Biogas and Elephants

I said I'd share a little bit more about my ISP, and I figured now would be a good time since I actually have some things to share! I think I may have mentioned that things have been moving pretty slowly in terms of my research. (Africa time gets you every time...) I've been busy venturing out into the field but I've had trouble accomplishing what I've actually set out to do, and only had my first formal interview with a biogas plant owner on Friday. My original goal was to visit 20 homes with biogas over the course of the month, so at this rate you might imagine my ensuing anxiety. However, yesterday was a game changer, as one of the biogas contractors I've been in touch with over the past few weeks was able to take me to three sites! And not only that, but because I was going to an area on my side of the city, I didn't have to go into city center to catch a second matatu to my destination. Having walked through city center every other day this week from the bus station to the matatu sector (from here you can pretty much get anywhere in Kenya...) I have experienced far too much sensory overload. If the masses of people don't get you, the massive clouds of bus exhaust will. (And these are the reasons I don't like cities.) I've found this to be the most exhausting part of my ISP period thus far, so I was all over yesterday's simple outbound commute.

As I mentioned, I visited three sites in the Ngong area, and although that's not many, I'm starting to see some trends. Although biogas was introduced to Kenya over 50 years ago, it has only started to gain popularity in the past five or ten, while plant production has grown drastically in the past one or two years due to a new subsidy program which makes the technology more affordable. Even so, most are still uneducated in regards to the technology and its potential, and many who are still find the cost to be prohibitive. As a result, it seems that biogas hasn't reached the people who can benefit most from it, however I'm sure that this will come with time.

The first home I visited was of a middle aged woman named Ester and her family. We started in the kitchen where they had a nice six burner stove (up to this point, I had only seen four) in addition to a microwave. But on the opposite side of the room was the two burner biogas stove. Ester's daughter demonstrated that it did indeed work, lighting the stove and allowing me to see the strong blue flame that erupted from the burner. We went and had a seat in the living room where the boys were playing FIFA soccer on the family's PlayStation. (Haven't seen one of those in Kenya!) Ester grabbed a few eggs from the stockpile in the corner went to whip me up an omelet. Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea may not tell the true story, but he at least got it right about the tea. In many parts of the world it is common courtesy to insist on a cup of chai (or meal) to any visitor. Kenya is no exception, and I enjoyed a delicious omelet at Mama Ester's and an excellent glass of milk tea at my second visit. This surely beat the glass of fermented milk known as maziwa lala I was offered on the previous day's visit... After enjoying my second breakfast, Ester and I talked all about biogas. She has four cows which provide her with two valuable commodities – milk, and now poop. Someone in the family feeds the digester every day, which produces enough gas to cook breakfast, lunch, and part of dinner. When the gas runs out they transfer to the other stove to cook the remainder of the meal. In this way, they've been able to reduce their use of conventional LPG fuel by more than half, which is about a fifty dollar monthly savings. Ester says that she hopes to reinvest this savings into another cow or a milking machine to further her business. In addition, she has realized that the plants in her garden sprout up faster than her neighbors' since she started using the bioslurry byproduct as fertilizer.

Of the families I've spoken with, many aspects of Ester's story are shared by others. Because her home is connected to the grid and she was unable to afford a larger digester which would have produced more gas with enough input, Ester isn't using biogas lighting. Moreover, because her family was using LPG before biogas, they were already benefiting from health impacts associated with indoor air pollution that comes with cooking with wood and charcoal. This means that the impacts for her family of using biogas are mainly financial. I'm excited to see if this trend continues as I hear from others using biogas!

In other news, we decided to play tourist yesterday and visit the elephant orphanage in Nairobi National Park. Every day from 11-12 you can come and see the babies during feeding time, and your toes may even be lucky enough to get a trunk kiss like mine were! The elephants range in age from only a few weeks to three years during which time they're completely milk dependent. They're fed every three hours and have to be watched at all times which means that a worker must sleep with them in their individual enclosures every night. But because elephants are known for strong familial instincts, they sleep with a different worker every night to prevent imprinting. It's an incredible program and boy are the babies cute! And I'm thinking that with the poop of about twenty elephants they could make some serious biogas...possibly a follow-up case study to my ISP??? But for now, just enjoy some cute elephant baby pics.

Feeding time.

Does this make my butt look big?

Love.