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Back to the Village

This past weekend, we took our 3 finished graters and our presses and headed to the villages to demo them. Saturday was an interesting day, as we first drove to Adumkrom, only to be told that Aunty Howe was at the farm, uprooting her cassava. So, we all got back in the Tro-Tro (Ghanaian van) and headed to PKK, only to find that the chief of the village was not present, as he was attending a funeral. With the chief not present and many of the village residents away at the funeral as well, we could not demonstrate our 3 finished graters and receive feedback. Thus, after driving a long way on bumpy dirt roads, we were forced to head back to Adum Krom and hope that Aunty Howe had come back from her cassava field.

Luckily, upon returning to Adumkrom, we were fortunate to find Aunty Howe back from the cassava field. After peeling a few pieces of cassava with her (I was complimented on my prowess with a blade), we used her grater (newly 100% paid for by her I remind you) to obtain cassava mash, which we could then press. With Aunty Howe, the ADE Ghana team tested our 3 press prototypes. From our questions and conversation, we gained more insights on the pressing process.

On Sunday, we traveled back to PKK to speak with Aunty Regina and other gari processing women in the village. We all took turns at hand-grating cassava the traditional way and then began feeding the remaining pieces of cassava into one of our motorized graters. The village residents present were quite impressed with our creation but suggested that we create a new machine that could load more cassava at a time. Nonetheless, we received 2 orders on future graters to be assembled and delivered to PKK in May. It felt great after all of our hard work in Suame to receive not just 1, but 2 orders for our graters so soon after assembling them!

-Nikhil