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.

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.