How do you do your cooking? - Briquette Making from Waste

One of the neat projects that LEAD is doing in Malawi  is briquette making which combines waste, forestry and energy management while creating livelihood opportunities. 

At home in Canada, from making tea or cooking a meal, I can simply flip a switch and start cooking on my stove. Even when I'm camping, I bring along my Coleman Stove or BBQ or propane burner and turn a knob and start cooking. Here in Malawi, with only 7% of the population with electricity access and with the high cost of gas not to mention fuel shortages (and the costs of stoves), the majority of people rely on firewood or charcoal for their everyday cooking, placing a huge burden on Malawi's dwindling forests. 

Our Night Security Cooking dinner

Briquettes, made up of compressed and shredded biomass waste, can be a nice alternative to firewood use, provide income to the briquette makers, and find a use for all that biomass waste found in this predominantly agricultural society (rice husks, corn husks, paper waste, peanut shells, saw dust, dry grasses, and even leaves). When we first arrived in Malawi, LEAD had done some biomass briquette making (and paper making) trainings with about 35 people from Zomba's outer villages and built a briquette making center near the University (Chanco). I (Josh) was fortunate enough to join the group of Malawians on a field trip to Thyolo in Southern Malawi to see other organizations that had been doing the same and do some peers to peer knowledge transfer. The visit was coordinated by a local NGO based in Blantyre called Renew'N'Able renewnablemalawi.org that is doing some cool sustainable livelihood projects in Malawi.

Upon arrival, our trainees had broken out into song, with lyrics thanking us for this opportunity and how grateful they were. See video below...

Thankful participants

First stop was Thyolo Paper Making, a success story, where as a young orphan, a boy found he had a talent in creating art from waste paper and sold that art to pay for his school fees (you have to pay for secondary school here). He continued to sell it slowly and built up his business to the nice art and craft store below involving several villagers now. They use locally available waste material (paper waste for paper making and banana leaves/clothing scraps for artwork) and make everything by hand.

Participants gathering to try paper making

Explaining how to make paper.

Of course all the kids from the nearby villages come to watch (and learn) as well

Paper drying away....almost ready for some art

Showing the group some art tricks

Example of the art on the recycled paper

Christmas Cards

Contact info in case you want to place an order or learn more :)

The workshop owner  (Hudson) with some briquettes and artwork behind him

Our next stop was Nchima Trust Community Centre to learn how to make briquettes from people who have done it for years. http://www.nchimatrust.org/

Nchima Trust Centre with some awesome poses from the kids.

The biomass briquettes: The end product!

The starting waste: this group was using mostly paper waste to form their briquettes
Start by shredding/tearing the waste.

Add waste with water to form a slurry then mashed in a giant mortar and pestle. 

The mortar and pestle are tools that  most families own to mash their maize into maize flour (to make nsima). It is back breaking work, I tried for a bit causing laughter amongst the Malawians 

Mash Mix Mash Mix Mash

Next is to set up the mold under the press

And add the slurry in the mold 

Turn the crank and squeeze the biomass into a compact briquette (increase energy/volume)
while squeezing out excess water.

Let the briquettes dry in the sun and then they are ready for use.

If I recall correctly, they demonstrators said they could make 4 to 6 an hour and they sell them at 30-40 MWK (about 20 cents) each. Considering that minimum wage for non-skilled labour is around 30 MWK/hour (15 cents) it could be economically viable alternative livelihood solution, depending how they source the waste (hopefully free and nearby) and the equipment (donated). Of course the biggest challenge is creating a market for briquettes and breaking into the firewood and charcoal markets which are very familiar and strong. Educating people on the benefits of briquettes would help this I suppose, but habits and stigmas are hard to break.

Specially made briquette stove to ensure efficient heat conservation and burning

Overall it was a fantastic introduction to Malawian culture and to see some of the challenges that Malawians face as well. Future work with the briquettes are to research the best ratios of leaves/paper/saw dust etc for burning, creating and finding markets for this product, and education & training.

They also had a large rain water capture system where people would drink from. Nice!

Bicycle Taxi

One of my favorite modes of transportation here in Malawi is bicycle taxi. I love seeing a city this way.. wind in your hair, flying down the road- What a fantastic and eco-friendly idea! These cyclists make some money and their only real costs are the bike and the occasional repair. 

Heading to the bus depot in Salima with my co-worker
and Josh after our field work

Now only if the weather would cooperate in Vancouver, this could really be something to look into!

Part 2: Lions, Zebras, Hippos, Giraffes.. Oh My!

We just returned from a week in the field doing more research for my ecotourism study I am managing, so now that I have a moment I wanted to post more photos of the big animals we saw on our safari.

But before I do that I just want to show you the millipede that was crawling in the grass by our tent.. this guy actually somehow made it into our tent and was crawling up the mosquito net..that was a fun find on my end, but good thing the net was doing its job!

Everything seems to be a bit bigger here in Africa.. you should
see the size of the cockroaches!

So I will start with the elephants. What I didn't know is that African and Asian elephants are quite different. I had previously seen elephants and even ridden one in Thailand (that was quite the experience!), so I was expecting them to look similar, but they didn't.  African elephants actually have bigger ears, rounder heads, more distinct rings in their trunks and their lips are longer so makes them look like they are smiling.

They are just such large and beautiful animals!

aww babies..

perfect pose for me- thank you! I think they might have been
saying "stay away from our babies".. but u never know..

This is called a parade of elephants. Quite fitting don't ya think.

Animals definitely have the right of way. This was
quite the site- Look at those tusks!

One thing we really wanted to see were Zebras, and we were so lucky as got to see our fair share of them.  I think they might be one of my favorites! We also learned that a group of zebras is called a 'dazzle' of zebras! 10 bucks says that appears as a Jeopardy question one day and know you'll know the answer :)

So beautiful- and I love the birds sitting right on him

Really enjoyed all the co-habitation. We often saw baboons
and Zebras together

Looking at us head on

This was josh's favorite animal

I love how shiny he is, and how the hair is also striped.

What I was most excited to see were the giraffes. Our guide Moses kept us in suspense as we didn't see them until the second day of our drive, but we were spoiled because we came literally 20 feet away from a group of 4 of them!

Spotted! See it in the distance? This was
before we got to see them up close

Amazing creatures!

Loved the tail- like a black mop!

Such an interesting face

It was amazing to get so close to them

I love this photo!

After seeing the giraffes we were really satisfied- but then our guide got word about a lion and cubs that were just spotted- so off and away we went to go find them. I can't say I wasn't nervous being so close to the lions.. especially as by accident we drove right in between the male and 4 females.. but our guide was amazing and really knew the animals and assured us that they exhibited no signs of being in hunting mode.

Lion paw print spotted earlier in the day

Hard not to think of Simba..

Female sleeping in the grass.

Aww now this guy is pretty cute when he's sleeping.. looks harmless!

hmm maybe not.. look at those teeth!

We spotted them again on our night drive, this time they were
looking for food.

They actually started walking towards us- but again we were assured
that they wouldn't harm us

And then walked right between the cars.. what a crazy experience!

We were also really lucky to have spotted a leopard. During the rainy season the grass is quite tall and they usually aren't spotted- we saw this one up in a tree. Apparently after they make a kill they drag it up into a tree so that other animals can't get to it.

 We also got to see quite a few hippos- both in and out of the water. Did you know that hippos can't actually swim? These animals can also be really dangerous, and the rule of thumb is to never get between a hippo and the water otherwise they could trample you!

During the night drive we stumbled across some just
sitting by the side of the road. I love how roley-poley they are!

Lastly I wanted to share with you about the hyenas that we got to see during our night drives. Now I am not too keen on these night drives as they use these large spotlights to look for animals as you're driving along- seems slightly cruel- but we did get to see hyenas and wild dogs because of it.

The hyenas came right up to our car

The night drive, and wild dogs were spotted up ahead

Wild dogs- these are very rare to see in this park

So there is the general overview of our safari. If you are ever in southern Africa I would highly recommend visiting this national park in Zambia!