One week in....
After the long journey from Nairobi to Kisumu to Mbita to Mfangano, we have all of our materials and an exciting 4 weeks ahead of us. The EK Design Guild (Gaby, Sungu, Sam, and Mike), myself, and two design students from the US (Jonathan Dessi-Olive-UPenn Architecture Masters Candidate & Amanda Bednarz-UOregon Landscape Architecture Masters Candidate) got our feet filled with clay soil and shovels and went to town.
We made a ton of progress this week on the solar powered aquaponics set up on Mfangano Island.
Transit.
A crazy matatu trip from Kisumu to Lwanda Kotieno where we caught the ferry to Mbita for the night.
Day 1.
-Dug the trench hole (8' x 37' x 3' deep)
-Moved the fishing boat into place
-Leveled Boat and backfilled with Kokato (crushed stone)
-Went on a piki-piki (small motorcycle) gang ride to find 3 old telephone poles to be used in the project.
-Scored and Split the poles with circular saw, axe, and wedges.
Day 2.
-Dug Post Holes
-Finished Splitting Poles
-Fastened Coo-coo mesh to boat interior
-Backfilled Trench to level boat
Day 3.
-Set up site grid
-Hauled Sand/Concrete/Kokato
-Set 1/4 of the posts/footings
Day 4
-Set 3/4 of posts/footings
Day 5
-Ferro cemented the interior of the boat with waterproof concrete/sisal fiber mixture
Everything is moving along very well. All day long, people are coming up to the fence directly beside the project site and asking questions, watching the construction, and everyone can feel the excitement around the project building up slowly. Fishermen are coming wondering when they can begin to buy bait fish. Farmers are coming wondering how big the po-po's (papayas) will be when they are grown like this. Boat builders are coming and remarking that the boats that are leaking and beyond repair are numerous and they want to know how to convert them into fish farms... A lot of research done in the last couple of years has provided incredibly useful but there is nothing that compares to learning from building the system, interacting with the people who will be using it, and adjusting the system accordingly.
More to come...
After the long journey from Nairobi to Kisumu to Mbita to Mfangano, we have all of our materials and an exciting 4 weeks ahead of us. The EK Design Guild (Gaby, Sungu, Sam, and Mike), myself, and two design students from the US (Jonathan Dessi-Olive-UPenn Architecture Masters Candidate & Amanda Bednarz-UOregon Landscape Architecture Masters Candidate) got our feet filled with clay soil and shovels and went to town.
We made a ton of progress this week on the solar powered aquaponics set up on Mfangano Island.
Transit.
A crazy matatu trip from Kisumu to Lwanda Kotieno where we caught the ferry to Mbita for the night.
 |
| Strapping all of the materials to the top of the matatu at our favorite hardware store... |
Day 1.
-Dug the trench hole (8' x 37' x 3' deep)
-Moved the fishing boat into place
-Leveled Boat and backfilled with Kokato (crushed stone)
-Went on a piki-piki (small motorcycle) gang ride to find 3 old telephone poles to be used in the project.
-Scored and Split the poles with circular saw, axe, and wedges.
 |
| Splitting the telephone poles into 4 pie shaped sections. |
Day 2.
-Dug Post Holes
-Finished Splitting Poles
-Fastened Coo-coo mesh to boat interior
-Backfilled Trench to level boat
Day 3.
-Set up site grid
-Hauled Sand/Concrete/Kokato
-Set 1/4 of the posts/footings
Day 4
-Set 3/4 of posts/footings
 |
| Most of the posts split and footed deep into the soil. |
Day 5
-Ferro cemented the interior of the boat with waterproof concrete/sisal fiber mixture
Everything is moving along very well. All day long, people are coming up to the fence directly beside the project site and asking questions, watching the construction, and everyone can feel the excitement around the project building up slowly. Fishermen are coming wondering when they can begin to buy bait fish. Farmers are coming wondering how big the po-po's (papayas) will be when they are grown like this. Boat builders are coming and remarking that the boats that are leaking and beyond repair are numerous and they want to know how to convert them into fish farms... A lot of research done in the last couple of years has provided incredibly useful but there is nothing that compares to learning from building the system, interacting with the people who will be using it, and adjusting the system accordingly.
More to come...
