Uganda: Sept. 12 – Oct. 6
Please see my full year trip log Sept. 2022 – Sept. 2023
Sept. 12, 2022, I arrive in Fort Portal, about 30 km from the DRC.
ASEI-Uganda
PO Box 570
Fort Portal, Uganda, Africa
I arrive after ~ 27 hours of train, plane, automobile, bus, and motorcycle, but am happy to be here.
Andrew Mayanja from Africa STEM Education Initiative (ASEI) met me at Entebbe Airport with his friend Pius, who drove us to the Kampala bus station. I was again reminded of the congestion in city traffic.
We discovered that Google had the ASEI headquarters incorrectly labeled, so we did submit a request to change the location… but above the arrow shows the correct location
Sept. 13, 2022, we had our first ASEI meeting where everyone introduced themselves and outlined the history of ASEI and goals.
ASEI is a nonprofit start up dedicated to promoting STEM education. They are trying to establish a MakerSpace, promote local manufacturing and software development. They have a nice building for their office that includes 5 bedrooms and a kitchen. I live here with Andrew, Moses, and Craven (Black) and share living expenses. We had our first dilemma: whether to adopt an official ASEI dog.
ASEI is constructing ISECs by means of several interesting steps. The heater is taken as a section from an electric range heating element, and the insulating body is made by pouring vermiculite concrete into a mold with the aluminum pot covered in plastic to release the pot from the finished housing.
In the evening, I visited AFRIYEA, an organization dedicated to improving the environment and health. They sell improved cookstoves, promote environmentalism by getting youth involved in golfing, and promote urban gardening and aquaponics where fish are grown in conjunction with plants.
Wednesday, Sept 14, 2022
We went to an outdoor aluminum metal works today where skilled workers made molds of sand to cast aluminum pots.
There was music and some of them were kind of dancing as they were working the sand (below)… seeming to have a good time. It turns out that they are the owners of the business. The company melts aluminum from a scrap yard and works the final product by hand. Notice in the second picture from the right, there are two small holes in the top of the sand through which the molten aluminum is poured.
They are making two special pots for our project: a 4 liter pot that is rather long, and another that is the same long shape on the outside but has a base of aluminum that is 2 liters (for thermal storage), so that the container only holds 2 liters of food. Total cost: 100,000 UgX, or about $26.
Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022
I stayed in today and planned my talk for a local university, hoping to get some local students working with ASEI. We had our SuperGroup meeting at the regular time: 10 AM in California. We are planning my trip to Malawi via Tanzania with the 20 ISECs that ASEI is constructing.
Friday, Sept. 16, 2022
Today we met twice, the ASEI staff. I gave a practice run of the presentation (see Sept. 21) I will give the local university next Wednesday, and we then worked on the budget and grant that I will submit to MECS for the next round of funding. The goal is to increasingly have the center of administration, research, instruction, and construction here in Africa among the GLC collaborators. In particular, we hope that the ASEI staff will take over the administrative processing that I have been doing with students.
Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022
I feel much better getting up bright and early at 11 AM. Unfortunately, yesterday’s meetings were interrupted hourly by a war with WMD in my belly. Last night, Moses gently reprimanded me for my lax hygienic practices and went off into the evening, returning with hand sanitizer and “tablets”. Nitazoxanide is a broad-spectrum anti-viral, anti-parasitic with negligible side effects when taken at 8 times my present dosage. It’s not that I did anything as reckless as drinking from an open water (got me roundworms in Fiji during my Peace Corps stint), it was likely from drinking something at a café or even shaking hands. Moses explained that I will become used to the bacteria here in time. We reflected on how lucky it is that this happened to me at ASEI. Moses shared the story of a Swedish EWB team member that had stomach upset during the 5+ hour trip from Fort Portal to Kampala… OMG, … prayers of gratitude.
Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022
All agreed that no work is done on the weekend…. that we play soccer, relax, watch movies. We worked both days the entire day… in the shop, analyzing grants, making plans… much of the time with a soccer game on.
Monday, Sept. 19, 2022
Another 2+ hour, intense meeting, as we discuss ASEI’s grant proposal for MECS’s Supply Chain Competition.
It looks like ASEI staff are learning so much from me!… but it’s an illusion (similar to how it appears in the Appropriate Technology Classes I direct). Really, we’re learning so much together. I’m reading and writing a lot. I had thought I’d be doing a lot more building and experimenting… but most of my time is in front of this computer… The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Saturday, it started raining, and we ran out to rescue the vermiculite-concrete ISEC housings (see Sept. 13 entry, 3rd picture). I felt a sudden pain in my foot as a piece of glass went through the Crocs I was wearing, and then picked up a housing which broke apart… altogether a massive fail. The cut in my foot was rather deep and bled reasonably well. Moses ran out and got a weed growing in the front yard. Crevan mashed it in his mouth, Moses put it on the cut, and I put a Band-Aid over it. Moses said it’s called Blackjack and would heal the cut. Today, I forgot for a moment where the cut was. I’d never had a cut heal so quickly. Blackjack (Bidens Pilosa) is widely used for headaches, diarrhea, arthritis (anti-inflammatory), diabetes, for many other things, and as an antibacterial. It also has a lot of nutrients. So, I’m eating Blackjack.
I got horrible acute diarrhea in Fiji and another teacher mashed up some guava leaves. She filtered the mash through some water like making tea and I drank the water… tasted really bitter and astringent (like unripe banana skins)… but the diarrhea was gone immediately. Blackjack tastes a little like that. And yes, after an hour, I’d eaten all the leaves in the pictures.
Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022
Moses, Andrew, and I traveled to Mountains of the Moon University, and gave talks to a group that is mostly physics and computer majors.
My presentation was about ISEC innovations, and the GLC, and work with student groups, ending with an invitation to work with ASEI and my classes exploring collaborative innovation. Moses spoke about ASEI, creating a MakerSpace, and his other projects, including the UVC-diode water purifier that he is working on with University of New South Wales. You’ll have to decide which of us took the most shameless selfie:
I was impressed with our visit with the Dean of Science, Technology, and Innovation as well as Opio Phillip, the Department Chair of Physical Sciences, who had clearly read my CV. They were interested to explore collaborative opportunities for student groups to share projects across the globe. I added that I’d developed Parallel Pedagogy for intro level Newtonian mechanics with all resources free online. They seemed interested and indicated that we needed to visit again before I leave in October. They are likely also interested to collaborate with ASEI, as both organizations are developing a MakerSpace.
Back in the lab: Left, testing ISEC heaters made from sections of an electric range heating element. ASEI innovated a way to connect wires to the red-hot NiCr wire without corrosion (or so it seems so far). The heaters in the picture are sitting atop a chunk of reasonably insulting composite (~ 0.13 W/mK) made from a mixture of vermiculite and Portland cement. For comparison, Copper is 400 W/mK, Aluminum 250, iron ~80, steel ~40, pure cement ~0.5, and still air (as in fiberglass insulation and pure, dry vermiculite) ~ 0.013. So their mixture is 10x more conductive than fiberglass insulation, but 1/4 as conductive as pure cement. Middle, Crevan assembles one of the ISECs bound for Malawi to Robert Van Buskirk and Kachione LLC with me come October. Right, we test the thermal resistance of ASEI’s ISEC by monitoring the temperature with a data logger as boiled water cools. I was annoyed that the data logger wasn’t working right…. because it registered only 96 C when the water was boiling… then we looked up Fort Portal to find that it’s over 1500 M (5000′)… where water boils at 95 C. And I also don’t feel so bad about being fatigued when I arrived.
Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022
After 10 days here, I’m feeling like I’m getting my feet under me again. I am able to sleep through the night. I do pullups on the door jam (grateful that the above glass hasn’t broken from it), pushups, and standups (like for surfing) and cook my breakfast… I’m now able to flip my egg with a knife as demonstrated by Crevan below… and yes, there were some fails along the way. I get many ideas as I meditate each morning, new building materials, personal thoughts, and am seeing an opening of facets grow as I explore guitar chords. I mean, I still can’t play guitar, but I can see a landscape open up.
Below, left, we had another excellent meeting of the GLC, and (Right) RVB showed off his Solar Electric Mogogo (used to make Chipote) prototype. Much of the discussion surrounded writing grants for the SC2 MECS Supply Chain Challenge. Essentially, MECS would like to globally replicate for clean cooking the supply line success RVB has had for solar electric technologies.
Friday, Sept. 23, 2022
We got HAIL yesterday… in a massive thunderstorm… Yes, my shorts are still drying on the line. Right, Andrew is cutting the screws from the heating pad (heating elements are on the other side… see picture above left and from Sept 13), so that the cookpot sits flush on the heating pad… because he couldn’t buy shorter screws. He’s making 20 ISECs, and doesn’t bother going to the gym to exercise.
We started experimenting to measure ISEC insulating capability. Left, we let the water boil for 10 minutes and then turned the heat off to see how well the insulation worked. The insulating factor is about 0.7 W/K, which is about about 5 times worse than we got at Cal Poly using 14 cm of fiberglass insulation. This is expected because the vermiculite concrete can’t be as good as fiberglass and the walls here are way thinner than 14 cm. Notice also that the temperature of the top abruptly drops immediately after the power is cut off. This is because the top is being heated from the steam of the boiling water, which ends with the heat being cut off. After 15 minutes, the temperature of the top stabilizes and drops in the expected exponential form exhibited by the other parts. We ran the experiment again (right) with extra insulation on the top, the heat loss is smaller by about 20%. We didn’t get the water to boiling point because we ran the (solar-charged) batteries dead – note the oscillations in temperature as the sun came out for a bit. We take the slope of the line to see the rate of change in temperature and calculate the rate of heat loss.
Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022
ASEI’s daily operations are that of a coop. We work, eat, shop, socialize together. Atenyi (right) comes daily (except Sunday) for a few hours to cook lunch, clean, and do laundry. Docus leaves around 5 PM, and then we… well, usually we work. Someone cooks dinner around 9:00 PM and after 10:00 PM most of the 4 of us disappear into our rooms. Work online, I play the guitar (still getting better)… they watch Big Bang Theory… I tell them it’s about me, but I don’t think I’ve seen an episode. They are often awake past midnight and up at 5:00 AM to be in a virtual class or meeting with University of New South Wales.
Yesterday afternoon, Andrew said he was going to a pickup soccer game in the evening. I joined… it was so fun children and men playing friendly soccer… some with spikes, some barefoot. There was a small group playing frisbee that welcomed me. There was a ~ 7 year old I thought was just hanging with an older sibling until he got a hold of the frisbee and threw it across the field almost leveling the guy who caught it. So, then he was fully included, and ran an caught better than any of the adults. Then invited me for their games during the week.
This morning, Crevan and I walked to the local market to get food. Left, I bought 4 chapattis for UGX 2000 (about $0.55) and we made breakfast. After some discussion about how to do it, we agreed that he’d just cook the way he usually does, and the next time I’ll cook my way, so we can learn from each other. Then, Crevan lays down some egg and rolls it into a chapatti with sliced tomatoes, rendering another perfect Rolex.
We finished a wonderful breakfast around noon. So, when Atenyi appeared 1:30 with lunch, we put plates over it and put it aside for dinner.
In the afternoon, Moses and I went to a girls boarding school to watch Crevan and Andrew teach a computer class. The room was jammed with girls, and most of them were watching music/drama videos while a small group of students worked on programming Arduinos to flash lights. I’d never used an Arduino before, so they taught me how they work, and I asked them change the way the lights flashed, and they did!
Below, then we visited the school’s black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) production facility. You can eat the BSFL, but I think they are growing them for animal feed. The motorcycle? We see things like this constantly.
Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022
I woke this morning to make brekky, and well… you know when you enter the kitchen (or laboratory) confronted by the mess of your nearsighted previous use… or maybe you manage blaming it on someone else? You weigh the drudgery of cleaning against the annoyance of trying to navigate to carnage… this time I chose the former. Pity I don’t have a “before” picture, but I took pictures that reflected my “good enough” state. I’d just finished when Jacqueline (right, Atenyi’s daughter) walked in to clean and make lunch. I don’t know what it was like for her, but she seemed surprised. She’s singing in the kitchen now, an hour later).
I made pancakes from yesterday’s left over boiled plantains, onions, tomatoes, chili peppers, and eggs… fried in too much (just enough) oil. I thought they were OK… I think in the future, I’ll fry the veggies separately and add on later. Reviews: 2 roomies gave thumbs up, 1 wouldn’t touch them.
Andrew’s fashioned an adequate spot welder from a solar-charged 24V battery. The NiCr wire is wrapped around a finishing nail, making good contact already. However, the end and middle of the coil is spot welded to guarantee good electrical contact. The assembly is immersed in white Portland cement inside of a 40A electrical connector. After the cement cures, the screw is removed and the finished heater is shown Wed, Sept. 21 bottom left.
Below from left, Andrew taps holes in the the heater plate legs (finished plate shown Sept. 13), Crevan and Andrew pack white Portland cement into the heater ports (shown above, right), Crevan winds NiCr wire around nails.
Laboratory safety protocol? While ASEI is my only experience in Uganda, we might see differences in laboratory safety protocol between an American university and a Ugandan NGO startup. I think the main difference is that at ASEI, each person takes absolute responsibility for their own safety without regard to exposure to liability… because there is none. However, we are careful here… you should see how careful they are with me crossing the street (Uganda, they drive on the left). In learning new techniques, sometimes we have to learn the new safety ramifications. Andrew was happy to wear his glasses when spot welding… after I explained about the dangers of UV emissions damaging the retina.
Monday, Sept. 26, 2022
A quick calculation indicates that any aluminum connection between the inside and outside will destroy ISEC’s insulation, so I am looking for a better way to physically secure the inner cooking volume inside the housing. Another calculations indicates that a half cm slab of concrete would do about 100 times better. I don’t know if I can do that. I’m reinforcing some concrete with 4mm steel screen. I pitched it at an angle so that we have varying thickness, and I bent the screen so that it’s in the middle in some places, but protrudes in some other places. After 24 hours in the water, the edges crumble, but it seems pretty strong at 5 mm thickness.
It says here that the concrete mix should be as dry as possible and still pour, and that I should let it sit 2-4 hours after pouring and then add water for a long time… like a month. I’ll let it sit a day, and then look at it, then put it back in the water. While all the literature I read claims that concrete mix (1:3 = cement : sand) is stronger than pure cement, so I mixed sand in. I used no aggregate because I want the surface smooth and the slab is thin. However, we’ve gotten good results using the pure white cement securing the leads to the heater (see previous two sets of pictures). Does anyone use pure cement as a thin surface coating? Like, could I lay down a really thin slick of pure cement on top of the concrete mix? Should I add aggregate that is smaller than 4 mm (wire mesh size). Would that make it stronger? All these questions… is there a material engineer in the house?
Andrew only works, but today at 6:00 PM, he says that we go to the field. He played soccer. I had an epic game of ultimate. Sean (the 7-year-old) was on my team. He was amazing. We had so much fun… “last point” happened for ~15 minutes. It was so dark when we finally threw in the towel that we had a hard time getting home. They reminded me as we left that they play every day and the next game is on Thursday.
Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022
I’m starting to plan my trip through Tanzania to Malawi… and feeling kinda sad about leaving this place. I think Fort Portal must be the most beautiful place on earth with the warm, friendly people and perfect climate – I’ve seen 1 mosquito here… and I caught it in my mosquito trap. But, I’ll leave in week, and am thinking about the next stage.. a 3-4 day bus ride to Dar Esalaam; meet RVB; then Malawi. RVB’s description of what he plans for me:
Our 300pcs of eWant cookers finally cleared customs, and I hope to have 100 or so electricity meters in Malawi by the time you arrive. I am hoping that you can supervise/oversee the following activities when you are there: (1) demonstrating cookers, (2) calibrating how much food of different types can be cooked with different amounts of energy, (3) measuring the equivalent amount of wood or charcoal used to cook the same amount of food using traditional methods (4) helping me set up an incentive system for people using the different types of solar electric cookers based on the amount of wood and charcoal they save.
This should set us up for a carbon-credit-like incentive scheme for the adoption of ISECs and other off-grid solar electric cookers.
I actually would like you to do something similar for solar pumps and solar vehicles too.
We hopefully will start delivering the solar vehicles to the villages about three weeks into your stay.
We have a house for you out in Mpita village in Machinga District, technicians available to help you in your work, and hundreds of users/customers who should be using the cookers and pumps by the time you arrive.
Top, left, is a map of Malawi and surrounding countries. Follow the arrows right to Mpita (where I will spend considerable time), and the arrows downward to Blantyre (the city where the business is centered).
I’ve run three more tests with concrete. With each one, I laid down a thin layer of concrete before placing the screen above it, and then put another layer on top of the screen, and massaged the surface with a butter knife. The samples were smaller than that presented Monday, Sept 26. I did one each day, allowing it to cure for about 2 hours before adding water, and after 24 hours, placing the sample in water (where they remain to continue curing) From left:
(1) Pure Portland cement.
(2) The same 3:1 concrete mixture as depicted Sept 26, but with less water. It turned out that the mixture was (I think) too dry, as it disintegrated somewhat when I added water to it after 2 hours. The next day, it was easily broken.
(3) The same as above, but with slightly more water. The surface was wet to the touch after sitting a few minutes. I added a few drops after two hours to a surface that felt firm. The side crumbled away after 3 hours… it was soaking wet. I covered it in plastic and forgot about it for another ~14 hours. When I opened it, it was dry. It seems the cement absorbs the water making more bonds. I added water and several hours later, the sample seems hard and strong. All three are curing in water with the original large sample. Vibration is an established method to bring bubbles to the top of concrete. I’m regretting leaving my ultrasonic toothbrush at home.
Wed, Sept. 28, 2022
I was invited by Fiona to be on her team for “quiz night” at The Pavilion, which is right next to where we play frisbee (and soccer). As I passed the “pitch”, I saw Moses and Adabus, looking sad because no one was there to play with (it had rained). Also on our team was Julius, who makes amazing mosaics with natural fibers. Right: The team “Village Idiots” celebrates their win… it’s rumored they cheat.
Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022
I’m enjoying cooking on the iron skillet, that regrettably isn’t yet solar powered. I have to confess, black jack, as wonderful as it is for you, doesn’t really taste that great raw, although it is about as good as amaranth, which everyone eats. (From left) HOWEVER, sautéed with onions, tomatoes, and a little chili and salt, it can’t be beat. Although all 5 of the other people here found it very amusing that I would cook it, 4 people thought it tasted really nice; one person wouldn’t touch it. I made spaghetti sauce with onions, peppers, tomatoes, chili. There’s more boiled food here than I’m used to, so I often save my boiled, mashed plantains in the evening to slice and fry then in the morning. They can be savory with a fried egg and veggies (right) or with sugar and cinnamon. Crevan declared I’m the first person in Africa to cook bananas (plantains) like this…. is this a cultural transfer from Fiji? Note far right: both eggs were successfully knife-flipped sans rupture.
There was live music at Mountains of the Moon resort; every Thursday night; same band; same songs. I thought the band was great. Most of the people there were Ugandan, but the mix was diverse. The atmosphere was an outpouring of joy.
Friday, Sept. 30, 2022
From left, yesterday, I facetimed with Flora, presently in Costa Rica for a few months, who shaved her head (?!?). Flora will be part of our ISEC workshop (Nov 28 – Dec 3) in Togo, and also told me she will be working in Benin. So, I introduced her to Fatou (from Benin) working with Afrik’Energy Connect, an ISEC collaborator in Liberia.
Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022
Crevan and I went into town today to get a haircut. At least that’s how it started. Then we moved to new chairs for a face scrub, then a washing, then back to chair #2 for a face massage (and shoulders, back and chest), and then washing off the with hot washcloths… honestly, during the phase change (I melted) I lost track of the process.
After the hard work at the salon, we progressed to a music store and played piano and guitar for 2 hours. Crevan has had no music instruction, nor access to musical instruments, yet teaches me theory and is more comfortable playing piano than I am with my 10 years of instruction. We did fit some work in, as Crevan and I planned our future plan to cast a thin concrete cooking vessel (below, right).
Evening, we all went to Cafe de Forte to celebrate our time together. Damn, it was all about cell phones for a while, and taking pictures of the food… you see I took a picture of Crevan taking a picture of his food… HOWEVER, when my dish came out, I promptly had to take a picture of it… tilapia with fried noodles, veggies and rice… but what was so cool about it is the thermal storage demonstration! The iron skillet it came out in was hot hot… burning the wood beneath it (and Crevan’s curious finger) while the food sizzled.
Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022
Damn, it’s late, and I never left the house today. I spent the day on the computer, for instance reading over Salma’s grant proposal. However, Crevan and I did prepare for our experiment tomorrow, casting a inner pot out of concrete, reinforced with 5 mm steel mesh. Using two different pieces of mesh, the desired shape came together pretty well, and tomorrow we will slam it between two pots with concrete (about 5 mm thick), as in the red drawings to the right two pictures up. Right, we broke our concrete samples. It seems that they crumbled until where the sample is more than 5 mm thick.
Tomorrow’s chance of success?… ~20%. Chance of learning something?: ~95%
Monday, Oct. 3, 2022
We tried to cast our concrete cook top. You know how you have a clear idea of how things are going to work as you put something together… and it does something else? The concrete did not behave as planned. In particular, it stuck to the pots even though we coated them with cellophane tape. When we tried to pull up the top pot off to see how the wet casting looked, the concrete mixture separated at the screen. And for sure, the suction is going to be hard to put against.
Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022
Today, ASEI had a meeting with their international board of directors, including faculty from partnering University of New South Wales. I made a brief cameo to describe our work together and my experience here this past month… looking pretty sharp with my new haircut if I do say so myself.
Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022
Oh WOW!… I was wrong. It worked! We created a concrete cooking surface and pot! There are definitely improvements to be made… mostly in the releasing of the pot. It was pretty difficult to release the casted concrete from the aluminum-pot mold, and I was sure we were going to damage the concrete in the process… but we didn’t. From left: I release the outer aluminum pot by hitting the handles tangentially to create a torque. Andrew chisels away some of the concrete that got under the rim of the pot. I drill a hole in the concrete bottom, so Andrew can hammer the inner pot free while the rim is supported on a wider-diameter bucket. Andrew holds the released concrete counter top and cooking chamber – with a hole that we needed anyway to run the heater wires into.
Lessons learned:
- Rather than use cellophane tape to prevent concrete adhesion, we should use a thin, plastic sheet.
- The total mass of the concrete creation (still wet) is almost 9 kg. It is thicker than the 1/2 cm we planned, in places more than a cm thick.
- I think we’ll find that the pots won’t go in and out easily, and we will need to add some extra thickness to the inner pot’s outer surface so that the same pot can be easily inserted and removed from the finished cement cooking chamber.
- Or better yet, we can have two pots custom made as the mold for casting the concrete. The inner pot will be slightly larger (~ 2 mm larger in diameter) to allow for each access to the cooking pot, and the outer pot will be wider and longer than the inner cookpot so that it will cover the compete outer concrete surface down to the flat counter top. This is a perfect job for our aluminum caster, Muhomuza Vincent (Sept. 14)
We’ll leave after lunch for Kampala, and the next day: I for Dar es Salaam.
Sad to leave… Grateful for the memories, friendship, and good work. Left, the ISECs were actually loaded and trucked away to the Fort Portal bus station on Monday…
Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022
Waking in Kampala, Pius drove us to the bus station to address and organize the ISECs bound for Dar es Salaam. Middle, note the address on the box to Andrew’s left. Right, we celebrate with Sheenah (Electrical Engineering graduate student working with solar electricity), at a rooftop buffet.
In between the bus station and lunch, we visited CREEC (Center for Research in Energy and Energy Conservation) at Makerere University (Uganda’s premier university), where Jimmy gave us a through tour and explanation of how CREEC analyses and rates improved cookstoves. We also discussed collaboration opportunities because CREEC, ASEI, and Cal Poly.
At 8:30 PM, I boarded a plane for Nairobi, connecting to a flight to Dar es Salaam.