Bring sustainable agriculture to indigenous students

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

School starts next week in Llano Ñopo and 90 high-school students will move into local dormitories unsure of where their meals will come from. Contextual Solutions is dedicated to assisting these students to sustainably produce their own food in the form of meat chickens and egg production.

We can’t do this without your help. We must first raise $950 to build the chicken coop, and purchase laying hens, which will in-turn will bring lasting change to these students.

To support this project, simply visit the Contextual Solutions donate page - any amount helps!

 

 

Adjusting to Llano Ñopo

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

Without lights or cars the sky is infinite

It’s been over a month since we moved out to Llano Ñopo on the Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé and time has flown by. We are beginning to integrate into the community, making friends, and adjusting to the pace of life without electricity, internet, or vehicular traffic. This lack of modern ammenities has freed up time for other activities such as getting to know our neighbors, learning Ngäbere, swimming in the river, and star-gazing.

Getting some help charging the lantern

Sanya getting a geography lesson from kids in Llano Ñopo

Hanging at the river

The hardest thing to get used to has been the food situation. Lack of agriculture and food production is a big issue in the indigenous parts of Panama. Much of the ancient farming knowledge has been lost over the generations as many men leave seasonally to go find work elsewhere. Deforestation and slash and burn techniques have just added to the already poor soil that plagues the Comarca. This lack of any food industry on the Comarca results in external food trucks bringing in food supplies twice a week and charging exorbitant prices for rice, beans, canned meat and fish, and processed crackers.

Nick preparing the greenhouse

One of our main objectives in Llano Ñopo is to support the agriculture endeavors of local families interested in growing their own produce. To this end, Contextual Solutions has constructed a greenhouse and supplied some seeds for experimenting with different varieties of crops.

Beans sprouting up in the greenhouse

Our next agriculture project is to promote hands-on agricultural education with local students by completing a hen-house and greenhouse at the student dormitory. Along with their daily chores they will take care of the chickens, collect eggs, and learn the basics of food production. All of this will help the dormitory to become less reliant on outside food imports and bring local variety and nutrients to the students’ diet.

Sanya placing the mud stove on the stone base

During our latest trip out we began construction on a mud rocket oven, designed by Flip and Jon Anderson. So far we have constructed the mud rocket stove and the stone base that will support the oven chamber. By using one of Flip and Jon’s super efficient, smokeless rocket stoves, the oven can run on very minimal amounts of wood and bake anything from bread to whole chickens to pizza. People in the village are very interested in this project and excited to see the final project. Upon returning to Llano Ñopo we hope to finish the oven and spread the technology to anyone interested in making their own. We also plan to initiate a rocket stove campaign where we teach families to make their own mud cookstoves, eliminating dangerous three-rock fires that are all-too common in the Comarca.

Finished stone base for mud rocket oven

Experiments with Mud

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

Between trips to Llano Ñopo, Steve had a project for us to build a large scale fuel-efficient cookstove for the Boquete Handicap Foundation. On weekends this foundation has a benefit meal and serves all of its clients and their families for free feeding up to 150 people. For this situation, we decided to use an industrial sized version of Contextual Solution’s Tower Stove.

The only change we made was we decided to use a mud recipe developed by our friends from Oregon, Flip and Jon Anderson. They have extensive experience with mud rocket stoves and rocket ovens in Haiti; their work can be found online at Recho Roket. Here is the recipe we followed:

5 parts clay
5 parts organic matter (rice hulls, sawdust, and/or manure)
1 part potash water
1 part sugary syrup (in our case sugar cane syrup)
1/2 part chopped straw

After we gathered sugar cane we boiled it for a few minutes. When it cooled we strained it for the syrup portion of the mix. We made potash water by putting ashes in water then straining out the ash. Potash water is loaded with potassium which strengthens the mud.

We tested the clay at Finca Selah according to Flip and Jon’s website and found it adequate. We just had to pass it through a 1/8″ screen. For organic material we combined manure (passed through a 1/4″ screen), rice hulls, and sawdust. Straw was chopped into pieces in lengths of about 6″ or less.

A muddy-footed Sanya stomps the organics into the mud.

The best part about Steve’s design is anyone can make bricks. The only cost of this stove was the wood and the screws which can be reused many times.

Stacking the bricks according to the Contextual Solutions Tower Stove design.

Once finished, we lit a fire in order to burn out some of the moisture and organics.

Ta da! The new mixture performed great on this initial test run and the best part is all the materials were completely free. We plan to come back to visit this stove and track its progress over the next several months.

Water Project in Llano Nopo

Posted on by Nick and Sanya

Last weekend we participated in our first project with Contextual Solutions in the town of Llano Ñopo, located a little over an hour off the Interamerican Highway in the Comarca Ngöbe-Buglé. Though not far from the highway that connects the modern cities of Panama City and David, once the road ends at Llano Ñopo, life takes on a slower pace. Nick and I have had to adjust to this slower pace as we’ve noticed our bodies don’t want to work as hard or long in the Panamanian heat as they did back in Oregon.

Bridge to Llano Ñopo

Preparing for the water project started with helping Jenni plan and purchase the food for the 30 Canadian “Students Without Borders” volunteers. The students would be coming to spend two days in Llano Ñopo to carry out the construction of gutters, downspouts, tanks, and platforms for a rainwater catchment system. It was tough thinking of meals that didn’t need to be refrigerated, wouldn’t spoil too easily, and were light enough we could carry the kilometer from where the road ends into town. Overall, the meals were a success, except for for the mysterious disappearance of five loafs of bread, which Jenni remedied by making a delicious Cobb salad from the sandwich makings.

Installing Gutters

The project we completed was a water catchment system installed on the roofs of the dorms, which currently experience shortages with the municipal water system. The number of students will almost double this academic year, creating an even bigger strain on the system, hence the importance of the self-sufficient rain harvesting tanks. Steve designed the system to include four large and three small tanks, totaling 3,500 gallons of water storage capacity.

Students Without Borders 2012

During two days, the collaboration of the 30 Canadian volunteers, several Contextual Solutions volunteers, the Boquete Red Cross, and the Rotary Club of Boquete, made it possible to install the system. Nick and I have also decided to live in Llano Ñopo as Contextual Solutions in-field workers, so we are able to implement projects more effectively, and follow up on them more easily. We are eager and excited to monitor the performance of the tanks during the first rainfall of the season.

-Sanya

 

New in Community Team

Posted on by Steve Bliss

Back in mid December I was contacted by Sanya Detweiler about the possibility of volunteering with our organization here in Panama. Last week she and Nick became officially part of our “In Community Team”. They have an extensive background and interest in smokeless stoves and community development which makes them a nice fit to our work. Initially they helped us manage a water project in Llano Nopo with a group of volunteers from Students Without Borders Canada and that project went great supplying the community with additional 3,500 plus gallons of water storage. From that experience they have committed to working in Llano Nopo for an extended period to further our on going work there.

The months to follow will be comprised with working along side the community to accomplish the following:

  • Increasing the capacity of potable water to the community
  • Complete two green houses that were started by the Rotary Club and left unfinished and begin a process of sustainable farming. 
  • Explore the options for a community agricultural aqueduct. 
  • Look at smokeless stove options for Llano Nopo and the communities surrounding.
They will be developing and expanding all three initiatives of which we primarily focus.  
If you would like to offer support to our ongoing work in Llano Nopo please donate and specify the direction of funds to our “In Community Team”.  This work of living in community is a great sacrifice by them and has the greatest potential impact of all efforts and bring lasting change to communities.  Please consider supporting this effort in some way over the next twelve months by monthly or with a one time donation. Any assistance you give will make you a partner in bringing positive life change to communities.
You can read more about them here under the “Our In-Community Teams” section. 

Selfless Service

Posted on by Leif Counter

This past weekend my brother Chris and I were given the opportunity to visit La Canoa, a small village on the Azuero Peninsula in Panama with Steve Bliss from Contextual Solutions. The mission was to meet with Peace Corp volunteers and the La Canoa villagers and film the process of building the “Bliss Stove” out of bricks.

A mere few months ago I had never heard of the Bliss Stove, but that’s not surprising, most haven’t. More importantly, something I had not considered were the problems this stove works to address. Smoke inhalation and deforestation are two of the main concerns for Steve and his team. (See this section of the Contextual Solutions website for further details here.)  The Bliss Stove addresses both of these concerns incredibly well and can be constructed by almost anyone for very little money.

The goal of the filming was to develop a simple “how-to” video detailing the construction of the “brick” method of the Bliss Stove. We were also in an area that had several working examples of the stove, giving us a chance to see it in action and speak with families using it. Upon arrival we met with three eager, happy and helpful Peace Corp volunteers, Chris, John and Daisy. After unloading and introductions we all snapped into gear. We filmed things as they came, it was unscripted, unrehearsed and done with very few takes, the raw footage will tell the story when we get to the editing room. The end product will then be available to anyone and everyone with the capability of downloading the video (YouTube and www.csglobal.org) and although most of the people that will use the stove do not have computers or internet, many of those that can bring this information to them do.

Click for larger image

Steve Bliss and his team have certainly found a solution to a problem. There are many other ideas and designs out there but none have the viability and far reaching access of the Bliss stove. Steve certainly deserves applause for his design and tenacity. My experience with him; however, has shown me that he is not in this for his own gain on any level. Steve is a very humble man with true concern for greater humanity. He is supported by a very loving family who have also sacrificed for the greater good. I am very blessed to call them all friends.

There are precious few people in the world working for the betterment of human kind that ask for nothing in return. True Selfless Service is service that is given with no such expectations, including any expectation of praise, status or financial gain. This type of rare service is not born of the Ego but from a place of humility and love. Only through this type of service can humanity expect to truly evolve. To quote a wise spiritual teacher Kirpal Singh: “If one limb of the body is in torture, the other limbs can have no rest. Service before self should therefore be our motto in life.”

Leif

Villages all look the same…

Posted on by Steve Bliss

Last Thursday I went out to Bocas to talk with a community about their aquaduct.  Gene Melton, a Rotarian and all around water guy, told me about the island and their need for a filtration system on their existing aquaduct.  Gene couldn’t make the trip with me but connected me with the secretary to the mayor of Bocas and he was going to meet me and take me to the site.

One my way to his office, which is located on Isla Colon, I was talking to my wife on the teli and commented how dark the sky was just off the coast.  When I stepped out of the cab rain began to pour extremely hard and furious.  The municipal building is one square block in size and has a large corridor that connects one side to the other.  As I was walking down that corridor I noticed the wind getting a bit turbulent by the bend of the trees at the end of the building. I wondered to myself if this was normal.  Then, about half way through the building, pieces of the roof above me start flying off and landing around me and again I wondered if this could just be normal.  I finally found his office and realized that this was not normal.  Fortunately it came and went in all of twenty minutes but did knock the power out and inflicted roof damage in the community. The Secretary said he hadn’t seen anything like that in thirty five years.  He also said he was now booked up for the day as his phone was now ringing nonstop.  So we planned to try again the following day.  With that I went back to Casa Verde, where I was staying, and spent the day waiting talking with people.

The next day the secretary was still unavailable so I set out with only his directions.  My boat taxi took me to the village where I met the represantante and we discussed the issues of the village aquaduct. He asked me what my intensions were because he had had previous people look at the system but none returned with solutions.  I realized after that his motivation in asking was to avoid walking the 1.5 kilometer hike one way in the dense jungle to inspect the toma (catch basin) and tank. After inspecting we developed a quick solution to the problem.  The village of over 500 people was not getting enough water pressure out of the water line to supply the village so we determine a change in the location with could gain us an additional six pounds pressure.  I told him I’d return in one month to bring a plastic tank and we’d to a quick retro to test the change prior to investing in a concrete tank. Hopefully it will be this easy. As I was leaving I ran into a Peace Corp volunteer and she offered to help with the work when I returned.  This test will only cost us approximately $30.00 in materials as we have an extra tank we can use.

Now an interesting side note. Gene had told me that the issue was with dirty water.  When I asked the representante he said that the water was clean, they just needed more water pressure. I’m used to misunderstandings here as typically we have language struggles at times so I didn’t give it much thought.  The word “libras” is pounds and “limpia” is clean, easy mistake when a different language is being rattled off at a fast rate.  However, when I got home and viewed the pictures of the tank Gene had sent me I realized I was on the right Island but in a different village. So, when I go back with the tank I’ll go do an assessment for a bio-filter in the village where Gene had sent me.  This only goes to prove, there is no end to water issues.  Oh yeah, I’ve yet to tell Gene…

 

Godspeed,

Steve

A Stove Update from the Field.

Posted on by Steve Bliss

Click for larger image.

Here I sit in the States taking some time to visit our families and friends.  For the first time ever I can say I’ve enjoyed the much needed break.  I am excited to say I received another e-mail from Chris Brown, Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama, with news of his ongoing work with the stoves and specifically the brick “Castle Stove”.  We really appreciate all his work and study of the stove and the improvements he’s making.  I’ll simply paste the update below to keep this simple. 

Steve

Hope all is well back in the states.  Here are the details of how I currently make the castle stove.  So for the most part I follow all of your directions, but I strayed a few times to try out new things and this is what I came up with. 

 First the mix:

I use the same mix as the Bliss Burner.  So that means I use hay as well.  And when possible I try to use the grass the locals use to build houses with.  This paja is naturally about one foot in length and is covered in tiny hairs.  The locals think the hairs help bind everything together.  I’d be curious to hear what you think about different grasses.

 The brick count:

I removed the bottom level, but I add more mortar to achieve that height of 15 inches you told me about.  So now I make only 18 bricks for each stove.  Also I changed the 14 inch bricks to 15 inch.  Now with a half inch of mud mortar in between each brick, the castle stove is a perfect cube 15x15x15.  All the other brick measurements are the same.  And an interesting side note is the quantities work out the same too.  You need the same amount of hay, sand, clay, and cement as a bliss burner.

 As a result:

By changing the brick lengths the space for wood in the center of the stove is increased as well.  This means folks are using more wood, but it also seems to work better for bigger pots.  The inside space is 7×7 inch square, where as the Bliss opening is approx a 6 inch circle. Most families seem to really test the limits of the bliss burners with giant pots.  Ideally every home in Panama should probably have one bliss burner and one castle stove for different pot sizes and the need to cook two things at once.

 Also on stoves:

I have a built a couple of just brick stoves with the group Sustainable Harvest.  They buy their bricks in Ocu and transport the bricks all over to build their stoves.  These stoves are a knock off of the Eco-Justas.  They are a good group if you ever have the chance to work with them.  I think they would be interested in empowering folks with your ideas, cause they are more sustainable than transporting costly bricks all over, but we will see what time brings.

So I hope you are having a wonderful break and returned refreshed.  I’ll keep you posted on how these stoves turn out/hold up.  Give me a shout when you return and let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Thanks for being the spark behind all of this.

 Chris Brown

Introspection-What’s the point…

Posted on by Steve Bliss

I really want to...

Here I sit in Costa Rica against my will.  It all started with an angry woman cop with small mans complex who was checking the papers to our Panamanian car.  Long story short, she impounded the car and wrote it up as an illegally smuggled car brought into the country.  This was not true and all government departments I have met with since last Sunday have agreed, but they also say that there is nothing they can do once it is in the system.  So I wait and spend thousands of dollars which helps their failing economy.  Pura Vida, as they say here, typically when they are removing the (sometimes figurative) knife from your back.

All this time here has led me to introspection, the sorting through years of hard work developing simple solutions that will help those less fortunate, specifically in the area of their physical health. I mention physical health specifically so not to allow your assumption of me helping in the areas of spiritual and financial.

Financially speaking there is much to learn from many of those we affluent peg as poor. For most in the western world, finances have become the vehicle to our purchased identities and we find ourselves slaves to income production in order to maintain the image. I don’t want to lead anyone down that road.  I’ve enjoyed seeing the simple life that many have here, where life consists of family, friends and working the land for food and sustenance.  I have learned from them what it takes to live in a way that has little to do with money and much to do with family and friends. It’s a value I’m encouraged to see still exist in the world today.

Spiritually speaking I’ve yet to see many who embrace their personally customized “pursuit” of God to a point where it actually affects their daily life. As a Christian, I have become accustomed to observing a mostly verbal faith.  We douse ourselves in all the right answers, depending on personal preference, so we are ready for heated debates and we call it spirituality. It’s the concern and compassion that I’m not seeing much. Care for humanity and all of creation.  It’s difficult to truly care when we are operating from a premise of consumption.  Our faith has been hijacked by want and, as one suffering from Stockholm syndrome, we now cater to the hijacker. So I continue to love people as well as I can while I sort through my cluttered mind and pick out the pieces in hopes of putting together a faith that is genuine. I believe faith is the most important thing and that we should all take time to consider this and how it directs our lives.

Physical health is base line.  There are many things we can do to help people live better.  I have gained knowledge and I chose to offer that knowledge to the benefit of those without.  We can all do this in some connecting form.  When I used to have the opportunities to speak publically, I would often say that anyone from a western education who is beyond age twelve discards enough knowledge on a daily basis that could change the world.  Seeing the product coming out of the states these days I think the age is higher now but the point is still the same, we are distracted with ourselves and, whether intentional or not, neglecting and abusing the world. I realize it is hard to focus on others, especially in a consumer culture with a failing economy, but we must have the discipline to do so, especially if yours is a response to faith.

For some unknown reason I remember a public address from Jimmy Carter.  I was probably nine years old when he was in his last year of office and, as he looked into the camera, he asked America to look at their selves.  He was pleading with the people to realize change starts with them, individually, making personal decisions that affect the world. Many hated him as a president and I was too young to have a strong opinion but what I know for sure, to this day, is that he was a man of integrity.  He left office and went back to helping the world and is still doing so to this day.

 

Recently we, Dead Wheat, became a 501 c-3 called Contextual Solutions so we could offer tax benefits to those who believe in our work.  This has come at a strategic time as our initiatives have finalized or are at the end of their testing and ready to go global.  This will require an increase in our support.  Currently we have been covering costs ourselves as we have been testing because we realize not many want to spend money on developing ideas when the rate of return is merely potentially helping others. For those who have given, we greatly thank you and the return will be huge!  But now we’re ready.  This leads us to a transition from primarily research and development to travel and training.  Our stove initiative specifically can save hundreds of thousands of lives and make the lives of those using it much better.  I’ve written about it enough before so I’ll spare the space here.  We recently started a campaign to take the stove initiative to all the Central American countries at a cost of six grand.  (Excluding Mexico as we’ve heard it’s been abandoned now and they are all living in the states.) We will go to train the trainers and leave behind a total of thirty molds.  That effort would affect ninety thousand (90,000) people.  That is a cost of $1.67 per person helped.  And this is just an awareness tour, a seed planting so to say.  The after effects will continue on and on without us as our approach empowers people.  However, due to slow funding we are postponing the trip until January when we’ll see where we are with the budget goals.  In the past, we at Dead Wheat would pay out of pocket to make this happen.  But quite frankly we have exhausted our personal resources.  The decision has been made to go back to work and personally raise and/or wait on funding to further our initiatives.

But things are different now. With the name change to Contextual Solutions, and the tax benefit the legal structure offers, we leave it up to you the people.  Contextual Solutions is for everyone reading from this screen to be a part of spreading the solutions that makes huge lasting change. It’s no longer my dreams but can be the dreams of anyone involved.

We’ll be faithful with any amount raised and continue to help those for which we have funding to reach.

If you want to support our work please donate and let us know you believe in our efforts and approach.

We would like to hear from you to so send us an e-mail or say something on our Facebook page to let us know you’re out there.

Godspeed,

Steve

Peace Corps Volunteers and Contextual Solutions Team Up!

Posted on by Chris Brown

Christopher Brown and Jacob Steiner have been building stoves in their communities throughout the first year of their Peace Corps service.  In most communities where PC volunteers serve in Panama the people regularly cook over open wood fires.  This cooking process negatively effects the local and global environment as well as the respiratory health of those nearby.

Through the funding of a climate change mitigation grant Jake and Chris will be traveling to 10 different communities throughout Panama.  The goal is to train other volunteers and community members how to build low cost, high efficiency, wood burning cook stoves.  Because of their incredible design and low per unit price a majority of these stoves will be Bliss Burners and Bliss Brick Stoves.

All of the initial costs of training, tools, training, travel, and materials will be provided though the grant.  After a few months a review will be conducted to find out if the communities like the stoves and if they have been able to continue to build stoves on their own.

Both myself and Jake are so grateful for the support of Steve Bliss, Dead Wheat, and Contextual Solutions.  We can’t wait to roll up your sleeves and get to work and we look forward to sharing pictures and feedback from the communities we visit.

 

Best Wishes

Christopher Brown

Group 65, Peace Corps Panama