M’muock Fosimondi sees it’s first windturbine produced in Cameroon

On November 2nd the big day had arrived – the villagers of M’muock Fosimondi saw their first windturbine that Johannes of GREEN STEP had been building in Buea for the past weeks.

The population had gathered at the Fon’s palace because of a fundraising event of MUDECA – they were fundraising for their hospital that they want to build in the village. It is supposed to be completed by April 2009.
We (of GREEN STEP) were very impressed that the villagers and especially the elite of the village now living in towns or abroad brought together that much money in order to support the village’s health situation. This really shows the continious effort of the community to develop theit own village.

The village sports club
On the same day the village sports club was launched – it is also financed by the elite and is recognized by the government and ministry authorities that were also present at the event. On Sunday morning at 7.30 about 30-40 young guys of the village were competing against each other in a mountain race along the hills of M’muock Fosimondi. The fastest one was back after 1h 30 min (far ahead of the others) of this probably 15-20 km long track. In the afternoon the award-ceremony was held and the first girl and boy were awarded 25.000 CFA (about 40 Euro). Everyon got a small financial award for taking part in the race. Sports really get a different meaning in african villages – it is a great way to encourage personal effort and personal goals. Espacially since in Cameroon there is the Mount Cameroon race held once a year were people from all over the world compete against each other. Sports is a way to find out of misery and poverty for those young children and it is a way to gain international recognition through personal effort. It gives hope to those children and it shows that they can make it out of their sometimes miserable situation if they try hard.
I myself have never understood sports and the hype around it until I saw what good it can do to those village-kids.

The trip to and the stay in the village
But let’s get back to our visit in the village. We – Dr. Kennedy Fozao from MUDECA, Edwin – our biggest help here in Cameroon from Nkong Hilltop, Johannes and me had arrived Friday night very late at the Fon’s private house in the village and shared some drink and thoughts with him that night. The trip had been tidious since we had to go to Douala first to by a generator for the villages secondary school (some person from the village now living in the USA had sent PCs to the school and for that the school also needed a generator), and that really held us there for long.

It was dark when we reached Dschang were we had another great dinner at Mama Titi’s place. After that we made our way up the village – this time on much better roads than last time. Unfortunately the mist was so heavy that for a few parts we actually had to walk in front of the car for Edwin to see the road. But we managed and arrived safely! And we were welcomed by his majesty the Fon of M’muock when we arrived. We had never met him personally before and for us Europeans it seemed a bit strange that we were not allowed to give him our hand – when you meet him you only clap 3 times twice in your hands. But that is the tradition – so we accepted it and learned how to clap.
The hospital for a day
On Saturday we woke up because of many voices whispering in the parlour – we thought it was some sort of meeting time for him with the villagers and listening to their troubles they have had, but found out later, that the parlour actually had turned into a hospital for the morning – as the Fon is a medical doctor and give medical advice and medicine to the villagers whenever he is there.

So we had the morning to ourselves – which was nice, since it was also my birthday that day. We had some coffee and bread and played with the children and the small dog behind the house. For lunch one of the palace women brought Fufu and Achou with goat – which was just great!

Presenting the project to the Fon

And after that the Fon took some time to spend with us and listen to the renewable energy project we had been planning together with MUDECA and Nkong Hilltop over the past year. He had always been informed on the progress and ideas, but it was now the first time for us to explain our ideas directly to him. He made some great suggestions on the projectplan – especially on the way the to-be-trained craftsmen should be selected – he said it would be best to get one craftsman from each quarter since then the quarters could contribute to the material the craftsmen need to build the turbines and they would do so since they would immidiatly benefit from the training of the craftsmen afterwards.
We talked a litte more on the project and after that we went to visit the real palace – where we shared a beer with the Fon and looked at some pictures of the family.

Drinking with the elite and the villagers – or: a birthday party for me
It was already late afternoon – so the notables, Chiefs, subchiefs and other elite started to arrive in the village – all of them mounted with a craig of beer (with the master of ceremony announcing with each new craig that we should not leave now and that we have to share these drinks now)– you can imagine how the rest of the evening was passed… maybe I should note that I was the only female in the bar, having to drink one beer after the other… I don’t know how many beers later, but definitely after we had all socially bonded and were accepted in the village and definitely after I had showed the men in the bar how to open a beer bottle with a lighter and after I had promised to name our first child after the village and also after Johannes had started to only talk about the beauty of the stars in the sky and after Johannes then took 2 antibiotics instead of pain killers (which we only realised the next afternoon), we were trying to make our way back to the house into our beds… A birthday party to remember I would say 

The event – November 2nd

The next day the event in the palace started – it was sopposed to start around noon as the Fon had pledged that the whole event should be over by 2 p.m. – anyways the event started around 2-3 p.m. with the fundraising – we were listening to a list of names and numbers for a while and then some upraisal occured since someone had forgotten to tell the quarter-heads that they were supposed to collect money from the quarters and not have everyone personally give their share… things cooled down, we were sweating in the sun and watched some more people chipping in some money for the hospital. Noone was listening any more… but then Johannes decided to also get up and put money in and everyone was cheering and attention was back to the event – we felt a bit uncomfortable being always the centre of attention and being praised so much, since we are not doing much from our point of view. But we were happy that we were accepted and welcomed so much in the village. And this is what we really like about the people there – they really make us welcome any time we are there!

Well after a few more lists and numbers the event was going on again – and at around 4 we were sort of done with the fundraising and moved on to the other topics. Johannes and me had the honour to speak to the people and officially launch the project in the village. So Johannes and me gave a little speech, which the president of MUDECA translated into the dialect of M’muock. And we gave our short demonstration of the turbine, and we made a little bulb light through the turbine – everyone was cheering! We explained how it works and told interested craftsmen to sign up with MUDECA to join the training that will start in early december (if all goes well). Only shortly after the presentation the first interested craftsmen showed up – and we hope that more will come and sign up for the training. We are very happy that the interest is there and are sure together we will make this project a success story.

After our presentation that the runners were awarded and the sports club officially launched and after that a few PCs were donated to the school.

It was late again when we packed up and we left the village in the dark. We arrived Dschang very late and unfortunately had a car problem again which meant that we had to spent the night in Dschang. But this time it was only a small fault – two fuses had been burnt…

A trip to other renewable energy projects in Cameroon
On Monday morning we started our round trip around the West and Northwest province, meeting some remakable people and project along the way. We thought it would be a good idea to visit the projects and get a connection between each other to establish some knowledge- and experience sharing between the projects and people.

To explain every single one would be too much, but I will just shortly present a few of them here:

ADEID
is an NGO based in Baffoussam that has been working for quite some time with renewable energy especially with micro-hydro turbines for rural electrification. They have had and still have support from the EED (a german chruch development agency).
We had a really warm welcome at their office and they showed us a lot of their technical equipment and explained abot their projects. The meeting with them was great – they have a lot of experience in the field and we think that we will be able to share quite some knowledge and experience with each other. ADEID was really interested in the generator Johannes had built (the one Hugh Pigeott is teaching www.scoraigwind.com) and we will provide them with the manual and maybe a training in february.
Unfortunately we did not take pictures at the meeting, but you can see some on their website and read more. Go to www.adeid.org

The renewable energy entrepreneur Paul

On our way out of Bafoussam we saw a small windturbine on an office and naturally we had to stop and enquire about the turbine. To our big surprise we met Paul – an importer of eletrical devices who had just out of interest built one of the turbines from internet manuals. We were really impressed by this entreprising man!
We showed him our generator and he was also fascinated. On our next visit we will bring him Hugh Pigeott’s book in french and some magnets so that he can start exploring this too.

The technician Louis and his workshop in Bafousam

We also met Louis who is the technician that builds the waterturbines for ADEID in his workshop. He too was interested in the generator and we will bring him manuals and magnets next time we visit. He might even be sending one of is trainees to Buea to learn how to built the generator with us. His friend Denis from Bamenda was also very interested and is also building waterturbines – he will equally get some manuals and magnets to experiment with.

GREENERY in Kumbo

On Tuesday then we went to Kumbo – on the most terrible road that we have been riding on – it was officially paved 4 times – but only small patches were actually paved – the rest of the money went missing… so the road still is not paved all the way through and we wonder if it ever will.

Anyways – we managed to make our way to Kumbo – a 120 km stretch from Bamenda and it took us 4 hours… there we met Jude from GREENERY (www.greenery-cm.org) to visit their yatropha nurseries. As GREEN STEP is thinking to maybe later on start a yatropha project and since we had read and learned much about this “miracle plant” on the internet we wanted to see projects that are already on the ground to find out more about it and to see what kind of experiences and difficulties these projects were meeting. Jude was really helpful – he showed us everything, explained how the project is set up, told us all he knew about yatropha and we were really greatful for that. We definetely want to meet him again and stay in touch with their project!

Mr. Abraham and the improved cookstoves

Back in Bamenda we met a really interesting man – a man who made the second prize on a technoloy contest in Yaounde a few years ago with his own invented improved cookstove. It is a charcoal cooker that can be used to cook and heat things with much less smoke than the usual three stone fire. And the guy actually has a patent on the technology- what a great entrepreneur is that ?!?
You see him here in his workshop in Bamenda!

Bamenda: CAT
In Bamenda we also visited the NGO CAT (Centre for Applied Technology) were we saw a lot of different (low tech and high tech) renewable energy appliances. CAT had been doing research and trainings on the topic. Unfortunately they do not have a website. But if your write to us, we can put you in contact with them!

ACREST

Acrest is an NGO in the West Province actually very close to were our village is situated and those guys have the greatest renewable energy parc and workshops that we have seen so far. They basically have everything that is low tech and that you can build out of locally available material there! For now they are still trying to train their own craftsmen on how to build all those things, but they also offer tour around the house for visitors. So when our training has started we will visit them again with our craftsmen, just to show them what is actually possible with renewable energy!

We were really impressed with this house and Johannes was a bit jealous on the great workshop those guys have

Read more in www.acrest.org

Eat this: We did a trip from Dschang to Bafoussam, Bamenda, Kumbo and Mbouda back to Buea in 60 hours –that was quite impressive I would say – and I do not want to do that ever again – especially the road from Bamenda to Kumbo – you need some relaxing time after having been on that terrible road! So next time – we need more time for that trip

Take care

Conny and Johannes

Dieser Eintrag wurde am 14.11.2008 um 14:35 verfasst und befindet sich in project reports from Cameroon, english blog. Sie können alle Antworten zu diesem Eintrag über den Feed RSS 2.0 mitverfolgen. Hinterlassen Sie eine Antwort oder einen Trackback-Link zu Ihrer eigenen Homepage.

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