The End?

So tomorrow we leave camp, Lake Bogoria and the village of Sandai behind to return ultimately to the 'relative comfort' of a 'Western' existence. One where we almost take computers and advanced mobile phones for granted plus expect water to appear at the twist of a tap. A far cry from these present circumstances.

In terms of aforementioned emotions there is a tinge of sadness at having to leave a place behind but I fully realise that this is not 'my' place (if indeed a place can belong to anybody). I am acutely aware that my own culture and the surrounding culture are incrongruent although less, by degrees, than when arriving.

In terms of the work itself then we should feel satisfied at the degree of progress and the local partners are to be thanked to the greatest extent possible since they were so willing to share networks. Although this has yet to be deconstructed in terms of its inherent assumptions. This is not a job though for the moment as we are still a part of the context.

This leads onto the need now to remove oneself from the context in order to re-orient any alalysis with a 'developed' versus 'developing' comparitive account. That is, the intention is to look at the data and draw conclusions from a 'Development' perspective which seems to indicate a comparitive rather than participant-observationist account.

It has been an interesting ten days under canvas in the midst of such beauty and scorching, arid conditions. Certainly useful exposure to a way of life which is becoming more dominant in large parts of the world due to Climate Change. As such some interesting, generalisable results should be forthcoming which can hopefully not only benefit the local population but the wider, global society.

Thanks so much to all who have helped to make this project a success so far. Here's to our futures together on this humble, struggling planet.

Cheers,

DIYNGO.

School Visit

This morning we visited the neigbouring village of Sandai. It was a long underdeveloped track which led to the village. One, we were to learn, upon which the local women and children had to travel for many kilometers to reach Bogoria to obtain water. In the village we were kindly greeted by a welcoming party as the chief finalised his prior business. Soon we were invited to the chief's office to meet with teachers and local VIPs. We subsequently held talks about the various uses of solar including lighting, mobile phone charging and water pumping. We also demnostrated the HYMini but unfortunately, since the Nokia attachment wasn't present the chief sadly could not charge his mobile phone! Next time we need to bring all attachments. We discussed (a common theme emerging from this trip) the need to educate people as to the use of solar before its potential can be realised. With this in mind we will discuss the possibilities of our local champion teaming up with the primary school we were invited to pilot these ideas with. It is the intention that these ideas will dovetail with ideas developing out of the post Science for Sustainability (S4S) work. That is, the S4S game, localised to Bogoria is further contextualised in terms of Global Warming/Climate Change 'glocalised' effects which are researched by students using renewable powered learning technologies. In other words we are trying to join the dots between local needs and knowledge and global happenings so that people start to appreciate the wider picture. Currently this is emerging as lacking in this locale.

There is much more work to do and probably, as the chief states, we would need to collate all of these ideas and associated data into some kind of proposal. It would, however, seem that a few formerly disparate strands are now beginning to be drawn together...

Mission Accomplished!

Today we got the Asus Eee Pc working on 'our man in Kenya's' solar set up. Duncan has now kindly agreed to be a part of the DIYNGO network. He has a system to be envious of in his home, as described earlier. More importantly though Duncan realises the importance of this approach for the benefit of his community. He makes an exemplorary Champion of the renewable approach. We will no doubt have more to say about all these experiences upon return to the UK. A newsletter certainly seems called for now.

For now, we can almost rest easy in the satisfaction of a job well done by all concerned. All that really remains is to perhaps carry out the remaining one or two interviews of the key players. It would be nice to now further explore this beautiful location. After all, its preservation is partly what we're all about.

Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed to this project to date. This includes all those who have donated in various ways in order to make the project a success, so far. I hope we can all share in the sense of optimism and satisfaction which I am personally feeling at this time.

Sure, this is 'just' a feasibility study to a large extent but it does show that with local co-operation, networking and reliance upon the finer aspects of human nature that some dreams may be acheivable.

I sincerely do hope though that this will not prove to be another infamous, premature 'mission accomplished'. I guess I'll be happier now when all the kit, data and myself return to base for further cogitation and dissemination.

Cheers,

DIYNGO

Emotion is not a dirty word

There's a place for emotions in research (as that is what this project is in this feasibility stage). It may be that ethics are a kind of conduit between reason (logic, etc.) and emotion (those phenomena which 'make' us human). Aristotle probably knew more about this but it does appear to be that ethics or morals are the rationalisation of emotions. That is, one can think through feelings then decide upon a 'moral code' in order to seemingly objectify the irrational; translate it to the rational. The danger though is when ethics completely lose touch with their emotional genesis and become dogmatic through decree. Then we can say that the moral code is being applied too mechanistically to be of 'real' use, i.e. is being used inappropriately. Conversely though if the emotions are left to dictate the rational then there are at least two dangers. The first is that the results are skewed; are not 'scientific'. The second is that the experimenter becomes too involved in the experiement to their own personal detriment. Certainly the latter is a serious concern for any social intervention. Self-protection must be paramount if the experiment is to acheive any longevity.

Contact!

Just met with a fellow renewable energy DIYer, a local man who provides power for his family with a 16W solar array. He uses the power for charging his mobile phone, lighting his home and playing the radio. He also has ambitions to use it to pump water! This local man shares our enthusiasm for renewables and has been into it since 1998-longer than us! We will take a trip over tomorrow with the Asus Eee PC in the hope of using his solar set-up to power it.

Wish us luck! We are thinking we may have found a local Champion!

The Complexities of Development Work

We're realising that 'Development' work is rather complex! We were trying to avoid to simply go down the charity route of donations to developing communities. We were attempting to encourage communities to help themselves. However, here in Kenya we're now realising that a seed does have to be planted before the tree can grow. That is, it may prove necessary to introduce some basic 'seed' technology to a community in order to start the ball rolling. In other words (to continue the analogy) if the ball is missing the 'game' will never be played! However, it is also proving quite obvious that if the knowledge (or 'rules') of how to play the game are missing then the ball may just sit there idly. So, it will be important to train teachers especially in the use of technology in 'developing' communities.

On the technical front the PDA set-up is still proving to be quite useful. Unfortunately we're not yet getting the MP3 player/recorder to charge from solar-it seems it doesn't like an unsteady power flow. Will try to look at this. Still need to test the FM transmitter but all in due course. Perhaps we'll attempt to broadcast the interview with Dr. David Harper. Generally its perhaps around a 75% succes rate with regard to the technical side of things although it has to be stressed that this is quite an arbitrary measure.

Power Outage!

We have a temporary power outage at camp! Can charge PDA and camera using solar but not the Eee PC, just when we wanted to use it to write up the aforementioned lesson plan. Nevermind, it will have to wait. Am also charging a Zen MP3 player by solar with a view to using it to record interviews, etc as well as listen to music on! Pity the Asus set up wasn't ready on time...

Linking with Science for Sustainability

Thinking it may be possible to link with the past Science for Sustainability project. About to design a lesson plan for the games we built and which were re-contextualised for the Lake Bogoria region. Thinking that 'further work' could be utilising ICTs e.g. to further investigate the links between the local and the wider global context. This could help drive DIYNGO'S aims of enabling access to education (for sustainability), healthcare (for local conditions such as malaria) and government (development policy). Although these are simply examples.

How are all things Kenyan?

So here we are actually in Kenya! Certainly there's more to be thought about here than originally anticipated. We were always interested in a socio-technical perspective on the kinds of issues we'd be attempting to address. After all, the issue of 'development' (hopefully sustainable) concerns humans so we should really perhaps consider the social above the technical?

Anyhow, more posts perhaps as things become a little clearer.

We've been meeting a number of people in the local community here in order to get a feel for the place, or create a 'rich picture' as Social Scientists would say. Data so far consists of field notes in the form of a diary and photographs. Hopefully this afternoon we'll get a chance to run a focus group with some local school children plus we hope to interview a local key actor in various community organisation initiatives.

On the technical side of things it certainly seems like mobile technology is the way to go. In a way this may be a self-fulfilling prophecy of some kind since the renewable energy for the Asus Eee PC was not a viable option at this time. However, the HYMini is working admirably or at least the solar panels are. There is little wind here so the wind turbine is not getting up to a great enough speed to charge the internal battery. There is, though, plenty of sun to be charging solar panels. It is therefore possible to be charging the HYMini by day then use it to charge the Palm Centro PDA over night. The Palm Centro then becomes the technical tool of choice for everything. At least that is the current focus of exploration.

So that maybe brings you up-to-speed. More (shorter) posts from the PDA perhaps as the project progresses.

Thanks,

DIYNGO.

in-situ

here we are in kenya, lake bogoria!