Archive for November, 2007
November 28 2007 William writes:
This man made these shorts for me and turned out to be the town mayor.
I have been in Tiruchuli for over a month now.
The other volunteers have left to work for different NGO’s and it is now just me and the Tamil Language of which I’ve learned: podum-enough, nandri-thank you, vanakam-welcome, illai-no, ama-yes, none of which I pronounce correctly. Needless to say, my charade skills are progressing well… so well, that I was able to get this pair of green shorts made to fit me at my neighbor’s sewing shop. He was a nice man but I never saw him smile.
The food cooked the ODAM chef lost its appeal after the other volunteers left so I checked out the local restaurants: very good dosai with 3 types of chutney (white-coconut, red-bean, and green-chilly). I ate at dosai in this restaurant every morning.
My favorite place for breakfast.
The website is complete and I am now training the staff to update it. To gain an understanding of the Jatropha plantation I worked with the laborers for a week. 3 days we planted Jatropha saplings and the other days were filled with miscellaneous tasks including planting seeds, carrying juliflora for the charcoal experiment, and learning what was going on in the biodiesel lab. All of it was good hard work.
Planting Jatropha
I wish I could help more with the biodiesel situation but the problem is that there are no seeds to produce the biodiesel with. ODAM has built the production center which is a very important part of the cycle but it does not have the feedstock to keep the plant running. They can buy seeds from the market but this results in a net loss due to the cost of seeds. Jack Stege came down for a weekend to see how ODAM organized its seed crushing unit because he is working for another ngo (SEDS) who are planning to crush the seeds and sell them to oil to the Indian railway.
Another volunteer arrived yesterday and Emily came back to visit so we took a walk across the train tracks, through the river, and into … well nowhere.
A walk on the abandoned tracks.
We did find two friendly women up for a game of name-that-crop charades. Stuart was the clear winner with tomatoes and beans.
New friends.
Stuart playing guess that crop.
The day after the walk we attended the rally for the elimination of violence against women which was organized by ODAM. Close to 2000 women came to listen to feminist speakers (including Emily). I must have done something right because they brought me and Stuart on stage and gave us … towels.
Eliminate Violence Against Women Day
In Tiruchuli there are plenty of smiling kids.
Categories: Tiruchuli | 2 Comments »
November 20 2007 William writes:
Posopis juliflora is native to Central America and is large woody, thorny bush. It covers the majority of the land in Tamil Nadu and is a hindrance to developing sustainable agriculture. It was introduced to India in 1880 to provide fuel wood for the rural communities and is now also used to produce charcoal for the steel industry of North India or commercial resale. Reference (www.fao.org)
This plant has taken over Tamil Nadu. Everyspace that is not anually plowed is overrun by this <more> deeprooted hardy plant. Locals harvest the wood for cooking fuel and to make charcoal. Each harvest of joliflora removes nutrients from the soil and after three harvests joliflora takes twice as long to grow. This practice is driving the state towards large desertifications.
Here you can see the plant encroaching on the road and crop land.
It has also overrun an old the Tiruchuli Irrigation Administration (bottom) and a local temple(top).
Making Charcoal
I spent a day collecting the wood for an experiment for producing charcoal more efficiently. I can confirm that is some of the most unrewarding work in the world. The wood is heavy, full of thorns and then is burned down to ash that westerners use to BBQ a burger. The thorns (”mull” in Tamil) are serious 1inch spikes of pain. Several mull’s from the dead branches that litter the ground went all the way through my sandals. At the end of the day it took me 10 minutes to remove all the thorns suck in my sandals. The kicker, the laborers work bare foot.
The most common process for producing charcoal is as follows.
- Cut down the Juliflora with some form of sickle.
- Remove the small branches and cut the wood into two foot lengths.
- Stack the wood in a big pile.
- Light it on fire.
- Cover it with dirt to control the burn temperature.
Categories: Tiruchuli | 1 Comment »
November 03 2007 William writes:
Due to several snags in my plan to develop an energy modeling website (energyref.com) I decided to take a month off and volunteer for the development NGO, ODAM, who solicited the position of “Biodiesel Technician.” I am no technician but thought I could help in some way and they agreed
Tiruchuli town where ODAM is located is a friendly village of 5000 people 60km west of Madurai in the state Tamil Nadu. This is main street.
The surrounding area is 25% cropland and 75% fallow land infested with the invasive weed juliflora. See my post dedicated to this weed. ODAM (www.odam.in) is an NGO focused on the development of the rural Tamil Nadu population. They have pursued this goal by organizing over 2000 women across the state in small self help groups, providing these groups with low interest loans, reforestation projects, and an experimental biodiesel production center.
Though I had come to help with the biodiesel center, the director asked me to fix the website as it had not been updated in 2 years. This occupied my first week of volunteering which is much longer than if there had been power for more than 4 hours a day. It never occurred to me intermittent power would be such a hardship, but it saps all productivity from everyone. The time required to switch between tasks that require power and those that don’t can easily consume half a day. Regardless, ODAM now has a site (base on free content management system Joomla) that can be updated without any knoledge of HTML. Take a look at ODAM’s site.
Tiruchuli life is interesting. No one except the three other volunteers and 2 staff members speak English. Food is provided by the friendly ODAM cook who will not stop serving rice until your 2 kg heavier. Conversation with the other volunteers from the UK, France and Australia are always entertaining. Their view of America is not as glamorous as mine is.
Some of the staff tock me to a cast gathering of over 2 million people who came to pay their respects to a revolutionary cast leader who fought the british. The people flowed to the complex over the rice fields from every direction.
The staff are very friendly and try hard to explain what every thing. The flags in the background are political and cast flags. Elango says that most Tamil political leaders have been actors in the film industry at some time.
From the left: Mutu (laborer/my body gaurd), Seemia, Elango, Canan (driver/clown). Good people.
This will be a good experience.
Categories: Tiruchuli | No Comments »
