BornAgain! Funding our projects from within ... will it work?

Our eco label ... "BornAgain!" ... of old tyres (Line1)

You may all know by now that I have spent the past 5 to 6 months trying to raise funds for a Biogas plant for a little village in the Upper West Region, called Tuori. If you don't know about it yet (*giving you a strange look*), then click here and have a gander: Energy for Tuori (and all the others)!

Well, being a busy person who does many other things, and the NGO being a self-funded one, you can imagine how difficult it's been  keeping the momentum going in the face of the general suspicions and financial hardships of most Ghanaians ... N O T  G O O D. 
Haha. Okay, so now I can laugh about it. 
But only because I spent the last 2 months of the past 6 months of the fundraiser building up a careful structure for internal funding for the NGO's projects, so we don't have to keep worrying y'all with our beggar's aluminium cup ... yeah, the noisy one. And no, I don't sing and roll my eyes when  go begging.


Aaaannnnd, after weeks of thinking and careful planning, I came up with "Born Again!", an entity within the NGO which recycles and re-uses old and 'wasted' stuff, and makes them trendy-useful and affordable for people.
We then market it like every other usual service/product, sell it at competitive prices, and put ALL the profits after expenditure into the NGO's projects!
To start with, I looked at the huge numbers of tyres all over the city (and the country), and how difficult it is to find uses for them after car-owners discard them ... and I came up against two 'walls'.


I had decided previously to have them stripped and shredded, the strips to use in addition to wood and metal, or by itself ... for furniture. But soon after gathering a number of tyres, and purchasing some from vulcanisers (if you want it, they sell it ... cus they figure if you have a use for it, thing got value! Sigh ... I love my peoples), my shredder expert told me that there are 2 types of tyres: the wire-mesh (more common) and the nylon thread. The nylon thread is what CAN be stripped, NOT the wire-mesh.


Oh Lord. So I went back into town to get the nylon thread types. Then whilst he went to work shredding em up for my wood/metal combinations and the eco-friendly footwear line,  sat down with my sketch pad to design things that can use the wire-mesh tyres whole .... WHOLE, I say.


I came up eventually with 2 trendy designs : one for a seating facility, and one for a funky, eye-catching table design (which has a lot of oomph!).
So over the next 12 weeks, we will launch our first 3 eco-products for raising funds for our projects (very very crucial projects): an eco-seat made out of whole wire-mesh tyre .... an eco-table with wood-glass-rope combination also made out of whole wre-mesh tyre ... and 2 or 3 footwear designs made out of nylon-thread tyre with fabric-rope combination.


We hope (and intend) it to sell well to you, my supportive peoples on here, and your social circles and business associates ... as well as the general public not just in Ghana, but internationally. We hope to make good sales not only because our clients will want to support a good cause, but also because these eco-friendly products REALLY DO make your mouth drool, and make you feel real proud to own them. 
We guarantee you, they WILL BE quality, all through and through.


To show you how, follow this link to see some of our first few pictures of the TYRED.UP! an eco-seat under the BornAgain! label. Click The TyreSeater - BornAgain!
Give me all the feedback you want to ... but more practically, give me all the orders you can make! Haha! 


.... oh, and a Merry Christmas in advance. Make the rest of 2011 count. ;)


Golda.


P.S: the link also opens up other albums for you on trips and work done so far, so feel free to browse through all the albums and pictures.
And if you want to keep updates or follow discussions, join us on Facebook by just clicking here. :)

Wait, You Can't Do That. It's Not Your Turn.

“[There are] voices that say, “Wait. You can’t do that. It’s not your turn. The timing isn’t right. You see, the country just isn’t ready. You know you can’t do it, you’re not experienced. You’re not ready.”

Voices that focus on what might go wrong rather than what’s possible. And I understand it, I do. I know where it comes from, this sense of doubt and fear about what the future holds.

I call it like that veil of impossibility that just keeps us down and keeps our children down – keeps us waiting and hoping for a turn that may never come.

It’s the bitter legacy of … discrimination and oppression in this country. A legacy that hurts all of us.

Some people were like the aunt or grandmother who bought new furniture but put plastic on it to protect it, never fully enjoying it, out of their own misplaced fear.

Sometimes, it seems better not to try at all than to try and fail. Sometimes, that’s how it feels. But we have to remember that these complicated emotions are … what we’re going to have to overcome as a community if we want to lift ourselves up.”

                                            Michelle Obama, “Renegade: The Making of a President”.

“For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity, this ‘Wait!’, which has almost always meant ‘Never’.”

                                                     Martin Luther King, April 1963. Birmingham Jail.

 

Michelle Obama

Martin Luther King

She will smile someday?? And her son too??

Someone asked me the other day "Why do you even do it?"

"Why do you embarrass yourself, screaming yourself hoarse at people who don't care? Running all over town trying to get people to help you make this thing work?"

Don't you know? Are you new in town? 

Don't you know ... they don't care? Just waiting for you to fall off the wagon so they can shake their heads and say, 'See, we knew the heifer would come to this!'?

"Don't you know," he said, "this thing's never gonna catch up?

Even government predicts it's not gonna happen now, then you this young female thing ...?"

My head was hung whilst he was saying these ... my ears drinking them all in. My eyes were wet, and my heart was beating fast.

"Golda?" he said. “Save the energy, money, and effort ... and put it into creating a future for your son. At least that's a future you'll be more sure off. Save yourself the embarrassment of going around cup in hand all the time, begging and singing to yourself."

"You think I don't know all this?" I asked him. "I'll tell you something ... I’m here to show just how deeply we’ve all as a people, been traumatised by a system and a society that abuses us, misuses our resources, and forces us to suspect everything around us, to the point that we are now on the edge of the cliff of our existence, about to fall off into the raging sea below, and we’re certain it’s just a trick to cause us to turn back and go the other way.

We’re so used to being conned, we can’t distinguish genuine from false anymore. We play games when we should be organized, and when we should be playing games, we’re rather thinking strategy and tricks. We’re confused, we’re lost, we’re mean, and we’re at the end of our tether.

Something’s gotta bring a fresh new un-selfish perspective back to our way of thinking; a perspective that spells “c-o-m-m-u-n-i-t-y” once more.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the one certain thing that will do this (communal harmony and development) for us, enrich us, improve our standards of living, make the nation wealthier, and safeguard the country’s future ALL IN ONE … is our natural resources, and the renewable energy it gives directly to the people.

Horribly enough, it is the one thing that people still think is the last possible thing ever to happen for us! It’s crazy.

We are sitting with the gold beneath our noses, and we can’t see the forest for the trees.

I’m doing this insane thing I’m doing, instead of just shutting up and funding everything myself in small steps as I used to do, because it hit me the other day … we have not, as a people, invested our faith in this sector yet, and that is what is holding everything back. Indeed, that is what I believe holds government back from passing that RE Bill.

The people ARE the government. The voice of the people is often the voice of government.

If more Ghanaians had more faith and were willing to dig into Renergy as they are the crude oil, we would have more schools and courses in Renergy, more jobs in Renergy, more Renergy projects, and government would have jumped to it as well.

Why am I doing this alone, and making all the noise alone when my ultimate aim is to transform the entire country?

I had to backtrack. But I knew I’d have to get my Beyonce’s dancehall moves ready for this.

(See? I knew that’d get your attention, crazy misaligned people.)

Sadly, we are turning our noses up at the very thing (and perhaps the ONLY thing) that may well be our answer to employment, better standards of living, a wealthier nation, and independent of foreign financial aids, and neo-colonialism.

We are turning our noses up at the one thing that ensures that our future is safe, in our own hands, spread equally out amongst the people, gives endless jobs, and safeguards the natural resources as well.

This country has got vast potential in renewable energy, and renewable energy gives direct income to the community and the people who wield it and use it. Which in turn empowers many, and grows the nation faster than most other national programmes on nation-building and empowerment.

For that little girl who will someday grow up to become the leading expert in Ghana seawater energy because of the change that I’m working on now in our energy industry.

For that insanely tired woman walking bare-foot in the hot sun with a load of wood on her back almost half her body-weight, walking kilometres, so her family can eat and live … who will someday simply step out into her compound and switch on her biogas facility and cook with it, and whose children will stay in school instead of going down south to do crime and menial jobs.

For that man somewhere who can now sit in his compound and cook up his own biodiesel and pour it into his motor bike or car, or generator, or food processor, because we discovered how to produce bio-diesel from our local oils.

That little girl might be your grandchild, that woman, your grandmother, that man your father, and the chain goes on.

How many times have you watched a land ravaged by war, famine, drought, rape, tyranny, and silently thanked the Powers that Be … that you were born a Ghanaian? I do it everytime I see such scenes on the television.

Well, this is you now. This is your Ghana now.

What are you gonna do about it?

Do I really think I can create a better Ghana, silly girl … you think of me as I exit your office, streaming in sweat, spittles at the corners of my mouth, legs crumbling beneath me as I totter out to my next begging gig, cup in hand; you think of me as you read my status and link updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Blogspot; you think of me as you see me walking down the street.

What you don’t get is, this isn’t about me.

Have you donated to our fundraiser yet? Read about it.

Find us on Facebook as well.

Send me a message on anything at esfghana@gmail.com

Ghana's Chernobyl Timebomb ... or is it Ghana's own "Fukushima Daiichi"?

It’s been a helluva quarter, these past 3 months.

I have a lot of updates (as usual), and no clear point at which to begin (as usual), since for me and my renergy experiences, every experience sort of magically tends to run into the next, so that they are all melded together in this surreal way.

Let me start with the bullet points so even if I totter off the path, we have some modicum of order, eh?

·         April 2011: retrospective assessment of first briquette-training by Energy Solutions Foundation (my Renewable Energy & Sustainable Development NGO) … for better 2^nd round of trainings and modifications to upcoming briquette-makers.

Had a lot of email and phone discussions with Danny Quaynor (the NGO’s partner in appropriate technology) concerning our next few projects over the next 18 months, before we had one good Sunday working meeting to put down plans, structures, and timetable.

To come : (1) Semi-commercial production of ready-to-use briquettes of a wide range of choices (palmnut, palm-kernel, cow dung, dawadawa, shea-butter, sawdust, etc) for all households just as one would purchase charcoal and just begin using it. We will call it Green Gold Briquettes (ah, sentimental!)

(2) More production and commercial production, distribution and marketing of briquette-making equipments of all sizes and capacities for what will be a briquette-making industry in Ghana … instead of charcoal-production communities and firewood-stocking merchants in the country.

(3) Waste Oils and Vegetable Oils for use on a small scale in motors, engines, and motorized gadgets in place of fossil fuels. The target is waste vegetable oils for use as fuel (like diesel) in generators, processing machines, engines, motor-bikes, cars, etc.

(4) Appropriate, affordable (less than $500) biogas structures and facilities for the low to middle-class Ghanaians who often most lack access to energy, fuel, and power or have very little of their total needs in these met.

Yes!

To achieve over the next 18 months. Want to steal some ideas from here and run with it? PLEASE DO IT! Feel absolutely free to!

These are ideas we need in the country, and I don’t care who does it or who gets the credit.

In fact, if you want the  blueprints of it, call or email me!

 Make me believe you will really do it for the BENEFIT OF THE SUFFERING PEOPLE of THIS COUNTRY, I shall hand them all over to you with glee.

Yes, I will still keep working on them too … it is never enough, and there can never be too many propagators. We need renewable energy alternatives like “pure water” sells in this country. Everywhere, Cheap, and Never Lacking!!

·         May 2011: Call to collaborate with a Ghanaian FashionHouse called MAKSI (www.maksiclothing.com) to increase awareness on need for clean environment and sustainable ways of living. Secondary objective to donate 10% of proceeds made from eco-focused fashion line to ESF’s “Tuori Biogas Facility” Fundraiser (see here for more about this).

Also asked by Creative Storm, Ghana (hint: Dr. Kwesi Owusu) to lead them to our Aburi workshop for coverage of our West African customized briquette-maker and other initiatives for a documentary they were doing for the EFFA (Environmental Film Festival of Accra 2011 June 2011).

Hopefully, we can make a hope-laden and impact-full documentary out of that session one of these days, when I can add the cost of that to my budget (don’t you just which you could do everything in the world by yourself sometimes? J )

In collaboration with MAKSI fashionhouse, was on The One Show with PY Addo and Jocelyn Dumas, in an interview to highlight the eco-fashion campaign and ESF’s role in it. Was able to talk about the briquette-making training session in the Upper West, and other challenges facing the NGO as well as memorable experiences and personal impressions of the larger situation in the country.

Jocelyn Dumas for MAKSI eco-fashion.

Ama Abebrese for MAKSI eco-fashion. Way nicer pics, but I chose bcus you actually see the dumptruck in the background!

My first intern (I so often shy away from interns and volunteers, but I finally made bold to try it out) for the NGO arrived, and got pulled right into the middle of the heat. Miss Akua Akyaa Nkrumah also writes on her blog whenever she has the chance and peace of mind. Internship, as at now (August 2011) is ended, but went very phenomenally. Now to get her to write me that internship report!

·         June 2011: The EFFA (by Creative Storm) begins in the second week of the month.  Akua and I attend one of the forums and the week after, was asked to be part of a panel (still within EFFA celebrations) addressing the issue of waste and plastic waste (disposal, management, culture surrounding, solutions) in Ghana and beyond.

Shared the panel with MAKSI FashionHouse (Nana Darkoah Sekyiamah), Trashy Bags (Stuart Gold), and we were moderated by the astute and creative Dr. Kwesi Owusu (of Creative Storm and EFFA) himself. This last forum went extremely well.

A five minute insert of our Aburi documentary was included in a 12-minute documentary made by Creative Storm for the Film Marathon aspect of the EFFA, and we felt somewhat encouraged by all events and activities that month.

·         July 2011: intern and I hit Cape 3 Points, Takoradi, Cape Coast, Tarkwa on research and fact-finding ecological and environment-focused learning trips. See here for an album of pictures taken on most of these trips.

We commenced working relationships, procured a lot of data, researched about particular situations in specific locations, and got more familiar with more places in our country. To come, Wa, Tuori, Yargpelle, Lawra, Cape Coast again, Benin Songhai Center, and Cape Verde.

Want me to come see something in your community or neighbourhood? Call me up or email me.

If I need to advocate for help and support, or get you in contact with experts and entities in the field, I will.

This month also saw a lot more people interacting with me about the work I do in this NGO; most of them acquaintances I don’t know so well but now do, friends who keep referring me to things and things to me, family members who encourage and support, and strangers who have been following everything since I started and I have no idea of!

Some call me now and then and mention meetings at BarCamps I have presented at, or conferences and forums I have spoken at, or sometimes just have had only my blogposts to read! Keep the encouragement coming! It really helps.

July ended with another BBC phone interview for one of Africa Have Your Say’s sessions, this one on power shortages/outages on the continent, with focus on Kenya’s new/recent power rationing announcements.

I was humbled to be called by BBC team to be the voice for renewable energy in the entire discussion, and was allowed to have the final word on the programme after all the excuses and annual explanations by the political leaders of the energy institutions. I felt like I needed much more time than that though! Where the boxing ring at?! Lemme at them!

Last year, was called by BBC on similar issues and the Energy Ministry of Ghana promised on the live set discussion to PASS THE RENEWABLE ENERGY BILL into law before the year ended, after I had posed a question to them. We still wait for that to happen. See: WTF has the Ministry of Energy Ghana, done for us so far? and The BBC debate & a promise by the Energy Minister of Ghana.

Finally, pressure has been put on me by a friend who is with me on a Ghanaian social network group to do something about the embarrassing elephant in our midst here in Ghana … the e-waste situation of Sodom and Gomorrah (S & G itself being a problem worth of its very own blogpost!).

Since 2008, it has garnered a lot of HIGHLY-CONCERNED and VERY DISTURBING articles, revelations, and campaigns about the high levels of toxins seeping into the ground, the water-tables, the air, the systems of the young men and the animals and cattle of the area.

Nothing impact-full has happened to cause a change in the situation. Instead, it gets worse.

I sometimes think every European and American journalist, journalist ‘freak’ (some of them write about it with glee), and journalist wannabe who wants to get some attention, or cut their teeth on the job in the fastest possible way comes to Ghana and takes pictures and videos, interviews of this situation, and goes back to make it their promotional or hey-look-at-me-I’m –a-genius ace-in-hand or trump card.

And year after year, they keep coming … to find the situation not even the same, but worse!

WTF Ghana.

WTF all these big electronic companies like Philips, Canon, Dell, Sony, and the bloody Japanese, Chinese, Korean ones.

WTF all phone companies, and WTF Environmental Protection Agency, Accra Metropolitan Assemby, and the Government of Ghana!

W …T …F!

I went to see Kojo Oppong Nkrumah last week, and I asked him for help brainstorming what to do about this situation. He has suggested a first joint step, and I hope he will honour it. What? He’s very busy? We all are, darling.

I will go to Otabil … his wonderful bastion of sense, discipline, and morality/religion ICGC, stands right next to the e-waste aisle of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Toxins and depraved lunatics, deformed babies and malfunctioning young men and women, anybody? (Please don’t scream Amen to that.)

Yes, the toxins from these electronic waste heaps lead to brain malfunctions, lead poisoning, nerve problems, sexual reproduction issues, cancer, and mutants like you see on X-men. Okay, maybe not the last, but you get the idea.

Then I’m going to hit up on Wanlov Kubolor, Mantse Aryeequaye, Kwesi Owusu, Bibie Brew, did I mention Otabil already, and all my radical brothers and sisters … and we’re gonna go see the President.

Because something’s gotta give.

P.S.: Have you donated to our fundraiser yet? See here. This is very close to my heart.

We also have a page on Facebook, where you can interact, get more real-time updates, and ask questions. Click here.

And she said "Lo and Behold! On bounty do they sit, yet of hunger do they daily eat."

Explaining how briquettes leave no waste behind, and demonstrating it  ... Yargpelle

Women of Tuori making sheabutter briquettes from our donated 20-pellet briquette-maker

I have been absent from this page for almost 3 months.

Unable to find my muse for the past few months … groping around and around in the ‘darkness’, I simply could not find it within me to write and update this blog. I had lost something ever since I came back from the Wa training … the desire to put a wealth of emotions into the ill-fitting clothes of words. Nothing I attempted writing could capture the feelings and experiences that I went through on that trip, nor the things I felt when I was there.

I was angry at the world of WORDS … disgusted at their inadequacy to allow me the flexibility and efficiency of expression, and in frustration, I boycotted the blog post about my training session in Wa. That trip had a deep impact on me. Period.

I’ve gone over the entire experience several times, and I have finally agreed with myself that it will take one general overview to sum it up, and 3 sequels to share the memorable details of the entire event.

It’s taken me all this time to come to this, and I’m still angry … but it’d a good king of anger now, and I apologise that you’ve had to wait 3 months for this.

The Wa Firewood-Alternative training did go very well, make no mistake.

But, before you go on any further, I urge you to read this blog post and here too (another blog post)

for a fuller understanding of all I’m going to talk about in the next few lines; this post is a general overview of the actual (Wa Firewood-Alternative) training, and there are going to be things that will only be alluded to.

Done reading those posts? Good. Let’s go on then.

 Though the training itself was concentrated into 3 days, I was in the Wa district on and off from 3^rd March through to 13^th March. This was to enable me run complementary preparatory trips, make treks to the villages to ensure they were ready, get sources for the biodegradeable and plant waste we would use for making the briquettes in the training practicals, sorting out transportation to and from, accommodation, etc.

At the end of it all, the most poignant moments were their faces and their hands … the feel of their hands in mine as they came one after the other to, it seems, caress my hand in a show of one-ness.

They certainly felt more than just handshakes.

And I loved that they smiled at me so hard their eyes were all crinkled up and their ears twitched up and down. They smiled deeply, and I just stood there grinning right back.

Then they began speaking in Wale, and asking me questions … and I couldn’t understand a single thing apart from the “Good Morning” greeting and the response.

So I said “Ansuma” (Good morning in Wale) and they burst out in loud, amused cackles and guffaws of laughter, clapping their hands and covering their mouths, as I also stood there shaking with laughter.

My ‘students’ consisted of some very old women, who still walked around with all the strength of youth -  not surprising since most of the indigenous people of the upper portions of the country have a wiry, tough build; also, their women do most of the manual labour, so they often keep physically strong even into old age.

The rest were women in their mid 20s to late 30s or early 40’s, and there were a few men, especially in the second village (Yargpelle) and a fair number of little children.

I loved that they interacted so much with me, and did not simply stare at me like an alien. I loved that they promised to use the briquette-makers I left behind. I loved that they opened up enough to share some songs and dances with me, during and after the training.

Now, these people live in very harsh, unforgiving environments. By way of hard luck as well as neglect by government in not giving them more facilities and infrastructure for development, they are forced to live on very little fuel/energy sources. Consequently, most of the time, they chop down and collect every little scrap of wood … make charcoal out of every available tree standing. This is what their lives revolve around everyday – how to gather enough fuel to take them through the day … every day.

But in spite of these challenging conditions, these two villages-in-training – Lawra and Yargpelle – were not at all hostile people. They welcomed, related morally and ethically with familiar people and strangers alike, and were very enthusiastic about the notion of creating this novel type of coal from things they could get for free or very cheap; things they would often dispose off, and also enthusiastic about the idea of being able to sell extras from the production at rates fairly competitive to charcoal prices. This meant income.

Now for a people who lived on very very little money and resources, and who had nothing else/much to do once the farming season was over in December, this is something to look forward to – an income source that can last all year round, and is very sustainable.

Unbelievable? Well, they did not believe it either.

All the time I was in Accra preparing, I would get several calls from the heads of the villages, passing on to me the opinions and questions of the people: could I really create green charcoal out of things like weeds, plantain waste, dawadawa waste, sheanut waste, cow dung, agricultural produce waste, etc etc? And can I really get it to burn and produce fire … fire … and heat just like charcoal or firewood? They laughed at the thought of it, feeling it was just another “city scam”.

By the time I arrived at the village with sawdust, sheabutter waste, and dried quantity of pre-made briquettes of cowdung-palmnut (the actual nut in the kernel) from Accra (Danny, the engineer and I had made these and tested them in the first few trials, and these were left over), the women and young children (and a few men) who flocked to the training site were jittery, I became nervous.

Most of them, first off, were very disappointed at the size of the Green Gold briquette-maker. To them, anything that can produce something as ‘magnificent’ as briquettes (green charcoal) ought to have been an imposing, impressive machine which run on electricity and had shiny clean plastic parts etc etc.

They were not amused at all when I pulled out a very simple metal contraption with 20 “shortbread biscuit”-like moulds in its belly; not at all amused to see that in keeping with its ‘green-ness’, it was worked by hand, not on electricity. Hehehe!

But curiosity still got the better of them, and when I asked for a coal-pot to be brought, they clustered closely around me; watched with open eyes and wonder as I poured in a few dried briquettes (cow-dung and crushed palmnut proper) and tossed in a few dried twigs, and struck a match. The locked-away smiles began popping out openly on their faces, as they watched the briquettes gently and unassumingly catch fire, burn up wildly, then smoulder down into a heat which could be fanned into large flames again, or left to smoulder for gentle heat … and they watched as it all burned and left nothing but white ash and the lingering but faint whiff of palm-nut.

They were now eager for the training, all but perched on the edge of their seats, anxious to see how this could be formulated – this ‘magic, magnificent’ charcoal. The rest was easy … and a lot of fun. See this youtube video of raw footage clip of part of one of the several training session that went on here. In it, you see me running the training and also see some of the villagers of Yargpelle trying their hands out on the process. And over here, you can have a gander at pictures of the trip and training sessions … and there are lots more where that came from!

Throughout the training in both villages, they freely asked questions - questions which showed that they were truly processing this and asking the necessary things.

Can smooth sawdust be used instead of the rough?

Can the final briquettes withstand the pressure of cooking tuo zaafi? Or will they crumble too easily?

How much briquettes must they produce to cook enough for the family everyday?

Can they use palm kernel (chaff)? Must they always crack the kernel open and use the nuts inside too, like I did?

Can they do only one mix, eg. Only dawadawa / sheabutter waste / palmkernel etc?

What other combinations would I advise?

Would the smoke be as black as firewood and charcoal smoke, and stain their ‘silver’ (aluminium pans)?

How long must it dry before being used?

How much would I advise that they sold it, compared to firewood and charcoal prices?

Why am I teaching them this?

Where did I learn it from, and who taught me?

Will I come back with a bigger machine (briquette-maker)? And can it not use electricity?

Can a small factory be made to produce it on a more commercial scale for them, the factory being located in that same community?

I loved that they interacted so much with me, and did not simply stare at me like an alien. I loved that they promised to use the briquette-makers I left behind. I loved that they opened up enough to share some songs and dances with me, during and after the training.

I loved that they asked me those, that they pushed and prodded, that they tried their hands on mixing it themselves … over and over till they got it right.

I have SO MANY clips of videos and several pictures of the entire trip, but I will have to upload gradually.

And knowing that it will be absolutely absurd to blog everything in one post, I have decided to provide sequels to this post:

1. The people and the reception (the Wa-Firewood Alternative Project by ESF)

2. My personal experiences and memories: the trip and the training

3. The follow-up trips back to the 2 first villages (to see how well they have sustained the briquettes, the challenges, the hopes, the demands, and what next).

This particular post is simply a general overview, to share the sum total of everything that occurred, and to let you dear reader know that it went very well indeed.

In fact, the trip had its very own sequel to it: Halfway through my time there, I was fascinated to hear from one of the natives of the Tumu area, brother to the Assembly member there (as he told me) that he will avail himself the next time I am in the Wa district, to escort me to the Sisala area to see for myself the havoc wreaked there by large scale charcoal production.

He told of how several efforts were being made to curtail the activity, but to very little success, and his strong belief that if I were to take the training to the leaders of the charcoal production in that area, and proposed a good concept, there could soon be something sustainable happening there in place of charcoal production.

Hint: briquette-production on a commercial scale, run by the same charcoal producers IN STEAD OF caharcoal, and deriving just as much income or even more for them.

I have taken this offer up, and when we go there next trip, I shall share the progress report with you on that project.

By no means does this mean that the briquette-training is over.

Far from that, it is actually the beginning. I have to follow up every couple of months and work with those villages to ensure that they don’t stop producing and personally using the briquettes; have to work with them to produce more till they can better handle a bigger machine; have to work with them till they can now masterfully run and maintain a mini-factory that actually produces enough briquettes for the entire sub-district, and not just the village, or a few families within the village. And I fully INTEND to see these through.

Yours in persistence,

Green Golda. :)

P.S.: At the 2^nd village, they left me with the lingering memory of a dance of welcome and appreciation. I can’t help but share it with you. Have a gander here!!

Earth Words how did it go? & Paper bags back in town?

I'm sitting here at Busyinternet, Circle, typing up this update with gusto! My internet's not happened for near one week now ... don't ask. This is Ghana.

Kiss my teeth. Aren't we sick and tired of hearing that now? This is Ghana, where heroes and heroines abound, but shit happens every day. What do you know? I'm sitting in one at the moment!

My internet is out. Lecturers are on strike though our full fees are paid. I'm having to live on a very stict budget all of a sudden. My best friends are still out of the country. My big sister and muse, Bibie is also outta town ... I'm not having a very good phase right now. I love it.

EARTH WORDS!
It went beautifully! I thank Maame Aba of Daixy's blog and her lovely friends for coming on time, and staying through ... they couldn't have left, they enjoyed it too much. :)
I thank all my friends who came out of the will and desire to be part of an enviromental difference of an artistic event, and came to share the afternoon and evening with me.
I thank the people who promised to come, and ACTUALLY did.
Some people promised and did a fantastic no-show ... some simply could not be bothered to come and see it, I understand ... they're not freaks, they're real.
Ok, ok, so i can't help being sarcastic ... i just wish more of you would actually come have fun at these gatehreings which happen for free, or cost as little ad GH5 cedis, but which cost us an arm and a leg in cash to put together, and so much more in energy, passion, and emotion.

Some pictures of the event at this link (not many, but you'll get the pro ones soon!) will be linked here soon ... forgive me, i just can't find the link at the moment.
Perhaps you'd like to visit Bibie's (Bibie Brew) page on Facebook and see the pictures there ... no, don't ask to be her friend and expect a yes if she doesn't know you, you baby! But if you do locate her page, simply look out for Earth Words stuff and have fun in there .... looking through. :)

But quite a number of people did make it, and I'm grteful ... I went home and cried tears of joy. It was such a profound moment for me, and the energy and adrenaline, then the fatigue of the past few weeks totally crushed no me, and I cried for hours, curled up in bed.

My family didn't come as well, which made it more painful ... though my brother's girlfriend did and gave me one good moment. She didn't have to, especially since my brother ws sleeping it off at home, but she DID. Thanks, Jacque. You're a queen.

Bibie was a monument of bliss for me ...!
I thought I was the crazy free spirit who still run her days like a battle-plan, focused on each and every detail of her work schedules, lived on strict personal philosophies, spoke bluntly and freely, and loved with all her heart (and also told every idiot off with all her heart) ... I just found out that Bibie is actually me a few years down the line.
It's like i visited the future and saw myself ... and dang! I like it!
I love the woman who started out as my collaborator for Earth Words, and grew into my soul sister, my sister, and myself out of myself.
If you're in France over the next 2 months, ask anyone about BB Brew and where next she's performing on her 2010 Tour, and they'll gush all over till you beg them to stop.
She's a siren, a diva, a warm angel ... and they adore her in France!For good reason.
She made Earth Words possible too!

For now, I am working on my Wa firewood-alternative project ... due back there for the training in 2 months.
Oh eeek! I haven't put up the update on that trip yet, have i? Oh nooo! Even our close call with a police escort and alll? Hell, no ... Ididn't just have a senior (forgetful) moment on you!
Ok, will pt it up tomorrow, how about that? Never too late ... :-)

And another thing, during the lively, intersting forum we had on Earth Words, a colleague blogger suggested insisting on paper bags everytime we shop, as he is doing personally.
Several of us wondered how many people have paper bags to pack customer's stuff in after shopping ... and I was too. Surprise surprise!!

I was at the Mayan Book shop in East Legon (my favourite book shop for good books, classicals, etc) last 2 weeks, and the Kingdom Books and Stationaery Swan Lake Osu branch (the new one) ... and was SO HAPPY when they packed all my purchases in BEAUTIFUL paper bags for me!!!

Yes, people ... demnding and demanding does bring ears up. I was so happy I couldnt stop grinning ... the sales lady must have thought I have never been to Accra before, seeing as I was smiling so much about her putting my stuff in a paper bag!
If she only knew how happy it made me feel, seeing how mny less plastic bags would be let free in the environment with ALL THOSE BEAUTIFUL PAPER BAAAAAAGS!!!

Well, so pass by those places sometime, and buy something and ... lets encourage the other service providers to do same ... even encourage clients to have cloth bags, so we dont go back to cutting down all the trees for paper!

Well, lovies, I'm out, enjoy the pictures, and I'll be back soon with the Wa update.
Stay green and happy!