Work, work, work, work, work

Monday started with splitting up our team. Irene and Lisanne stayed in Kairoh Garden to work on the reports, logbook and observations of the building process. Youri went to the lumo in Wassu to buy extra metal sheets and needle and thread. The next day we had a day off to relax a bit and we ended up joining a Dutch couple on a boat trip over the Gambian River. We were very lucky this day and we saw a lot of chimpanzees up close. It was an amazing experience, and in the midst of nature, surrounded by many colourful birds and extraordinary green trees, we even saw three hippos near us in the water!

The next four days it was time to continue building the solar dryer. Each day we cycled to Ndokey, sometimes with a lot of materials like metal sheets, a drill and metal rod. Irene and Lisanne made sure all the jerrycans fitted together, because for one drying box you need to connect two jerrycans. They started to melt the plastic jerrycans together using pieces of hot metal rod, but it took a while to figure out what was the best way to do this. Youri started practicing with the drill and the red timber and he also made a lot of progress, apart from the drill bit that accidently broke down along the way. But fortunately, there was another drill bit available and at the end of the four building days, all the wood was sawed and chiselled, and the jerrycans were all melted together and wrapped around with bicycle tires to make them air tight. We got a lot of help from the villagers and most of all from the children. For example one time the scissor was lost and all the children of the village helped us searching it, till eventually we found out the owner of the compound had put it inside his house…

Luckily most of the time we manage to communicate with them, despite the huge language barrier, although sometimes there are little misunderstandings or differences in expectations about what can be finished in one day. Aside from this, these days of cycling two hours a day and physical work in the hot African sun are exhausting, but most importantly we are learning a lot and we think it is a memorable experience for both the villagers and for ourselves!