Progress Made, More to Come

Tomorrow, I leave Rabat after several full weeks here with my new colleagues at ENIM. There are some signs of success and some lessons learned for future iterations of ADE: Morocco. An important observation is that folks at ENIM are indeed interested in continuing this Olin/Babson/ENIM collaboration. Though there still remains a long way to go before our structure of cooperation is automatic, our two current projects are under way in encouraging fashion.

The project to improve the performance of rural cactus farming cooperatives has benefited from two site research sessions. First hand exposure to processing techniques and interviews with a thoroughly knowledgeable co-op president have detailed our vision of the local state of the art.

This unusual crop, the Barbary Fig or prickly pear, is mean on the hands with its tiny spines but can turn steep, rocky fields into fruit, jelly, animal feed, and the prized cactus seed essential oil. This oil is loaded with vitamin E and other compounds of great appeal for cosmetics from creme to shampoo. Although other parts of the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region such as Tunisia have developed the crop, the countryside of Morocco is still ripe for a much larger development of cultivation and processing. Ideas are already brimming for tailoring solutions for processing and marketing to the local context.

Our second project is simple to name but delicate to pursue. We seek to create a telecommunications solution for the illiterate. Notably, we're familiar with the frequent challenge that illiterate Moroccans face when trying to dial a phone number. The usual scenario is to find a family member, friend, tele boutique worker or total stranger to dial a number from a pre-written list of contacts. There's got to be a better way! Now in the earliest stages of user research, we've only scratched the surface of who illiterate Moroccans are, how they communicate or try to, and how they feel about communications tools which currently seem all but inaccessible.

Complications at play here include the hazy continuum of literacy skills and the number of languages which one might want to use in Morocco. First language first, one would probably target literacy in Darija, or Moroccan Arabic dialect. But Fus'ha standard Arabic has its importance, as the official language of law, politics, and the like. And don't forget French, which though not essential is definitely pervasive throughout the country and opens doors to a lot of international exchange. The breadth of potential stakeholders and personal nature of daily communication leave a clear need to apply user oriented design techniques to effectively respond to the tapestry of human issues.

As I depart the capital, I leave two established international teams of students, now in regular contact and having an emerging work process and shared goals. We have problem framing and user research underway, and I've had the opportunity to share a few choice lectures from a core Olin design course. Coming up in just two short weeks, some of our Moroccan teammates will be visiting Olin and Babson thanks to a grant from the Moroccan Fulbright Alumni Association. There's still risk in the air and challenges to overcome. There aren't enough time or financial resources to do it 'perfectly.' But to my entrepreneurial senses, that smells like something worth doing.

As is often the case, it is now at the end of the visit that I feel the most connected to a productive daily rhythm. The minutiae of knowing a place add up to operational effectiveness: here are some examples.

1. The best time to go for a jog is before 7 am. As soon as morning traffic starts to move, the pallor of diesel exhaust makes aerobic
   exercise more like a pack of cigarettes than a work out.
2. You can pay 12 Dh for 0.5 L of water in a restaurant, or 9 Dh for 5 L of water in a corner store (epicerie).
3. The same epicerie sells bread for 1-2 Dh. A jar of apricot or fig preserves will set you back 20 or 30 Dh. Why pay 60 Dh for a breakfast ever again?
4. Some cafes have reliable internet (mostly
   in the Agdal quarter). Good cafes have internet and outlets. The best cafe's also give you a free bottled water with your cafe au lait. (I was proud to have frequented the same establishment enough times to be called 'mon frere' by familiar server as he shook my hand on his way out after his shift.)
5. The better you can specify the landmarks around a taxi destination, the less winding of a route the cabby seems inclined to take.

In parting, a panorama of Moulay Idriss, hillside town in our cactus producing region.

Au Début: 10 Days In

Rédigé le 14 Octobre, 2011

Ten days have passed since I arrived in Morocco. It has been an unusual pace compared to most of my travels: something not frantic but yet not wandering and relaxed. Gradual persistence granted by my physical presence has built what I hope to be an adequate basis for cooperation with our partners here in Rabat. My primary activity has been to spend as much time as possible with the project team: whether it's talking shop after a User Oriented Design tutorial, or grabbing a tagine in the evening, I take what I can get. Having worked in a distributed fashion before, I feel establishing a tangible and personal impression of the project will enhance its chances for success. Yes, there are real people on the other end of that Cat-V line!

Welcome to ADE Fall 2011, from Morocco

It's a new semester and ADE is back with another season of socially positive international venture design. One of the new locations being added to our list of project communities is Rabat, Morocco.

As an alumni Visiting Designer, I've been sent to Morocco to develop relationships with our new partners at l'École Nationale de l'Industrie Minérale and start making progress on our projects with them. I've just hit the ground here in the Moroccan capital of Rabat and have begun meeting ENIM faculty, students, and the streets of the city.

Look for more missives from this new frontier of ADE throughout this semester and beyond.

Bon voyage,
Bennett

Cape Coast

Today we traveled by tro-tro from Kumasi down to the Cape Coast. We were lucky enough to be able to take tours of both the Cape Coast Slave Castle and the El Mina Slave Castle. Ghana's Coast, also known as the Gold Coast, offered a dramatically different atmosphere from the interior region of Ghana where we spent most of our trip. The breezes coming off the water were well received after spending several days in 100 degree weather. The Cape Coast Castles offered an interesting juxtaposition of concepts, the castles themselves were incredibly beautiful, but the transactions that they housed were abominable. Our tour guides were fantastic and told us about the entire history of the castles, including what years they changed hands, the number of slaves held at each of the castles at any given time, some background information on who the key drivers behind the slave trade were, and the routes that soon to be slaves were forced to travel on their way to the castles. We also got a chance to eat lunch at a great seaside restaurant, where we were able to look out over the ocean while we enjoyed ground nut stew, fried plantains, and jollof rice. After our time on the coast we packed back into the tro-tro and headed to Accra, after about four hours we arrived at Bob Nanes' residence where he provided us with pizza and a wealth of information concerning Ghanaian agriculture. Now we're off to bed! 

Rickshaws in Mirza

As we had spent a bunch of time shadowing rickshaws the day before collecting very quantitative data about their daily jobs, our goal of the day was to collect qualitative data from the rickshaw pullers themselves about their daily life, habits and health. Krishna had very kindly organized around 20 rickshaw pullers to meet us in Mirza. The plan was to begin with a more general conversation with the whole group to get them a little more comfortable with us, the translator and the format of the forthcoming discussions. Following that, three of the rickshaw pullers would take the healthcare groups off to their respective families while the rickshaw group stayed behind to conduct one on one interviews.

The questions we wanted to ask the rickshaw pullers could easily be categorized into three main themes: first, we wanted to get a general sense of the rickshaw puller demographic, so we included simple questions like age, how long they had ridden rickshaws, how much money they made / saved and how many people they supported with their daily wages. Second, we wanted to know more about their daily habits to get a sense of their daily nutrition, water intake and vices (smoking/drinking etc.) Finally, we asked questions about their daily routine with respect to their main occupation. This included questions like work hours, best / worst parts of the job, unpleasant passengers and so on.

When we got to Mirza, the 20 or so rickshaw pullers were all standing in a group and had prepared chairs for us to sit on while we asked questions. As soon as we sat down, all the pullers squatted on the grass in front of us. I requested Krishna if we could sit on the grass as well as it made me more comfortable asking questions that way. The initial bout of questions was pretty well received. The pullers seemed very eager and often discussed amongst themselves to provide a well thought out answer that everyone agreed on. We found that the pullers in Mirza were mostly between the ages of 25 and 40 with a few of them being over 55 and some temporary pullers under 20. They made between Rs. 100 and Rs. 250 per day (significantly less than what a puller in the city made) and supported families ranging in size from 4 to 11 people.

We also got a sense of their diet which involved a large amount of rice and lentils augmented with immense amounts of sugary milk tea (almost 7 cups a day!) At this point, the rickshaw pullers seemed a lot more comfortable with our questions and us in general so the healthcare group split off with the respective rickshaw pullers while Mihir and I stayed back with the remaining pullers for one on one interviews.

We picked two pullers for the one on one interviews; one was 55 and the other was about 40. They told us that after each day, it was their knees, calves, shoulders and waists that hurt the most. Some of them invested in a small tube of ointment which they would use sparingly during very dire circumstances. These tubes cost them almost a day’s wage and they would make them last for almost 2 months. An alternative remedy for aches and pains was hot water heated on a wood stove. Using this method meant increasing their daily fuel expenditure to about Rs. 30 a day.

Almost every one of the pullers chewed tobacco and most of them drank alcohol and smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day. When asked about the most painful parts of their daily rides, the general consensus was that muddy, sandy or dusty roads and inclines were the worst. In addition, it was interesting to note that they found head-on wind very strenuous as well. As a side note, one of the pullers we interviewed, who was 55 years old, had a daughter that had been recently married off. I tentatively asked Krishna if it would be ok to ask what he gave as dowry (in traditional Indian weddings, a dowry is sometimes given to the groom’s family from the bride’s family as a gift in exchange for the marriage and can include anything from cattle to cars to cash) for the marriage. When asked, the puller said he gave about Rs. 20,000 worth of wooden furniture. Using a very optimistic daily wage of Rs. 200, that would equal about 100 days of income.

Once we were done with our pre-defined protocol, Mihir ventured a question which polled the pullers for any ideas they had had to improve the rickshaws in any way. For me, this was the most interesting part of the whole conversation. Almost every single puller in the group had an idea or two to contribute. One of the pullers took us over to his rickshaw and showed us how the cover over the rickshaw was flat. He explained that if it was pointed downwards at the front, the air would “slide over the top” instead of getting “trapped inside the rickshaw”. Another idea was to include a visor in front of the rickshaw to shield the puller’s face from dust and wind. Someone then piped in that the visor should be “arrow” shaped so that the wind would “slide off” and move around the rickshaw. In general it seemed like a lot of their ideas revolved around reducing drag followed by improving comfort.

At this point, the pullers felt a little more comfortable around us and would even laugh at our simply translated bad jokes. We then heard one of the pullers whispering something to Krishna. When we asked him what the puller was saying, he explained that almost 80% of the pullers have problems with swollen testicles. After riding day after day for almost 10 hours a day, one of the testicles usually swells up and starts to cause severe pain.

To end the session, we requested the pullers to ride around the grassy area as well as a nearby pakka (good) road to get some video of their pedaling technique. This included the regular cyclical pedaling as well as the now famous “half-pedal” where the pullers would push and draw back the pedals in a quick back and forth motion. At this point, I also noticed that all the pullers we saw riding around in Mirza seemed to use the middle of their foot or their ankles as the main contact point with the pedals while every single puller in Guwahati city that we saw used the ball of their foot. I am unsure if this was just a coincidence or there is actually something behind this observation. Finally, before the healthcare groups slowly trickled in, we used a tape measure to get some quick physical measurements of the pullers’ bodies.

Again, we will fill in pictures once we are back in the US - sorry for the delay!

Back from the Jungle!

Team Ghana just returned from Adoumkhroum, a tiny (~200 people) town in the middle of the northern Ghana jungle. We arrived Wednesday morning, and returned today (Friday). We don’t have a lot of time to write now, as we’re en route back to Suame Magazine to do some last minute peeler prototyping, but highlights from the Adoumkhrom trip include:

- - Digging in a day-old gold mine outside the town

- - Watching Act One (Scenes 1-4) of “The Rich Man”, a play put on for us by the kids in the village

- - Making gari, banku, and fufu from scratch (traditional Ghanaian dishes with cassava)

- - Machete-ing our way through the jungle (harvested a cassava and palm tree)

- - Seeing a cocoa farm and palm oil processing facility (cocoa beans are not as tasty as expected)

- - Conducting lots of market research about opportunities for cassava processing

- - Interviewing rural beekeepers and touring their hives

- - Getting a little grungy in 110 degree weather without water or electricity for 3 days!

We leave tomorrow (Saturday) morning for Accra. We’re stopping along the way in Cape Coast, a town on Ghana’s Southern shore, where we’ll visit a 19^th century slave castle, and we fly out Sunday evening. Internet is in and out (mostly out) here at the guesthouse, which is why Team Ghana has been slacking on blog/twitter posts. Will post again soon given time/internet.

Church in Greensboro

We met Grant at 10AM sharp yesterday morning in front of HERO’s office. Grant, an AmeriCorps Vista originally from Arkansas, was suited up in his Sunday’s best. He is our go-to man here in Greensboro.

We set out to find us some breakfast before heading off to church. As we walked, we were given two choices to make: Episcopalian, Baptist, or Methodist, and black or white. All churches were within walking distance. We opted to go to the black Baptist church called the Third Street Church of God.

Unity
As we approached the church, we were met with handshakes. Stepping inside, we were again greeted with handshakes and a sheet of paper folded up as a program. On the cover was a message about positive Attitude. The sun shone through the stain-glass windows.

The service began with a selection of songs. The congregation sang together over a piano accompaniment, with hand claps or other embellishments occasionally ringing out.

Before the sermon, there were prayers added from the community. For the people of Japan and Hawaii. For a recently deceased sister. For the congregation. A man from the pews walked to the front and shared a song filled with gospel. Pastor Carvin stepped forward and launched into a sermon on unity.

He involved members of the community into his words. On self-comfort and happiness, acceptance, hats and orange dresses, and looking past differences. All relating to the power of unified people.

During the announcements following the service we were asked to stand up. We awkwardly thanked the congregation, not unlike I had once done at a new church I once visited by Olin. As we exited, we were met again by handshakes as the entire congregation exchanged greetings. Outside, the Pastor offered to speak with us at a later time about Greensboro. His father invited us to fish in his pond for catfish.

We left for lunch at a spot down the street and around a bend. We ran into the Pastor there eating lunch with his boys.

Rickshaw Shadowing

After touring the Rickshaw Bank factory on Monday, we headed into Guwahati to gather more insight into the work patterns of rickshaw pullers. With the help of Dr. Sarmah’s nephew, Avi, we were able to explain to a few friendly Rickshaw Bank pullers what our aims were: we wanted to shadow a rickshaw-wallah going through his daily routine by following him in another rickshaw. After a bunch of CBI (the Indian version of the FBI) jokes, we got going. We were able to quickly hire some pullers, and took off on our first ride around Six Mile… rapidly falling behind our lead rickshaw. Apparently Varun and I together provide a resistance that is a little bit more than a school-age kid.

After some failed gesturing about how we were too large and we should create a caravan of three rickshaws instead of two, we called Avi, who came to our rescue with his excellent translation. We rode back to the rickshaw-stand with the pullers and found another rickshaw-wallah to join our “CBI” group. After some socializing with the pullers (Varun discovered he can speak Hindi) an unsuspecting young man hired our lead man, and we were off on the chase.

We followed the lead puller for nearly two non-stop hours, during which we got to see quite a diverse section of Guwahati. While this exercise is probably not statistically significant, it was quite enlightening and some of our observations are listed below:

1. Guwahati is very flat – except for speedbumps. For even small inclines the older pullers will get off and push the rickshaw instead of riding or half-pedaling, while younger riders will struggle through. For speedbumps, the pullers speed up in anticipation of getting over the hump (my back hurts now).
2. There was a surprisingly small amount of stop and go, or even braking that could be used regeneratively. This is perhaps in contrast with what we observed in Delhi, where city traffic forced the rickshaws to move slowly. From talking to the pullers and Avi, we gathered that in Guwahati traffic does not force the rickshaws to stop – it instead forces them into the rougher side streets where they can ride more freely.
3. Demand seemed to be pretty high – we were told that if you wanted to get a passenger, you could. And this played out in our shadowing. The lead puller was without a passenger less than 20% of the time.
4. Pay is low, but not terrible. In the two hours we followed our lead puller, he earned 145 Rs. This was mid-day, and traffic was not bad.
5. The roads were rough, and made it very difficult to write legibly while riding.

After shadowing, we were treated to a wonderful Assamese lunch at Avi’s house, and retreated to the Rickshaw Bank office to plan our next move.

Rickshaws lined up to collect passengers.

Our shadowing caravan, from the rear.

Back and Forth in Delhi

Apologies for the lack of blogging about the rickshaw project thus far… here it goes. On arriving in Delhi, our first meeting was with Dr. Sarmah and his associates Sandeep and Raghav. Sandeep runs a rickshaw manufacturing factory in Delhi, and Raghav works for an advertising and branding agency that is partnered with the rickshaw factory. Sandeep is an accomplished rickshaw designer, and along with Dr. Sarmah was very involved with the Soleckshaw solar-charged electric rickshaw program. The big idea behind Soleckshaw is to ease the load on pullers by using an electric motor and solar-charged battery to complement the traditional man-power of the job. The batteries are designed to be swapped out on the fly and are charged at a separate solar charging bank where many can be charged at once (the system does not regeneratively capture energy). Eventually, this charging station could be a part of a regular gas station.

We spent Saturday afternoon with this group, learning about and viewing the Soleckshaw prototypes and trying to absorb some lessons that were learned. The project is run by the government and has thus far produced several different electric-assist prototypes and trialed them on the streets of Delhi. Yet Soleckshaw has not thus far been able to produce a cheap, reliable electric-assist rickshaw.

One significant hurdle has been cost. The prototypes each cost around 32,000 Rs, significantly more than the 13,000 Rs for a Rickshaw Bank rickshaw. The motor, motor controller and throttle are procured together from China (except for perhaps some gearbox parts of Indian origin) at a cost after duties of 7,000 Rs. The battery, labor, and R&D costs make up the rest of the price. It is conceivable that the price could be reduced somewhat through bulk purchasing, but even the cheapest electric assist is going to cost roughly twice as much as a regular rickshaw – effectively either multiplying the daily payment of the pullers or increasing their payback period.

A second major problem with the Soleckshaw is the low power density of its batteries. Battery consumption went way up when pullers realized they didn’t have to pedal any more to move around, so the batteries drain very quickly. Sandeep added a switch (similar to a MetroPedal mechanism) to ensure the pullers still pedaled, but the battery still adds 30 lbs to the system and makes the pullers’ job significantly tougher and adds to the overall battery drain.

Perhaps the most important problem with the Soleckshaw has been reliability. Hub motors break under shock loads. Cheap motors die underwater during monsoon season. Motor controllers fill with dust. And if a small thing goes wrong with an electric rickshaw, service is more expensive and less available than for a traditional rickshaw. These rickshaws are designed to be the pullers sole source of income, so they cannot have maintenance costs that are significantly higher than other options unless puller income is increased substantially. It is possible that the solar-rickshaw-wallahs could charge a premium for their environmentally friendly service, but it is unknown how much this possibility could actually benefit them.

After much rickshaw-viewing, we concluded the afternoon with a snack at a restaurant in Chadini Chowk, where we talked a bit about the competition. Nobody has yet created a successful electric rickshaw – they are uniformly overpriced and overweight. Sandeep suggested that our group should focus on electric assist, bringing our technical expertise to bear on the problem.

A few last observations… Watching the rickshaws on the streets of Delhi, we were struck by the way they ride. With their seats aggressively slanted forward (Sandeep was a strong believer in passenger weight helping with the pedaling) the rickshaw-wallahs spend a lot of time standing on the pedals in Delhi traffic. When accelerating from a stop, they “half-pedal” or pedal a small amount forward and then quickly backstroke to stand on the pedals again. As Varun might say, they move their feet back and forth. This makes us wonder if what we have heard about the gearing being too high is actually wrong – perhaps the correct gear for a stair-stepper machine is much higher than that of a bicycle? Lastly, we were surprised at the number of these urban rickshaws that carry things, not people.

The busy streets of Delhi:

Food Processing: Ghanaian Vignettes Continued

Please excuse the off format: post by email is neither fancy nor frequent. Continuation below.

Photo captions: 

1. Somewhere near the Central Market in Kumasi

2. *View from a public tro tro. These taxi-like micro busses got their name for the local word for "three," which is how many pence you needed to catch a ride back in the British colonial era. 

3.A first-pass test of the tumbling idea for cassava peeling. 

4.With only a paltry amount of peel removed, this concept still has some tinkering to go. 

The people here are anything but shy: our group of 7 westerners is constantly drawing banter, handshakes, and curious looks as we weave through the bustling marketplace, interrogating buyers and sellers alike with our odd questions. With our taxi-hailing and tro-tro* hopping skills on the up and up, we've also established a presence across town at a machine shop run by our colleagues from KNUST. 

With the help of a wise gentleman named  Crossman (who, despite his name, is infectiously jovial) and his accommodating crew of machinists, the team threw themselves into some quick and dirty prototyping of cassava peeling devices. The shop is found in a sort of tinkerer's district called Suami Magazine, a sprawling expanse of myriad gadgets, car parts, and hardware deserving of it's own post and better pictures than I possess. With these resources at their disposal, the team got some quick data on its peeling concepts. Different grating, slicing, and grinding surfaces were tried, showing potential for combination into a multi function cassava processing machine. A simple grating-tumbler concept came together in a hurry, but reminded us with a feeble first test that not all progress looks like success. Rather than fabricate a shaft and bearing, we clamped the entire cylindrical chamber into the shop's mill to try some slow rotating trials. 

Given the prevalence of cassava as a staple food and the lack of fast peeling implements on the market, the team sees serious economic impact for a broad market if they can hash out some simple but apparently tricky technical issues.

Though there's much more to  write about, you probably won't hear from us for a couple days: team Ghana is headed (even more) off the grid to the local villages. In the small, tightly knit communities with the fewest resources and the most to gain from our work, we're sure to take some eye opening steps towards piecing together an appropriate and replicable business model to include our device-in-progress.

Look for more when we check back in from the villages on Friday. 

Ghanaian Vignettes

Greetings from KNUST, aka Tek in the local shorthand. Campus has been our advance outpost here in Kumasi for our first 3 days of cultural exploration and product development.

After our exciting arrival in Kumasi, we have hit the streets hard to develop knowledge and ideas in two target areas, cassava processing and bee-related products. The team quickly acclimated to the searing heat and talkative locals. Initial forays to the labyrinthine Central Market gave us a survey of basic economic data on costs of materials and proximate products. We worked on our bartering skills and got no end of smiles for our garbled attempts at the local Twi dialect.

Early Adventures in Assam

We’re in Guwahati! We’re amazed at how widespread Rishshaw Bank rickshaws are around here. As soon as we drove out of the airport in our Tata Sumo, we saw some parked on the side. They are easily distinguished by a large triangle towards the front. We don’t know the purpose of the triangle although we hypothesize it’s convenient for the drivers to rest their feet up there.

Rickshaw Bank rickshaw.

Getting stuck in traffic isn't always boring. There are nearly always cows and dogs around us. Sometimes, we're joined by an occasional elephant, or two.

The Guwahati Medical College (GMC)—primarily a hospital—was an interesting experience. Imagine the two most crowded markets you have ever seen. Now squeeze them together in half the space: that’s what the emptiest wards in the GMC look like. Being a government hospital, the doctors are not allowed to turn a single patient away even if they are filled beyond capacity. They often admit more pregnant mothers than they have beds, and sometimes have to ask some to sleep on the floor with their new born baby. The wards are not always sanitary because it is impossible for a small number of attendants or nurses to stop over 100 people in a small room from spitting tobacco on the walls. Not all wards are overflowing though: the busyness and hygiene varies from section to section and divisions like cardiology are less crowded and often even have empty beds.

[ GMC picture to come]

Our potential partners are amazing! Yesterday, the GMC interns (GMC graduates who are interning at the hospital for a year) briefly showed us around the hospital and discussed healthcare with us. We also talked to senior doctors at the GMC and the Azara Primary Health Care (PHC). It is interesting to note that generally, while the supervisors and senior doctors seem to sugarcoat (and censor) information they give us, the interns are much more honest and speak frankly. We visited Mirza, a village with a Center of Rural Development (CRD) office. Here, we interviewed rickshaw pullers and neighboring families—essentially a group representative of rural low-income people. We found a wide range of responses from this confined group itself about their attitudes towards healthcare and uses of medical options. We offered each family a free general checkup (courtesy of the GMC intern doctors) that they were pleased to benefit from. We were surprised to learn that the majority of these families would even be willing to pay a small nominal fee for a regular checkup, even though they currently never visit the doctor until they have serious symptoms. We are unsure whether this is representative of the general low income population and we will test this finding again this week.

Dr. Anirban Chattarjee checking a rickshaw puller's blood pressure.

Mirza village boys hanging around their house. Everyone liked pictures taken.

We are struggling to be efficient and productive here. So much time is wasted in small talk, or navigating through traffic that we can’t help but feel frustrated with only minor chunks of progress each day. However, we had our most productive meeting EVER today. After our user interviews, with the GMC interns, we debriefed, discussed “surprise findings,” developed personas, identified problems and areas of opportunity, and brainstormed solutions all under 1 hour 20 minutes! We even color coded our post-its during this time.

Yay, Post-Its! :)

Today, we ate at a Dhaba, a roadside informal restaurant. We have discovered a convenient secret about Varun. Feed him anything paneer (especially paneer tikka) and he will be smiling all day. Tiama was followed by a whole army of children. They smiled and ran behind her rickshaw. A little girl, poking her head out of her classroom, made the “ok” sign (which translates to super here) and said, “Didi, aap bahut sundar lag rahe ho,” (Sister, you look very pretty). A man at the CRD even asked Tiama for her picture, and all the other people were crowding around his cellphone to see her beautiful face later! Jake was sick in his room, otherwise I’m sure he would have stolen all the attention. The Guwahati locals are having a hard time understanding Sam's (or Shyam, as they mistakenly say) identity—little kids sing him Bollywood songs when they think he is Chinese or Assamese, but quickly switch over to staring and smiling when they realize he’s American. Even though Sam was mistaken for Assamese, the one time he tried to speak in Assamese, it was mistaken for Arabic.

Jake, feeling a little sick.

Tiama's fan following.

Now, I’m signing off to play with my awesome new red remote control car that Mihir bought me for my birthday!

Post from a Snowy Boston

Although several commitments kept me from joining my team in Alabama this week, I am very much enjoying traveling vicariously with them and the other ADE teams, pretending I'm in a warmer place as snow flurries drift by my window at Olin...

It's really quite amazing that what was a year ago just a twinkle in Olin Professor Benjamin Linder's eye is now a reality... For a bit of reminiscing on the ADE creation process leading up to this first semester and these trips, have a look at my recent post on the Olin blog.

Best wishes for truly wonderful trips everyone!

Follow up thought on Sewage

As Bukky mentioned in her earlier post, people living in the blackbelt would often prefer a porch, a satellite TV, or a barbeque, to a proper sewage systems. The preferred items are status symbols. They are visible items in their life that gives them prominence in their community or puts them on par with their peers.

Let us take the example of a composting toilet. In the current situation, you flush the toilet and all the waste is taken away; you don’t have to worry about it. Now I come along and offer you a composting toilet. However every three months you have to change the tanks out back. That is a hard sell. There is no visible value being added your life. Alternatively I can offer you a porch. Now that is something that is visible from the outside. It is also a place for people to come, talk, and spend time. Even if you have to clean that porch all the time, the benefits are still very tangible.

What this suggests to me, is the problem has two main approaches.

• One, we teach people the link between proper sewage and health. This relies on them valuing health more than what they could buy with that money.
• Two, we make toilets that add value to their lives. This doesn’t have to be monetary but could instead by a status symbol.

Aside: Somewhere in Hale county, sometime ago, after a particularly heavy rain, some sewage from one lot was flowing onto another. The person in the other lot complained to the health department. The violation was cited and the person was imprisoned. However this quickly got out of hand because some many people were in violation, they would have had to arrest everyone in the area. Furthermore they were all poor black folk, which was likely going to lead to allocation of social and environmental injustice.

Sewage: A Crappy Situation

Aside from breakfast at PieLab, my only structured activity on Friday was an interview with JJ (a grad student working on sanitation) and Pauline Johnson (a professor at the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa). When my alarm buzzed at 6:30 this morning, I was quite unsure as to what this interview would bring. All I knew was that it was about sewage or rather the lack of sewage treatment in the region. If you know anything about me, it is that I hate to be unprepared. But I was relying on James' preparation. Thankfully, we formulated a plan on the 45 minute drive down for questions and the general theme of interviews.

When we (Ryan, James and I) met JJ and Pauline, I realized that both women had so much knowledge they wanted to share with us. The first striking thing about this conversation was that the population of the Black Belt region is not only living in poverty but they have also been blighted with some of the most impermeable soil in the region. In rural regions, this means that the traditional septic tank system will not work. (Aside: If you are anything like me and don't understand the traditional septic tank system, here is my caricature of an explanation. All the waste from the house flows into the septic tank where it is kept for a while so that the waste separates from the liquid. The liquid is then treated by normally good soil. The septic tank has to be emptied every three years or it fails.) In the Black Belt, the water discharge from the septic tank will only stay on the top layer of soil. Thus it will not get treated by the soil. In order to have effective sanitation, these people are forced to get engineered systems which cost along the lines of 30,000 - 40,000 (keep in mind that this figure can be more than two times the amount someone would earn in a year).

The current solution to this problem is to run a pipe for sewage from the trailer to a ditch about 12ft away; Some people just let the sewage go right under the house. Because the soil is impermeable, the sewage stays on the surface and is washed everywhere by any rainfall. The waste water contaminates wells and waterways in the area. Most homes rely on well water, many of these families are at risk of contamination. In addition, children play in these yards, increasing their risk. The black belt residents have been living this way for years and subsequently don't view this as a problem. Most consequences of prolonged exposure to sewage--Nausea, stomach aches, headaches-- are accredited to living pains. People in this situation do not consider the lack of sewage treatment a problem. Professor Johnson related a very telling story. When her students and she were working on a system for a young woman living the black belt, the young woman asked if they wouldn’t just build her a porch instead.

While working on the sewage problem, Pauline and a couple of her students worked on several interesting solutions. One of the most promising solutions involved treating the black water (water from the toilet and the kitchen sink) and bypassing the gray water (sinks and showers) to surface water. They approached the state board of health for approval of this system. Though this solution was better than the current solution, it was not approved because it would violate the EPA's clean act (this states that no liquid can be discharged into any surface waterway in the USA). Municipalities can discharge treated water with a permit and large corporations can dump, treated or untreated, water with a waiver. Individuals do not have this same privilege. Other innovative solutions required more effort on the part of the residents. Because the people don’t view it as a problem, getting them to move from a free and convenient system to a relatively inexpensive and time consuming system will be a big problem.

This whole meeting energized both James and I on the sanitation issue. We still wonder how does one engage people to actually believe that sanitation is in fact an issue. Without resident buy-in, it will be an uphill battle to collaboratively solve this problem.

Welcome to the Catfish Capital of Alabama!

A quote by Lilla Watson, an indigenous Australian visual artist, activist and academic that Kofi Taha, one of our trip leaders, shared with us this afternoon.

After a long trip over from Boston involving flight delays, lost flight attendants, the transportation of suspicious-looking home energy auditing equipment, an adventure to find vegan meal options at Houston International Airport and some elaborate car rental negotiations, our team arrived at Greensboro in the early hours of Friday morning. Greensboro, our home for the next 10 days, is a 2300 person town full of energy, history and opportunity. It quickly becomes apparent through interactions with the community through a slice of pie at PieLab or a hair cut at Mr. Lyle’s barber shop that this town is defined by the fabric of its people. A consistent stream of visitors have travelled their way down Route 69 to experience Greensboro’s hospitality and the exciting activity that surrounds different groups working here, including our partner HERO (the Hale Empowerment Revitalization Organization). Through our many interactions so far, we have been continually asked who we are and what we are doing down in Greensboro. Our group decided to give this question some deeper thought during a discussion this afternoon:

We are here to learn, to engage and to challenge assumptions. We are here to explore opportunities, and to understand the systems and intricacies of everyday life. We are here to collaborate and to contribute.

Lilla Watson’s quote was particularly useful for framing our discussion as it helped articulate the general approach to community engagement that we are trying to foster through the ADE program. ADE is not a charity in the traditional sense of the term. We are also not a group of skilled engineers, designers and entrepreneurs who have come to alleviate Greensboro of all its problems and hardships. Instead, we are here to work together with the people of this community to understand and act on opportunities collaboratively to generate long lasting, positive impact. We are excited about all that we will learn through these interactions, the perspective that we will gain and the challenges we will experience when applying our technical skills to new and unfamiliar contexts. This is our liberation.

Boston to Kumasi: An Adventure in Several Parts

Hello and akwaaba (welcome)* to Team Ghana (Rayshawn, Carisa, Elsa, Sandra, and me)’s first blog post! We safely arrived in Accra, Ghana’s capital, yesterday afternoon after an 11 hour layover in D.C.’s exhilarating Dulles Airport and a 10 hour flight. We promptly hopped on a 5- hour bus (called a tro-tro) to Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, and the historical capital of the ancient Ashanti Empire. We are staying in the Engineering Guesthouse at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, where a team of local engineering professors and students are hosting us. It’s about 95 degrees and slightly humid, but our rooms at the guesthouse are pretty luxurious with AC, TV, and personal bathrooms!

Because of our long time in transit, most of what we’ve seen of Ghana so far has been out of a tro-tro window. We spent about an hour driving out of Accra through winding streets all covered in dustfrom the deep red (iron-rich) soil that seems to be everywhere here. As we paused in the stopping and starting traffic, vendors (many of them barefoot children) ran up to our tro-tro trying to hawk all manner of ware: DVDs, antennas, food, and watches. Women in brightly patterned dresses were balancing impressively heavy-looking baskets on their head and around with larger food items like whole bananas and coconuts. We bought 2 bags of fried plantains for 1 cedi (about 66 cents). They were salty and delicious.

Even though Ghana is officially only about a quarter Christian, the huge Christian influence on Ghanaian culture was palpable even from our humble tro-tro window. We saw dozens of tiny specialty shops selling convenience items, snacks, tires, meat, PVC, and assorted knick-knacks, many with Christian names: “Medi-Moses Prostate Center", "Jesus Savior Gear Box Specialist” and “God of Time Tires” were my favorites. There were also lots of billboards for churches, services, and various religious events, as well as miscellaneous things like hair straightening services, clothes, and, of course, Coca-Cola. I was sitting next to a mission group from Kentucky on the plane, and they mentioned that Ghana's reputation as a long-stable African democracy makes it a popular destination for Western churches.

March is the beginning of the Ghanaian rainy season, and Team Ghana can now proudly report that we survived our first full-out African storm. We were warned that rain in Ghana is very different from rain in the west in that it usually only rains for a very short period of time, but when it does, it’s torrential. Besides from the slightly frighteningly poor road visibility, it was a thoroughly awesome experience. We were about halfway to Kumasi when the rain started— it was already dusk, but we could still see the sheer amount of water coming down like a blanket, and watch the huge clouds looming over us light up like strobes from the lightning that struck almost every second. We passed the time eating Ben’s Italian sesame cookies, learning Twi, the native language of Ghana’s Ashanti region, even though most people speak English (and luckily for us, signage, etc. is in English as well), and trying to sleep as the tro-tro bounced over the pot-hole-filled road. We made it to the guesthouse at about 9 pm, just in time for us to eat our first proper delicious Ghanaian meal of plantains, beans, rice, cassava, and chicken. More about our adventures and work we're doing soon!

Over and out,

Preeta

*Trying to cover for my woefully inadequate knowledge of Twi by inserting what little I do know in awkward locations? Who, me?

1st Day in Delhi

All of us got into Delhi last night safely, and after experiencing a day out in the city, it seems like we've all managed to escape the effects of jet lag. I don't want to change my biological clock now that it's set, so I'll keep this to a few short stories.

You've adapted to India's culture when...

I've never had Indian food, besides Indian club's samosas. Breakfast was a fantastic experience for me. We had great chai tea, and some flatbread and pancakes with chickpeas and yogurt (actual names will come later). I learned some basics: Indian food is commonly eaten with hands, but eating with your left hand is considered offensive. Importantly, Mihir recommended that we each have some yogurt, which was a bit counterintuitive since dairy's usually off-limits. But, the bacteria in yogurt can compete with the bacteria that cause stomach issues. Also, yogurt's alkaline properties can counteract the spiciness of Indian food. I grabbed more yogurt as the spiciness became more noticeable, and Ananya remarked to me: "you've adapted to Indian culture when you're mixing yogurt with curries [and other spicy dips/sauces]."

Pradip Sarmah

We met Pradip during breakfast. He was a very cheerful guy with a lot of interest and accomplishment in helping low-income people. We clarified his priorities for the healthcare project, and were happy to find that they were overarching goals that aligned with our interests. His first priority was to 1) provide employment to low-income individuals, and 2) to promote and improve health. We were happy to hear this, since we're leaning towards leveraging local workers as basic health providers.

More on this later.

A park in Old Delhi

We spent a good part of the late morning looking at solar-powered Rickshaw bikes. While walking to the solar-charging station, we passed a homeless woman. She was sitting on the side of the walkway, and her baby was on a small 1 ft x 1 ft blanket. Next to the baby was a milk bottle, identical to US bottles expect it was smaller and considerably dirtier. I was thinking: "Depending on our scoping, this woman may be part of our target population. How can we encourage this woman to improve sanitation when it's obvious that she has [arguably] bigger, more immediate needs?"

A tour of a marketplace in Delhi

Walking around in Delhi, I was at times a bit claustrophobic. Lots of people, oftentimes narrow spaces, and anxiety that you'll lose sight of your teammates. Here's what one of the more open market-spaces looks like:

We walked around the wholesale medical district, consisting of dozens or hundreds of individual shopkeepers, many selling identical wares. Notably, they were well-stocked, with products from major multinationals like J&J and Roche, but at a slightly lower price compared to the US. I took pictures of one man buying a glucometer at ~1000 Rs [replace in a couple hours w/ an accurate figure]. He was very well-groomed and well-dressed, with nice slacks and long-sleeved shirt. He was also wearing a Titan watch, which ranges from 1000-19,000+ Rs. Interestingly, the shopkeeper showed the man how to use the product. He did a good, thorough job, and even pricked his customer's finger to draw some blood for a demo test.

Sleepy

In the evening, Ananya's parents took our team to a very classy restaurant. The food was delicious and incredibly varied, and Ananya's parents were incredibly nice people. Our meal had a desirable effect, and put us to sleep by the time we got back to the hotel.

Good night and best wishes to ADE teams in Alabama and Ghana!

-Sam, from Varun's computer

All aboard

Team Ghana is boarding their flight! Wish us health, luck, and global impact! More updates as they come in. Stay tuned.

Just look at how excited Sandra is!

Three Trips!

Welcome to the Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE) travel blog!  ADE is a course taught by Ben Linder, Mihir Ravel, and Erik Noyes at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA.  The class works as a collective design firm -- students in the class break into teams to work with partners scattered across the globe to innovate for the betterment of society.  The Spring 2011 class has teams working with partners in Alabama, India, and Ghana.  Follow all three teams as they travel to their partner sites by subscribing or frequently returning to the blog between March 10th and March 21st!