Beach day

Day Fourteen

Sunday, May 31, 2015

The day began pretty late, as we took our time getting up on this lazy Sunday.  We rode about an hour west of the city after picking up a young man named Mubarak, an old friend of Ben and Rosy.  We had a good beachside breakfast before jumping into the ocean, bodysurfing, and otherwise enjoying the day off.

The relaxed attitude did not come without any trouble, however.  Ken got pulled out by the strong rip tide and panicked, forcing Mubarak, Kate, and Peter to help bring him to shore.  Some locals ran from the beach into the water, after the situation was taken under control, and ‘saved’ him from drowning.  After it was clear that Ken was OK, they demanded money for their actions, and argued with us for   while before we eventually gave in and handed them a small sum of money.  We left the beach a bit early because of this weird series of events, and went to a market.

At the market, we were greeted by some of the most relentless, shameless, yet efficient salespeople I have ever met.  Upon seeing a group of visiting obrunis, flocks of shop owners ran up to us, asking us questions and telling us to look at their shops.  Eventually, some of us actually did buy things – fabrics, drums, bracelets, clothes – but for the most part we were just browsing.

We returned to iDE and cooked dinner, after which some of us did some work and planned for the next few days, while others watched videos of Annie, Ken and Ndungu (a former ADE Ghana team member) perform dances in their most recent BDE show.  Others planned out things to do on their upcoming vacations, caught up with friends and family, and otherwise made good use of the bit of down time before going to sleep, alive and well.

Vans, villages, and ventures (and veloce mangos)

Day Thirteen

Saturday, May 30, 2015

                We got up early and packed our bags into a tro-tro, van, and pickup truck, each of which was going to different places (with three different groups):

•          One group went to Konongo, for a brief meeting with Priscilla from the Rural Enterprise Program (REP), which was more informational than anything, and which was completed in a short amount of time (the first meeting covered most of what we wanted to discuss) – that group then headed to see Auntie Howe in Adumkrum.
•          Ambika, Anna, and Peter hopped in an air-conditioned van that traveled to Akutuase before meeting up with some of the others at Auntie Ama's and Auntie Akosua's in PKK.  At Akutuase those three met with Auntie Rebecca and her husband Tsikata and gave them the new press.
•          The third group met in Odumase with Samuel, who has not been using his grater for the intended benefit (he is keeping it in his home as a kind of art installation / decorative piece) and did not make his last payments.  We will seize his grater if he does not make his next payment.  We are okay with this possibility because he is not using the machine for its intended purpose right now, and would rather it go to an economically constrained gari-producing woman. We need them to be in the hands of people who will use their graters and presses in a way that will benefit lots of people, as more than just a status symbol.

Upon meeting back at PKK, one group quickly got to work showing Auntie Akosua her new and improved grater.  The team learned, from Auntie Akosua, about a new method of grating that result in different consistencies in the grated cassava, and therefore even more benefit from the one machine/head.  The secret is the pressure put on the cassava when it is being pushed down in the chute.  We documented some footage, and took plenty of notes, and soon were piling back into the vans. 

We said our goodbyes at PKK and took off for Konongo, where we arrived at around lunch time and got food from a few different places.  The team gathered under the shade of a small bakery and snacked on some very inexpensive fruit, bread, and crackers from the nearby markets.  We also got one another up to speed with the happenings at each site visited today. Ken probably ate an entire village’s share of mango this day, and for less than the cost of a McDonald’s happy meal.

After reconvening, we piled all of our things into the truck and squeezed into the tro-tro for a long ride to Accra.  We had a couple stops to make along the way, however, and so the five-or-so-hour ride was not too unbearable.  The main stop that we made was Koforidua -- a few of us (Kari, Kate, Peter, Rezzy, and Rosy) chose to go to Ability Bikes and talk with some people who are doing some really cool stuff there (see https://bikesnotbombs.org/ability-bikes-cooperative for more info).  We learned a lot from these awesome people about doing business in Ghana, working through corruption, and overcoming other challenges like gender roles and financial difficulties.  The rest of the team went to BURRO, where people are making cool, affordable products that help off-grid and other customers gain access to electricity (see http://www.burrobrand.biz/ for more info).  That group learned a bit about doing business in Ghana, scaling up a small enterprise, and how sustainability and business can coexist.  These two visits were very interesting, and were definitely a highlight of the trip.

After a couple hours back on the road, and a pretty gorgeous [but very bumpy] drive down to Accra (Rosy really likes the switchback road that leads down a mountain and overlooks the city), we arrived at our new place of stay - iDE Ghana office in Accra.  A few of us (Ben, Rezzy, Wendy, and Peter) got a late dinner at a restaurant near the office upon arrival, but most of the team went to bed early after what was a long day of work and travel.

Oh, and by the way… the mango [almost] hit the chicken.  !

Build, build, build.

Day Ten, Eleven & Twelve

Wednesday, May 29, 2015 through Friday, May 31, 2015

Build, build, build. Buying materials, welding press parts, and testing and building graters and presses took up the next three days of the week.

We worked hard at the shop, even though the power continued to be an issue.  We tried to get lots of welding done whenever the power was on, but had to resort to use of a diesel-powered generator on Friday because we had so much welding to do.

Ken and Peter helped in the shop pretty much all day Thursday and Friday, filing, cutting, drilling, and more.  Wendy continued plugging away at the distributor guide and user manuals/binders.  The hard work did not happen without a bit of fun, however.  The team was able to go swimming on Wednesday night at the KNUST swimming pool, to let out some steam.

On Friday, we said our goodbyes – Francis collected everyone’s contact information that had not been exchanged already, and others from ITTU wished us the best as we prepared to distribute the graters and presses that we built.

We got back to the SMS Guest House and proceeded in a similar fashion, packing bags and saying goodbyes to the people there.  The weekend ahead was going to be very busy, and we did not want to leave anything behind as we moved on to the villages and to Accra.  We would be staying at an iDE office in Accra for the next few nights and would be able to settle in there, but there was still work to be done in between.

Back to work

Day Nine

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Today, the grater team completed a second grater, despite many frustrating attempts to align the motor, and cleaned and grated a bunch of peeled cassava in order to run some more tests and diagnose the overheating problems that some of our customers were experiencing.  The press team, meanwhile, chugged away in the shop, measuring, cutting, filing, and grinding metal pieces to build frames for their machines, and also oversaw the delivery of several wood boards – a key component to the current press design.  The business team completed a few small tasks, but mostly worked with the other sub-teams, quoted prices for stainless steel, and did some blogging.

Testing a grater

Unfortunately, we had no power for most of the afternoon, which slowed down building and testing. We still managed to run some tests without power for the grater, and we began pressing a large bag of cassava that we had grated earlier in the day. We took the grater and some cassava back to the guest house, hoping to run tests there if the power came back on, but it was out for most of the night.

Holiday

Day Eight

Monday, May 25, 2015

We slept in late on what was a national holiday in the US and in Ghana – Memorial Day in the United States and African Union Day in Ghana.  ITTU was closed and we were unable to work in the shop.  We spent the morning and afternoon at Kejetia Market, one of the largest, if not the largest, open-air markets in Western Africa.  Some of us bought fabrics, but for the most part we just walked around the tight, crowded alleyways and browsed the thousands of small shops.  We ate lunch at the cultural center, and returned to the SMS Guest House in the middle of the afternoon.  Upon return, we held sub-team meetings to prepare for the coming week.

Food Processing: ...and working with them.

Day Seven

Sunday, May 24, 2015

The morning was greeted with big smiles from friends.  Omelets fresh bread rolls from the bakery in Konongo, along with coffee and hot chocolate, made for a good breakfast.  Work began for Teams One and Three around 8:15 am at Auntie Akosua’s house.

Everyone learned a ton, including, but definitely not limited to, how and where she stores her cassava: in two forty-gallon barrels filled with water.  The grating team was able to identify and provide preliminary diagnoses of the problems that the grater was having. The machine needed more servicing back at ITTU, however, so they used the new grater to grate nearly all of Auntie Akosua’s stored cassava. This provided a few hours of testing on the new design and also ensured that Auntie Akosua’s stored cassava wouldn’t go bad when she didn’t have a grater for a whole week.

Upon return from church, however, Auntie Akosua asked her sons to begin pressing a bag of the grated cassava using heavy rocks.  We captured this, and lots of other things, on camera, and for good reason – the process is quite strenuous, time consuming, and very dangerous (not to mention inefficient). Everything we had heard about the traditional pressing held true. 

Auntie Akosua watches as her sons press cassava with rocks, next to her ADE press.

The double-lead screw press, on the other hand, was doing very well (despite a couple half-broken parts).  We were able to begin pressing two big bags of grated cassava on the press.

While all of this was happening, the business team was having great success as well.  First, we got a lot of useful information from Kingsford regarding rental income that Auntie Akosua was realizing by sharing use of her press, and names of more leads for potential customers.  Hayley, Peter, Rosy, Asante, and Debbie met with Robert (a tomato farmer from Konongo), Kingsford, and a few other locals who are familiar with the local tomato farming and processing industry.  We grated a bag of tomatoes to see if our grater, in its current form, could be used to create a tomato purée.  We decided, after a long meeting/interview, that there is a huge opportunity to significantly reduce food waste and food insecurity, as well as to significantly increase tomato farmer income and productivity.  However, those grinders already exist in the marketplace.  Though ADE may not devote an entire team to this, we may, as a potential side project, connect these farmers with people who sell tomato grinders and work with REP to help finance and distribute those machines to the right people.

Robert, a tomato farmer, with some the ADE team and three PKK district officers.

After this meeting, Rosy and Peter went with Kingsford and Joe to Kingsford’s half-acre rice farm about three-quarters of a mile from Auntie Akosua’s home.  He told them about the growing process, including the time- and labor-intensive rice thrashing that has to happen post-harvest in order to create a marketable product.  They also were met by two very young children who had carried water from a pump about a half-mile from the farm to industrial-strength pesticide sprayers, which Kingsford said that they operate.  Upon a short discussion, Rosy and Peter agreed that although there is enormous room to improve this entire process, a much larger organization (or collaboration between multiple organizations with a many more resources than ADE) would have to intervene to make a significant and lasting impact.  As much as they would love to improve the conditions at this rice farm, ADE simply does not have the capabilities required.  One project at a time.

Kingsford eating corn on the cob and talking to Peter and Rosy about his rice farm.

Around noon, we headed back to Konongo to meet up with a team that had briefly visited Auntie Howe, our very first user, in another village, Adumkrom. Six months ago, we had given her one of our early press designs, which required the user to tighten a ratchet strap, compressing the bag of grated cassava between two boards. We were hoping to pilot the design with her by learning about her interactions with it over a six-month period. On this visit, however, we learned that she hasn’t used that press at all – it even collected some cobwebs. Apparently, it was difficult for her to figure out how to use – something that we were concerned about – and so she hadn’t touched it. (This semester, the team put significant effort into improving the interaction with the press, and users have found it intuitive to use. We are excited to field more presses from the new design, the double lead screw press.)

We were happy to see that Auntie Howe’s grater, the first one ever deployed, is still functioning well.

We got back to the guest house, had a team meeting over dinner to review the weekend, and talked about plans for the future – both short and long-term.

Meeting our customers...

Day Six

Saturday, May 23, 2015

A big day: a long-awaited (and for Ambika, Hayley, Ken, Peter, and Wendy, a first) visit to our majority stakeholders – gari-producing women in rural and peri-urban regions of Ghana.  We woke up earlier than usual and loaded a pickup truck full of machines, tools, food, water, and a whole bunch of supplies we needed for the next two days.  After about an hour-or-so ride to a bakery near one of our customer’s restaurant (specifically, Auntie Aba’s chop bar) in Konongo, we split into three groups to accomplish a bunch of tasks on Saturday, outlined in the table below (note that Sunday tasks are not included in this table):

Team One: Ben, Ken, Rezzy, Peter	Team Two: Kari, Kate, Rosy, Wendy	Team Three: Ambika, Anna, Hayley
Visit the Rural Enterprise Program (REP) office in Konongo. Interview Priscilla and learn more about the potential partnership (financing, production, and distribution) between ADE Ghana and their organization. Reconnect, over lunch, with Team Two at Auntie Aba’s chop bar.  Look at the grater and take measurements to diagnose the problems.  Take the grater with us for servicing.  Continue onwards to Auntie Akosua’s home in PKK.	Visit Auntie Aba and Auntie Atta at Aba’s home/kitchen (close to the chop bar and the bakery) to learn more about the problems that she was having with her grater that she uses there. Meet up with Team One outside the bakery, then continue onward to Auntie Akosua’s home in PKK.	Visit Auntie Rebecca and Tsikata in Acutuase to service her grater and to perform a few interactions with a prototype version of the press. Eat lunch at a hotel in the area. Meet with Teams One and Two at Auntie Akosua’s house in PKK.

A big, clay oven at a small, local bakery in the town of Konongo in Ghana.

After arriving at Auntie Akosua’s, Teams One and Two met with several friends and got right to business.  We had a nice meeting with Auntie Akosua’s husband Kingsford, the district director named Stephen, Debbie, Joe, and another district officer. We discussed our project and talked about the opportunities we had, and will have, for the community as a whole.

Peter (not pictured - took photo), Kate, Ambika, Annie, Ken, Kari, Ben, Wendy, Joe, Rezzy, Anna, Hayley, Dona, Debbie, and Stephen meet in PKK.

After the meeting – and a heavy rain - we began walking to the compound in which we were staying, about a half mile up the road from Auntie Akosua’s. We settled into our respective rooms, set up mosquito nets to keep ourselves from contracting malaria, and had a big meal of ground nut soup with rice balls and garden eggs.  After, we played a few card games by lamplight and then got some sleep.

Gearing up for a big weekend

Day Five

Friday, May 22, 2015

After another breakfast at the SMS Guest House, we traveled by trotro back to ITTU.  There, the engineering team completed the building of two graters to bring with us to the villages, as well as one double lead-screw press.  The shop was very busy, as we and our friends here were preparing for a big weekend.  Not only were we going to rural communities to supply our customers with new and replacement machines, but Monday was actually a national holiday and so ITTU would be closed.

Sparks flew as Kate used an angle grinder to smoothen the handles of one her ADE Ghana cassava graters.

The business team, meanwhile, was working on their respective tasks: Peter continued working on the sales, referral, leads, and payment tracking system while Wendy assembled some receipt and documentation materials including a draft of a user manual and Ken helped the engineers build the graters.  Peter and Ken also did a bit of filing for the press sub-team.  Peter and Ambika took a lot of pictures, which can be found on our Flickr page.

The grater team (Rezzy, Kate, and Annie) aligned the motor on one of their cassava graters.

Before the end of the day, the business team took a cab with Anna to a small-ish market at Tech Junction, pretty close to the KNUST campus, to pick up vegetables, spaghetti, and other groceries needed to cook a big pasta dinner at the hotel.  Rosy, Wendy, and Peter led the cooking while other teammates made smoothies, did laundry, and took care of some logistics for the big weekend ahead.  A very loud thunderstorm interrupted us a little bit, but we kept on working.

 

Kari filed the handle for use on one of her ADE cassava presses while Wendy and Rosy make a pasta dinner.

Working again!

Day Four

Thursday, May 21, 2015

   

Upon arrival at ITTU, the team was greeted by Debbie, a KNUST alumna with whom we’ve been collaborating.  The business team pretty quickly got into a discussion with her about many things, including what she will be doing during the pilot test.  She was very excited about the prospect of being a distribution manager, and was OK with the terms we began to talk about.  After a quick lunch, the business team tackled a few big tasks; Peter worked with Ben and Anna on a sales and payment tracking system, Wendy put together a user instruction manual for the grater with some help of the advisors, and Ken put his engineering skills to use with Rosy by disassembling, inspecting, and reassembling two of the Leeson motors, one with new bearings.

While all this was happening, the grater and press teams were very busy. The sparks were flying, even though the power was a bit intermittent, and they were able to pretty much complete the building of a mechanized ADE grater and work on design problems with the press.  The second grater for the weekend trip to PKK, a rural village within the town of Konongo, was also quite close to completion.

Rezzy using an angle grinder on a grater

After another dinner at the Engineering Guest House, during which Hayley reunited by complete coincidence with a childhood friend from her hometown in Texas (what are the odds?!), the team collaborated on compiling Trip Notes, smoothed out some cell phone issues, and got some much needed sleep.

First day on the job

Day Three

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Today, we awoke to birds signing and alarms ringing.  Breakfast was free at the Student Guest House, so we ate some eggs, toast, and coffee/tea, then packed into a van and filled a car with tools, parts, and other things to help assemble graters and presses.

A few of the Olin ADE team members having a good time in the trotro before departing for the first day of work at ITTU.

We hit some traffic on our way to ITTU, but the ride was interesting – there is a lot to look at along the busy roads.  At ITTU, we were greeted by Francis and Bonnie, two of the technicians/engineers who work at this off-campus, KNUST College of Engineering building.  We proceeded to take inventory of all the parts and tools we need to build one grater and one press by Saturday, when we will visit villages around PKK and show them our new designs.   Our sub-teams put together agendas and tasks, and immediately got to work.

The manager of the Intermediary Technology Transfer Unit (ITTU) and the director of the Technology Consultancy Center (TCC) at KNUST, as well as Asante (a long-time partner of ADE Ghana and an engineer at KNUST) all joined Ben, Anna, Peter, Wendy, and Ken for a business meeting about the possibility of incorporating the venture as a non-profit business / NGO.  Initial plans and terms were briefly talk about but nothing was finalized, as many things must happen before that can occur.  However, the introduction of this idea to the manager of ITTU and the director of TCC was well received, and Asante was happy about the discussion as well.  We talked about many things, including:

•            the importance of the next ADE Ghana pilot test (the “50/50” pilot test, or 50-grater and 50-press build and distribution – a kind of intermediary step before scaling the venture)
•          who will be assigned to what roles in the NGO (Board of Directors, Technical Advisors, etc.),
•           the DIV (Development Innovation Ventures) Grant and application,
•          and what the potential roles of the REP (Rural Enterprise Program) and other partners/donors (including Rotary International, and others) may look like, with regards to our venture.

Reintroduction

Day One & Two

Monday, May 18, 2015 through Tuesday, May 19, 2015

After a few delays due to weather and construction at JFK, our team was able to leave Boston and make our connecting red-eye flight at JFK to Accra.  Upon arrival, we made it through security checkpoints, where they checked our Yellow Fever cards and sent us to customs.  We moved along through a relatively easy security check, exchanged our dollars for Ghanaian cedis, and met with Sammy, one of our two van drivers.   We packed one van full of luggage, and the other full of us.  We began the 5 hour journey to our place of stay, a guest house at KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science) in Kumasi. 

A bird’s-eye view of Accra, Ghana from a window of the plane

After assigning rooms and settling in, we had a team meeting during which we assigned roles and overviewed our goals for the trip.  Our faculty advisor, Ben, along with ADE alumni Anna and Rosy, led the meeting.  Below are the roles assigned and the person(s) responsible for each:

     

-               Team/Site Lead à Kate

-               Sub-team Leads & Trip Note Takersà Rezzy, Ken & Kari

-               Trip Note Taker (additional) à Hayley

-               “Food Bank” Bookkeeperà Wendy

-               Photographers à Peter & Ambika

-               Blogger à Peter

-               Gifts à Annie

     

During the meeting, Asante made an in-person introduction, which for many of us was a first, before eating our first meal at KNUST at a nearby restaurant on campus.  Asante spoke to us briefly about his background and how excited he is to work with us.  We went to bed pretty early to sleep off our jet-lag and prepare for a busy two weeks.

Goodbye Ghana!

Let’s recap.

January 3, we entered Ghana with 500 pounds of luggage in 10 different bags. We’ve left with 8 mostly empty bags and one fewer teammate. Don’t worry though; as much as we’ll miss him here in the USA, we’re very excited for BenCh to start his work with Burn Design Labs in Kenya. And he’s going to help us continue to improve the project this spring semester.

But what happened to all of that luggage in the two weeks in Ghana? Well. We built seven functional graters and deployed six. One returned home so the new team knows exactly what they’re working with. We built two new presses and modified an older one. All three were deployed, and one was sold. Some materials were left at ITTU for future work, a few old machines were brought home, and the existing jigs were also returned home for redesign.

 We spent four days co-designing in PKK and visiting other villages. The remaining seven days in Kumasi were spent at ITTU in Suame Magazine testing and manufacturing. Two days at the beginning of the week were spent traveling, and finally we had three days to relax and fly home.

We arrived at IDE in Accra on Thursday evening around dinner time, and the following morning we visited a potential motor supplier. After that visit, a little driving took us to Ashesi University (on the hill in the picture below). Students and faculty from Ashesi visited us during the week, and we were given the opportunity to visit their university in return.

Finally, on Saturday morning, we hit the beach and did some shopping before it was time for us to board our flight home. But as you must know from my previous blog post, flights were never a simple matter for this team. We spent nearly three hours on the tarmac (I watched a full length movie with plenty of time to spare). There was a problem with the refueling panel of the plane. So after an hour or so of trouble shooting, it was decided that we would power cycle the plane to see if that fixed the problem. We were told over the intercom that this was a technique often used in “computeristics”. That’s correct. The plane was turned off and back on again. Tragically, when the plane was turned back on the problem was not fixed, so the panel was disconnected and we were told “it is possible we can still fly to Amsterdam”. And fly we did. We even kept some time from our original five hour layover.

And now we’re back. And the trip was a wild success. Rezzy and I will be continuing with ADE this semester, and we’re sad to see Carly, Bench, Ndungu, Roy, and Tyler go. We’ve picked up a new team of eleven people, and we’re full steam ahead into the project. The ADE space has been cleaned, the site manager chosen, subteams assigned, snack days set, luggage unpacked, and we’re ready to go. Wish us luck for the new semester.

Cheers,

Kari

We're here!

Afehyia paaa!

We’ve finally here on our long awaited trip to Ghana. After an eventful journey consisting of:

         ·    Five flight delays

         ·    One changed flight

         ·    One “Ice Storm”

         ·    500 pounds of checked luggage

         ·    Two lost bags

         ·    Seven TSA checked bag notices

         ·    Two turbulent flights

         ·    One turbulent car ride

         ·    One million pot holes

         ·    And 24 hours later

      we’ve made it to KNUST, just outside of Kumasi. We began work right away on Monday morning, bright and early, leaving around 9:30 am. Maybe that wasn’t so bright and early, but since then we’ve been up and running by 7:00 am. And we’ve done a lot of work too. We’ve assembled three beautifully functioning graters complete with new coats of paint. With these machines we’ve been able to grate and press over 100lbs of cassava fresh from the market. And when I say fresh, I mean fresh. Farmed and sold in the same morning.

This Thursday, we brought two of these new machines to PKK to replace previously functional graters. Two of our customers and invaluable codesigners, Auntie Akosua and Auntie Ama, were ecstatic to begin grating cassava again. Auntie Akosua’s previous grater became dysfunctional a few months ago and Auntie Ama’s grater shocked her three days ago (though it’s not clear what caused this). As soon as Auntie Ama’s new grater was running she grated an entire bowl of cassava in about 10 minutes.

We’ve also greatly improved our ratchet strap press with a new ratchet that is larger than life. The ratchet strap press uses a ratchet to squeeze two wooden boards together with a bag of cassava sandwiched in between. The press was tested out last semester, but after some work here in Ghana, we’ve finally proven it a plausible design. On top of this we’ve built a new double lead screw design with lead screws and a board that rotate out of the users way to prevent them from being placed on the ground.

We’ve received a lot of help with the new press designs from Aunite Ama and Auntie Akosua. Both designs still have their flaws, but we’re one step closer to the end goal. For example, releasing the ratchet strap press makes a noise like a small gunshot. Auntie Akosua said the sound alone could kill a person…. We’ll need to look into this further.

 In the coming week, we’re hoping to build a brand new press and ideally assemble a few more graters. We’re running a tight schedule too. A new press and grater will need to be sold this Thursday. Cross your fingers that the power stays on for us!

Wish us luck and check back later for our next post!

Cheers,

Kari