One week at ECHO

So today wraps up my first week at ECHO. Although it started off slow, this week has been very nice. Each day starts at about 8:00 and ends at about 5:00 with a 1 1/2 hour lunch. Each morning I help a different intern with variety trials (which I will tell you about in a moment) and then the afternoons are spent doing various other things.

Each of the eight interns have to do one variety trial while they're at ECHO. In the variety trials, the intern plants from 5-30 different varieties of plants, such as tomatoes or papayas, and records the fruit yields of each plant. Wednesday I helped Eric with his cowpea variety trial (for those of you who aren't familiar with cowpeas, black-eyed peas are a type of cowpeas). There was 26 varieties, eleven plants for each, with four repetitions. That's a lot of cowpeas! 1144 cowpea plants to be exact. So we picked the ripe cowpeas, put them into marked bags and then later counted the amount of pods for each variety. Today I did the same with tomatoes. I have to say that tomatoes are a lot more fun--bigger, colorful, juicy.

Right now a work team of about 20 high schoolers is helping out at ECHO. These kids came from Indiana to come work here. I've been working with them in the afternoons. On Wednesday, I had my own subordinate from the team to help me with pressure washing. It's funny because I've only been here one week and I'm already being assigned managerial positions. It's probably jbecause they instantly sensed that I am destined to be a world leader . . . or else they're just desperate for help. I'll go with the former choice. :)

Today I helped clean a rusty brick press that is soon going to be painted and put up for demonstration in a new area in the farm. The area will be for Appropriate Technology, which is technology that is appropriate for developing nations--stuff that impoverished, uneducated people can build and understand. For example in this brick press, you fill a small, rectangular compartment (4 inches by 10 inches, roughly), with sand and cement or clay, then secure an iron cover over it. The block is squeezed when the bottom of the compartment comes up as you push down on a very long lever (4-5 ft long).
There are all sorts of other things, too, like biogas digesters made out of barrels that collect methane to use for cooking or superinsulated cookers that require you only to boil food for several minutes then finish in the cooker with no more fuel. I'll have to tell you about more once I spend more time helping with appropriate technology. I'll be doing that every Wednesday afternoon.

As if learning about biogas digesters made out of barrels isn't enough, I got to use power tools today! Not just a cordless drill, no, but (assumes deep voice) power tools. I helped put handles on some storage drawers in the workshop this afternoon. I first sanded 2"x2" boards (using a very loud stationary band saw) on the corners to smooth them out then cut them into small lengths to make handles using a humongous saw whose name I forgot. The point is here, though, that I got to use very large, very loud tools and I didn't lose too many fingers in the process! (Actually, I was very careful and did everything properly just like in Girl Scouts).

All-in-all, it's been a great week. I think I could go on and on about all of the stuff I did this week, but since I already gave you complete instructions on how to make your own brick press, I think I will stop here.