-malarials) , made my arrival arrangements and tried to find as many resources as possible on solar food drying. There's so much more I have to sort before next week, but still cannot wait to start my placement.