What's Woody Doing Now

$2.50 a Pound

That's the rate to ship any thing from Kinshasa to Kananga by air. It's only 400 miles. But there are no roads, no trains or other means of transporting goods. By boat is too slow and cumbersome.
It cost me more for shipping then the item cost. Luckily it was raw materials for building our bio-sand filter molds. Water filters will save countless lives. That makes it easier to accept.

$4 per Pound

That's the cost of next day delivery service by midnight to the Congo. Actually, that's the cost of an excess bag via a commercial airline. At a maximum weight of 50 pounds, it costs $200 per excess bag. But, at least in my case, it's over 8,000 miles to Congo. There should be a guarantee of delivery with you.

That's an interesting factoid!

The Turkey Survived

My turkey arrived still frozen. And the six other checked bags arrived ok, too. Oh, I'm having turkey for Thanksgiving in Congo.

I arrived in Kinshasa 15 minutes ahead oh schedule at 9:15 Sunday night. The trip from Indianapolis to Washington to Brussels to Kinshasa was normal. As usual, the US airline was the worst part of the trip especially the transatlantic flight.

I was greeted at the plane door in Kinshasa by the familiar stench and humid air. The smell is unique!

God Given Dreams

This summer I had the opportunity to tell my story and the dream of the Congo Water Project at a number of Presbyterian Churches in central Indiana. The following is an excerpt of a sermon given on August 7th at Grace Presbyterian Church, Fort Wayne. You can download the entire sermon with pictures (Download God Given Dreams).

The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Genesis 37:17-19.

During one of my early trips to the Congo, I was discussing my mission with a Congolese man. Today, this man is unknown to me, I can’t remember his face, and I can’t even remember the village or city where I was. But this unknown man said that I was like Joseph. It was not colorful shirts. It was not my charming looks. It was my dream to help the Congolese people.

This morning for a few minutes I would like to share some of my dreams of Congo with you. I dream of access to safe drinking water to poor rural Congolese. Officially, you will read that less than 50 percent of the Congolese have access to safe drinking water. But in reality, seven out of ten rural Congolese have access to safe drinking water. We will just say that 50 percent do not have access to safe drinking water. No matter which you slice it, millions of Congolese do not have access to safe drinking water. They are the “Other Half”.

Let’s define access to safe drinking water. Get up right now, pour yourself a glass of water and drink it. If you return to your chair in less than 30 minutes, walked less than a kilometer in safety and did not become ill, your water meets most of the definition for safe drinking water, as published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, in 2006.

Congo Helping Hands dreams to purify unsafe drinking water with bio-sand filters and with LifeStraw Family filters. We dream to bring water nearer to the poor by drilling water wells and building water cisterns. We dream to bring basic sanitation systems to the rural poor, too.

I so believe God have sent me to the Congo to help his people, the poor Congolese women and girls who walk miles to get water for their families. I believe God have sent me to the Congo to help his people, the poor baby girls and boys who drink dirty water and get sick. Our God wants us to bring safe and near water to the ‘Other Half’.

Please pray for me and others as we implement these water and sanitation projects. Pray that God opens our heart, eyes, and ears to the needs of millions of poor Congolese. Amen.

A Tale of Two Phone Calls

Yesterday (Monday), I received two phone calls, one from Uganda and the other from Lubumbashi (Congo).
The call from Uganda was a young man who had sent me a message on Facebook. He was in charge of a youth-led NGO called WASIA, water and sanitation in Africa. It was a strange message asking for some guidelines. I responded asking what kind of guidelines. Then he called and finally got through after maybe five tries. I responded with anyone message. Well, on Tuesday morning, I heard my phone ringing early, really early in the morning. It went unanswered. The next morning I saw it was from Uganda. Also, I had another message on Facebook, asking for assistance with their projects. That required a further message with a negative response.

The second call was from a pump dealer. We had communicated on Monday, too. He had called. I had told him a colleague from Congo would call him on Tuesday. Plus, we had passed several text messages to confirm. Tuesday morning he called me again. I just sent a text message to my colleague and asked him to call the man. Then I checked my email and saw he had called the man. He had passed on the price of a pump kits. So I'm not sure why he was calling me. Maybe just to confirm I had gotten the info and to ask if the price was ok or if I was ready to place an order.

In the end both calls involved money and business. One wanted a rich partner. The other wanted a rich buyer. Being an American sets the bar higher.

It Was Called Penny Insurance

When I was growing up, I can remember (white) men stopping by my grandmother's house every week to collect insurance payments. Every week on the same day and about the same time, they would collect less than a dollar for a combination of sick, accident, or death insurance from my poor old grandmother. Also, I remember you could purchase household items the same way from stores.

Well almost 60 years later, the same is happening across Africa and other developing countries. But poor Africans are not buying insurance per se. They are buying needed items for a better quality of life like water filters, solar lamps, or items to make a better income. Today, it's called microcredit.

We plan to sell water products like filters, wells, and cisterns via microcredit. However, we plan to collect the micro payments via cell phones. In Africa, they will transfer prepaid airtime credit as a payment. In turn, we can sell the airtime credit to someone who needs it or maybe return it for cash.

Previously, I talked about SMS being the preferred data medium. Airtime credit is built upon the SMS backbone. The mobile phone serves as a wallet or a debit card.
I have been using (occasionally) a program called FrontlineSMS. It turns your computer into a SMS server by receiving, sending, and recording SMS transactions. A sister program is FrontlineSMS Credit. It is being developed to receive, send, and record those airtime SMS transactions.

So 60 years later, I'm planning to sell insurance (for a healthier life) to poor villagers in Congo.

Rain - Who cares?

Last night, we had a gentle rain with very few lightning strikes and thunder booms. It didn't rain much either.
Sunday morning, I went to church in the heart of farm country. I noticed the rain were still puddled on side of the road. It was still early which meant it was cool and a little foggy. As I drove along roads lined with corn and bean fields, I thought about the plight of a few farmers who I would see at church.

Had they had enough rain on their crops? Then to my surprise I passed a bean field which had a irrigation system. Clearly, this was not the norm for central Indiana.
After church and back at home, I read an article about rainwater harvesting. One of the intriguing points in a UNEP report was about the the percent of agricultural farming that was dependent upon rainwater irrigation.

"Rainfed agriculture is practiced on 80% of the world's agricultural land area, and generates 65-70% of the world's staple foods. For instance in Africa more than 95% of the farmland is rainfed, almost 90% in Latin America."

Rain. Who cares? Farmers care. African farmers care the most. Africa needs more rainwater harvesting!

ICT4D

Mobile phones and technologies are part of our everyday. As a matter of fact, it is a big and growing part of the developing world, too. I started the day listening to a program on Zambia Blog Talk Radio. One of the featured speakers was Liz, a New York based Nonprofit Tech expert, born in Uganda and "raised" at the UN. Also, she labels herself as Afropolitan, Cornell Hotelie, entrepreneur, fundraiser, international educator and speaker, marketing strategist, and hospitality tech expert. It was quick hour of discussion about the role of women, nonprofits, and Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) in Zambia. Liz is involved in Women ICT4D conference in South Africa. And she hopes to present at the SXSW 2012.

Afterwards, I felt obligated to do something toward programming a mobile application for the Congo Water Program. As projects (wells, filters, and cisterns) are installed, we will need to keep track of the them. It will need to document the characteristics of each project including the current status, history of operation, location, and people served.  

We selected the Android OS due to it openness. So I decided to download the Android SDK (software development kit). I spent the greater part of the afternoon downloading everything, getting them installed and operating. I am ready to get to work now.

Near the end of the day, I reached from 5 gigabits (gb) high-speed limit for the month. Now, I am restricted to a slower speed for until September. However, I have realized that my restricted speed is still faster than my fastest speed in the Congo. That's one of the many problem of mobile communication in Africa and Congo. It is slow. It can be costly since you paid by the kilobits used (kb).

Ideally, I believe Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) in Africa will have to depend SMS (text message) technologies versus internet technologies. That is, data input and reporting should have a SMS interface. For example, a villager can report a broken pump by sending a SMS to us.

Fridays are Unusual Days

I called James about 3pm Eastern Standard Time which is 9pm in Kananga. The phone ring and ring. I thought maybe James was in the bed sleep. Finally, he answered with loud music drowning out his voice. Oops, I forgot again. It's the Friday Night MONUSCO (the UN Mission to Congo) open house. It's the weekly night out event for the expats in town. So, it's not your typical day.

Anyway, James moved away from the music. We talked water pumps. He thought electric submersible pumps were available in town for about $1200 each. They are electrical versus solar which means purchasing a generator. However, there are no hand or manual pumps. James agreed that euros 2000 for a pump is criminal.
Friday afternoon was not a good day to do business. I will have to wait until Monday to place my order for some solar pumps and panels from one organization. I called and left a message. Also, I will have to wait until Monday to place my order for casing, bentonite, and poly pump. I called and left a messge again.

Progress is a Continuous Circle

While working for the Army years ago, I joked that progress was a continuous circle. That is, we keep doing different version of the same thing every 2-3 years. Today, I realized I had completed my own circle in about 3 years time. Because about 3 years ago, I had planned to purchase a drilling rig along with all the casing, glue, mud, etc and ship everything to the Congo.

Somewhere along the way, I had tried to find stuff in Congo versus buying in the US. Now, I have come to the conclusion it is expensive and risky to buy locally in Congo. I found the cost of supplies and equipment are about 3 times the price here. Also, the quality is suspect. So I sent the following email to James in Congo today.

"Think about this and let me know if you agree."

"I decided to buy materials and supplies here. Later we will evaluate the local supplies and materials. For example, I can buy bentonite on the southside of Indy for $9 a bag. Also, most people do not have experience with that cellulose. And I will buy about 1160 feet of 4 inch schedule 40 casing. They have black hose 125psi for 60 cents a foot in 100 or 300 feet rolls."

I can not afford to pay the outrageous prices of Congo. Also, I do not want to jeopardize a project and waste time using suspect supplies and equipment.

Drilling water wells in Congo will be adventuresome enough. I don't the any other drama in my life. What have I gotten myself into?