The Mother of Invention

One of our new agents stumped us the other day - showing Whit a homemade night light. Unfortunately, the way it was rigged with two

batteries, an LED, and a couple pieces of sheet metal, our batteries didn't work with it.

Bummer. But, Whit had a good time playing with it.

XO

Let there be LED!

Very long power outage last night. It went out about 6:30 - just after dark, of course. We continued a little work in the dark for awhile, as it usually comes back on after an hour or so. Not this time. I used my headlamp to see my keyboard - who can tell you're a dork in the dark?


Finally, we gave up and proceeded to fix dinner with our cheap LED light. Fortunately, the gas stove works, so Whit did a boil in a bag Indian meal of Matar Paneer and made rice. We ate by LED.


Considering that 70% of the population is not connected to the electrical grid, this is what their lives are like every day. Here at the equator it gets light at 5:30 AM and dark at 6:30 PM, so there are a lot of dark hours to try and light enough for basic things like cooking, eating, homework, reading, playing cards, and whatever else might typically fill the time between dark and bed.


As for me, I took the LED light to bed at about 8:30 and read a book. When I finally went to sleep the power still had not come back on. However, sometime in the middle of the night my ceiling fan began to whir and I was rudely awakened by the overhead light, which I had failed to switch off before retiring. Oops.
XO

Vaccinations we take for granted

One more note today. I thought you might enjoy this shot of one of our top agents geared up to help facilitate the Rotary-sponsored polio vaccination program happening this week in surrounding villages. Hayford is a special soul, a real opinion leader with boundless energy, and an infectious joie de vivre. This elder gentlemen covers many kilometers per day on foot and on his grandson's too-small bicycle to spread the word convincingly on any topic of community benefit from the importance of vaccinations to re-chargeable batteries.

On this particular day, he traveled about 4-5 kilometers from his village to meet us on the main road at 7:30 to exchange used batteries for fresh, BEFORE going to the village where he was helping to manage the polio vaccinations taking place on that day.

We’re lucky to have him and he's a joy to know.

Please feel free to share with all the Rotarians you know so they can share the pride in the good work they are doing.

Cheese!

Here is a picture of the children who live around our courtyard and shout "Obroni" everytime we leave or come home.

The woman is the mother of one of the children and she came running up at the last minute to be in the photo. Then after I printed it and hung it up on the wall for everyone to enjoy, she removed it and took it home. I was pissed and the children were so sad.

Good road, good business

Starting our fourth full week of operations, we travelled north to some villages we drove through last week to see if we could find an agent in one of the most promising villages. We took a different route to the village - because the map said we could - and because we thought we might find some additional markets. It was a one lane road all the way, with branches scraping the truck on both sides in some places. At one point we had to pull into someone's front yard to let a tro-tro pass by.

In another place, there was a deep open cement ditch cutting across the road (perpendicular) to route the runoff from heavy thunderstorms. The ditch was about two feet wide and there were two boards across the top of it, spaced approximately the same distance apart as most car tires. Tim got out to guide Whit across - like they do when you pull your car in at Jiffy Lube for an oil change. It was hotter than blue blazes and all I could think was how hot it would be if we fell off or broke the boards, got a tire stuck in the ditch and had to call for assistance. I started my mantra - "don't get stuck, don't get stuck, don't get stuck." And we didn't! That was quite a relief.

About half way to the village that was our destination, we came up over a small ridge, and the view was spectacular. Unfortunately, this picture doesn't nearly capture the depth, but there are many layers of hills in the distance, all different shades of green, grey, and blue. Just glorious.

Finally at the village, we asked about for the man we had met on the first day, who said he would show us around and speak with us about our batteries. He was still out at the farm (most people in the rural areas have small farms that they work in the early mornings and late afternoons), but some other villagers said we could just tell them. So we began explaining the concept to about four men, one of whom was the village youth leader - a very important and respected adult position in each village - who was very dynamic and totally grabbed onto the idea. By the end of our visit about two hours later, we had about 50 people, including 20 or so children gathered around us and had 9 new customers and about three people who wanted to be agents. Tim could hardly sign them up fast enough.

On Thursday, we'll go back and sign up an agent.

NOTE - and you ask, what is a trotro? Trotro is the most common form of town to town transportation in Ghana. There are large busses, both air conditioned (more expensive) and not, but they primarily run on a set schedule. Trotro's are more like narrow 12-15 passenger vans - and they leave whenever they are full. This means that you might wait five minutes or five hours from the time you find a trotro going to your destination. Most of the time, it's not that long, I think. There are also shared taxis that will go from anywhere to anywhere, but they are more expensive than the trotro.

Beauty and the Beastly Road

Today we went on a road trip to the north of Koforidua to check out potential villages in which to establish agents (salespeople for our batteries). On the map (four topographical sections shown spread out on Whit's bed), the circuit we took was all very good paved road.

But then, the topos are from 1975.

In any case, all was going along fine. We had driven for a couple of hours on very nice road - a few potholes, but all in all not bad. We had stopped at six or eight villages and small towns to speak with some shopkeepers and locals. Then the map called for us to turn onto the right fork of what looked like two roads of equal quality. At the point we made the turn, we could see the left fork, which was a continuation of the road we had been on - and it continued onward as a beautiful paved highway toward Kumasi.

The right turn we made however, led to a rutted, dirt and collapsing asphalt mogul run similar to those written of previously. We continued a little way until we came upon a village, and asked, hoping to be wrong, if it was, indeed, the next village on our itinerary. It was. So on we went - until we came to this:

These are two taxis (about the only way to get to these little villages on the backroads, unless you have a car (preferably a 4x4, like our truck). The taxis tried to traverse this muddy rutted road. One slid off the slippery stuff to the left and this one started up the middle of the road and very quickly the weight of the engine caused the right front tire to just slide down into the rut. Both Whit and Tim got out of the truck to "check it out". Mostly to see if we could make it, I think, because the women you see in the distance (all over 50, I'd say) ultimately pushed the taxi through the mud until it got both right tires into the rut and could get some traction. It bottomed out on the ridge all the way through and I think the driver was pretty worried about his oil pan, but in the end he seemed OK.

Once he made it through, Whit and Tim were emboldened and we drove through with no problem and were able, just down the road to see some beautiful wildflowers.

We saved the paved road for another day, but I don't know if we'll make it up that way again. Hmm... sounds like the start of a nice poem.

Burro Brand Ghana Ltd.

What are we doing here in Ghana?

Well, not long ago, I was contacted by the former founder and President of Cranium, Whit Alexander, with whom I worked closely when I was there several years ago. Cranium was sold to Hasbro in the Spring, and he was working on some ideas about what to do next. Here is what he had identified:

• In the developing world (specifically Africa, where Whit has 5 years previous experience), there are very few actual jobs - where you go everyday and get a regular paycheck


• Most people who don't have a regular job either farm together for basic subsistance and to bring to town on market day, or they keep small shops on the side of the road (as shown below) or in the permanent markets that exist in larger towns


• A few people have "franchises" to deliver goods or services for large brands, like the MTN (cell phone company) stands (as shown below) to sell the pre-paid phone cards people use to add to the minutes they have available for calls

So, Whit determined that any business idea in these parts of the world would have to do at least two things:

1. Increase people's ability to make a living and feed their families or


2. Improve the quality of everyday life

...preferably, both.

Based on his initial research (a University of Washington intern sent to Ghana for the summer of 2007) indicated there would be significant interest in a number of life-improving products, but no one had any money to buy them. So, he turned his attention to areas in which people are already spending money and it would be possible to satisfy the two objectives above and also take market share away from the current leader by provided a better product and better service.

This led to an idea that incorporates the following additional pieces of information:

Much of the developing world has limited access to electrical power.

Even in areas which have electrical power infrastructure, connection costs are often prohibitive for much of the population

In many of these areas, even, delivery of the power is unreliable (our power has been out for several hours about every other day since my arrival)

Therefore, battery operated radios, flashlights, lanterns, etc. are ubiquitous

Most battery consumers purchase the cheapest low-life batteries available

These batteries, therefore, end up discarded (often several per week by a single radio user) and contaminating the land and ground water. Some of them even leak right in the device when their power begins to run low

Also, because the duration of these batteries is so short, people ration their use of the batteries, thereby impacting productivity and access to information, as well as enjoyment

So, the business concept is simply this:


Provide re-chargeable batteries AND the re-charging service for a monthly subscription fee


The initial version of our battery offering is shown at right.

The batteries are nickel hydride AA cells that can be used as AA batteries or as D cells when inserted into a plastic sleeve. Although they are re-chargeable AA sized battery cells, they provide more power than the Tigerhead batteries shown in the photo above.

Most of our customers use them as D cell batteries.

In my mind, this business plan provides a perfect trifecta (still to be proven out - hence, this pilot we are now conducting) with social, environmental, and business benefits:

1. Social benefits - Provides employment and income to hundreds or thousands of agents who sign-up customers and perform the battery exchange service when batteries run low;
   Also increases the amount of time people can or want to spend: farming (by providing music, news or conversation on the radio to make the time pass more pleasantly); hunting (snails are hunted in the dark, using flashlights); keeping their shops open (it gets dark around 6:30), and so forth - because they don't have to ration their use of batteries anymore.
   
2. Environmental benefits - removes thousands of tons of batteries from the waste stream (if a single Burro branch (region of about 15km radius) rents 25,000 batteries that are replaced weekly with freshly charged batteries, that would remove 1.2 million batteries from the waste stream annually).
   
3. Business benefits - this is a for-profit enterprise which can be expanded to a number of stable developing countries, and provides a delivery and service network that can be used for other products in the future.

So that's the nutshell version. For more information, visit Whit's company blog at http://www.burrobrand.blogspot.com/

XO

Chow time

Tried to post last night, but the internet was down following a lengthy power outage yesterday. That will bring me to a post later to describe our business, as many of you have asked just exactly what the heck I'm doing over here. In the meantime, I must answer those who asked, even before I left, what will you eat?

Starches and some vegetables and fruit seem to be the main staples here. There is meat for sale, but most rural (70%) Ghanaians eat only the meat they hunt themselves. The cows I have seen are pretty skinny, but beef and chicken are readily available at restaurants, along with goat and grass cutter, which apparently is like a very large woodchuck-ish animal. Meat is harder to come by for home use unless you are willing to pluck your own chicken or have a freezer and can buy frozen meat. The main two starch dishes are FuFu and Banku. Both are doughs that are served in a ball about 5" in diameter along with a stew of palm oil sauce, spices, vegatables and sometimes meat. A hunk of dough is pulled off and rolled into a smaller ball, then dipped into the stew and swallowed whole. So what is the difference between fufu and banku - and why do you swallow it whole?

Conventional west African fufu is made by boiling such starchy foods as cassava, yam, plantain or rice, then pounding them into a glutenous mass, usually with a giant wooden mortar and pestle. The first early-morning sounds of rural west Africa are often the rhythmic thud-thud's of fufu being made. Often one person reaches in and folds the dough over between each thud of the pestle by a second person. I thought our neighbor was going to lose a hand as she folded the dough AND chatted with someone else while her daughter pounded with the pestle, but I guess they were in a rhythm. As an industrial engineer, though, my mind was thinking OSHA!

Banku is made in a similar way but with boiled cassava and fermented corn mash. This is why you swallow it whole. Apparently, it tastes (and sometimes smells) quite unpleasant. I say apparently because, as instructed, I did not chew mine - a mistake made only once by the unsuspecting obroni (Twi for foreigner - although mostly used for Caucasian foreigners).

My hypothesis is that at one time, there was no way to store the corn harvest in a way that prevented fermentation, therefore recipes had to be developed to use the fermented corn when no other food was available. Then those recipes became traditional (note: this is just a logical guess yet to be validated). Now, they do purposely ferment the corn in order to make Banku. .

So, what are we eating? Well, now that we are living in the residence, we are eating out of our cute little kitchen(ette?) most of the time.


None of these counters or appliances existed when Whit found the space to rent. There was only the crummy sink suspended in air on a couple 2x4's. He hired a contractor to build the cupboards and countertops. Like the other furniture shown earlier, they are all made by hand.


The kitchen is stocked with eggs, oatmeal, peanut butter from the market (freshly pounded peanuts), olive oil (hard to come by), every variety of citrus, canned tuna, corn flakes, butter, bread, and ants. No cockroachs yet (knock wood). We did our shopping on Sunday so not many stalls in the market were open. We need to go again on a weekday or Saturday to stock up on vegetables.

Move-In Day

I moved into the residence/office today. Yesterday we bought a mattress for the bed - foam with very little give, covered by fabric - and tonight I'll try it out. Here is a photo of my room. There are the new mattress and pillows and the (handmade) wardrobes, as mentioned in a previous post.


Whit spent today scouring the bathroom and shower room while I tackled the tiny kitchen. He did a much better job on his part :)

We also did some grocery shopping - canned tuna, what we think is an avocado, but is called a pear here, mayonnaise, cheese (quite a find!), eggs, milk, quick oats, pineapple jam, butter, and bread.
XO

Highwaymen

On Friday, fuzzy from jetlag, I rode to a little village called Gbolokofi, where we are doing one of our pilots. Our Ghanaian partner, Tim, was along as well. It is only about 14 km from Koforidua, but it took an hour, I think. The first 10 km are back up the curvy road toward Accra, but then we turned off onto a road that was dirt. It was like a mogul run (for any skiers), so covered with holes it was virtually impossible to find a clear path. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera along, but will show pictures next time we go up there.

About 1/2 way to the village we came to a fork in the road. To the right we could see the road was a giant mud puddle just a ways ahead, so we took the left road. Shortly, we came upon a bamboo pole across the road between two support forks. We stopped and the truck was approached by three men chewing on sugar cane, two with machetes. They spoke to Tim in Twi, the local language, and he responded with what was clearly "no", but with a lot more words. At this point they all began to argue, loudly and rapidly.

I was in the backseat, and after a couple minutes of escalating argument, I saw Tim put his hand on the door handle. Now, I'd been in town all of 24 hours at this point, so I was thinking, all in a jumble, "OMG, extortion, machetes, guns, refusal, death, small pieces, disposed and lost in the tall grass never to be seen again - TIM, DON'T GET OUT OF THE CAR!". But, that was all inside my head. In reality, Tim did get out of they car, there were no guns, a machete is so common it is like a pocket knife, and arguing over everything - rapidly and loudly and with much indignation - is perfectly normal, especially where money is involved.

In the end, after several more minutes of arguing and pointing, with two cars backed up behind us and two coming the other way - all yelling at us to pay the man and get out of the way, we paid one Cedi (about 90 cents) to pass and went on our way. At the village they explained what Tim already knew from the "discussion" he'd had with the men - the government wasn't fixing the washed out road, so some men took it upon themselves to build a by-pass. They only collected a toll on market day - Friday.

Welcome to Ghana!

I arrived in Accra on Thursday morning at 8:20 AM and Whit picked me up at the airport. We drove immediately to Koforidua - about 1.5 hours to the NE. Once out of Accra, it was a lovely drive over a "pass" of about 1000 feet and down a narrow curvy road on the other side.

Whit showed me the residence/office space and paid the contractor who had just finished "remodeling" the kitchen and building our wardrobes and office furniture - completely by hand with no electric drill, saw, etc. It is actually quite good and reminds me of IKEA. Here is a picture of Whit in the office. That's my desk in the foreground - remember, both desks and file cabinets were hand made. All the walls in the building are the same green color.

Anyway, Thursday was mostly spent running errands and settling in at the hotel. The residence was not quite ready to move in.

Friday has a wild story, but I'll post it separately. XO