Tanzania

In March I went to Dar es Salaam for a PhD training course on the sustainability of distributed infrastructure. That means we looked at various aspects of small energy, water, and sanitation systems. The course was organized by two different German universities, but there were students from Africa, the USA and other European countries, studying everything from engineering to geography to sociology to architecture. As an undergrad I did a program to bridge engineering and the humanities, but a good chunk of the non-science stuff was a little incomprehensible to me - and even worse for the pure mechanical engineers. I heard some complaints from the human geographers about the technical stuff.

Snack break! The globs tasted like hushpuppies.

Explaining my poster.

The last day of the course we did an exercise where we walked around the city and tried to document some of the infrastructure systems (or lack there of). Street coffee was pretty interesting and quite tasty. Guys walk around carrying a container of coals with a kettle balanced on top and a bucket which contains cups and water for washing.

Mobile coffee solution.

My group found instances of reuse and recycling. This ranged from book binders selling their paper shreds and men chopping up electronics with machetes.

Prices paid for different metals.

The last day involved a trip to a village that was two three five hours from Dar to visit a village where an energy services company was implementing a solar microgrid. Unlike most solar power companies who sell or lease panels to individual households, they install tripods with solar panels and batteries around the village. This allows the system to grow based on the actual (not the expected) demand. People then pay a connection fee and buy chunks of electricity (similar to how you would by pre-paid mobile phone minutes). The generation and load can be monitored in real-time over the cellphone network. The systems don't work with conventional electronics, so the company also retails compatible appliances. After showing us around, one of the founders rode back to Dar with us and was gracious enough to have a conversation about how they operate and a little about their growth strategy. I will probably not use any energy case studies in my dissertation, but it was interesting to think about if any of their approaches could be applied to water, waste, or sanitation infrastructure.

Me in fieldwork-mode (L) and a solar panel tripod with energy box (R).

The direct Dar-Zürich flight leaves quite late at night, so I was able to spend the day with some course-mates at a nearby beach, Kigamboni.

The Dar skyline from the ferry to the beach.

It was a little windy. It was a private-ish beach guarded by masai warriors.

Chipsi mayai - a potato-egg dish with hot sauce. It is eaten with toothpicks, which are not very effective knives.

Get ready for a post dump: accounts of my trips to Haiti and the USA are almost ready to be released.