Peanuts and Computers

It's amazing how time is flying by here. I'm learning and doing new things everyday!

This afternoon I helped the IT dept by cleaning out their library computers. I used one of those compressed air cans to blow the dust out of the cases and cleaned screens and keyboards with special wipes. I've never done something like that before. The thing that delighted me, though, was the can. When I let the compressed gas out of the can, the can got really cold. Then I got think about what actually was going on in the can. When the air is let out of the can it greatly expands, and when that happens the gas gets very cold. So you will not be surprised that the can at times got too cold to hold on to and little ice particles formed on the tip of the nozzle. Anyway, pretty cool stuff.

This Tuesday I was a rice farmer again. In the following pictures I'm standing on the dry rice paddy that is said to increase yield dramatically. Since we've had so much rain lately, however, the field was very soggy, and not nearly as dry as it was supposed to be. The seedlings that were planted about a week ago are having trouble taking root because of this, we think. We went through the paddy and replaced any seedlings that were not looking well to ensure that we don't have missing plants.



Monday afternoon, I helped with Appropriate Technology. I helped assemble a notebook on water treatment. I'm amazed at how many different types of water treatment options there are. Probably the most typical water treatment method is called biosand filtering, where you allow water to pass through 1.5-2 ft of sand as well as a bacteriological layer at the top that kills most of the harmful organisms in the water. You can do this with two 5-gallon buckets and pvc pipe, you can create ones out of concrete, you can even buy a subsidized plastic one from a firm in Michigan. In addition to sand filters, you can use the seed of a Moringa tree (those of you familiar with ECHO will know about it) to collect 90-99% of the impurities in the water; you can put it out in the sun to distill it; you can use a solar cooker to heat it past 151 degrees F; or do one of a couple other things as well. This stuff seems like the perfect resource to use to buff up Wikipedia's appropriate technology pages! I'm excited. This is a picture of the book I worked on and other manuals that have already been put together on Biogas, rainwater harvesting, and sanitation.


On Monday morning I helped the tropical monsoon intern weed peanuts. Here's a picture of those cute little peanut plants. The actual peanuts grow underground but are connected to the plant by a shoot from the plant above ground.


I took this picture to show on my blog, but I'm also going to be using it for a sign to be placed in front of the peanuts to explain the variety trial. Now you should all come visit me at ECHO so that you can see the peanut sign and go "hey, I know that picture." Actually, in all seriousness, I would love to have you come visit. As a volunteer I can get free tours for you and you can probably spend the night at the Hargraves. If you visit, I can show you everything that I've been doing in person instead of just through my blog.