Solar panels and other things

Administrative hold


 The Friday email update from the amazing Eastern Caribbean country director gave me hope, but not assurance, that I will be able to return to Dominica as a Peace Corps volunteer.  There is still some final analysis to be performed and then experts in Washington D.C. will decide after a meeting next Thursday.

The plan is to tell us the decision about continuing our service by next Friday.  Peace Corps might not reopen Dominica now, but I hope that the decision will be to offer the evacuated volunteers a choice to go back to Dominica or to serve on another island in the Eastern Caribbean.  We will also have the option to end our service.  

 Dominica has the greatest need and where I pledged my Peace Corps service so that is where I want to go back if at all possible.  Regardless, I want to continue my Peace Corps service if at all possible.   

 The Peace Corps will ship personal items back to home of record for anyone who decides to early terminate service.

 If we accept the offer to return we will fly to St. Lucia on November 27th.  We will likely spend a week on St. Lucia in training and meetings.  This is about the time we would have “reconnect” and we’ve been on the bench for a time so training is a good idea.  (Reconnect is a normally scheduled training a few months after one has been in site for a few months.).  Then we would either go to a site on St. Lucia, Dominica, or other island.

 So, I don’t know where I will end up but it seems likely I will be getting on an international flight in about three weeks as I’m willing to serve.  More details next week.

Solar panels and power pack

My first field test of my solar panels in sunny Arkansas.

 I’ve been working on the presumption that I would be returning to Dominica.  Even if not Dominica, then a different island that could get hit by a hurricane next year.  I want to be better prepared and more resilient in the future.

Electrical service is not expected to be restored in Dominica for 6 to 12 months.  So I will need a way to charge my cell phone and have lights if I return to Dominica.  I decided to go with portable solar panels and external battery pack, rather than a combination panel and battery pack that tends to have a much smaller solar panel.

 A Peace Corps volunteer and anyone else who might be without electricity should have a battery pack.  This is something you can charge and then use to charge your electronics.  I had a Sherpa 50 that I left on island and liked it.  I bought a Sherpa 100 as a replacement.  The new one should be able to charge my laptop.

 In Ghana I kept my battery pack charged on house current for those times when I was without electricity for a day or more.  If I go back to Dominica I would be able to go to the Peace Corps office and charge it.


Expected to be my primary power source without electricity


 I want to use solar for those times when I can’t get down to the office.  I’m happy with Goal Zero products but they do have a proprietary connection so I can’t use any solar panel. I got one Nomad 20 panel to evaluate.

 I also got a more affordable Anker 21 watt solar panel that has two USB ports to directly charge electronics or a USB power pack.  The solar panels should be a good start to meet my power needs.
Additional solar panel, lights, and batter charge.

 Lighting will also be an issue and I’m going to try to two solar lights.  I don’t expect that the small solar panels on the lights will charge enough for daily extended use, but they can be charged via USB.

Other things I’m bringing

I will also bring things I had from my past as a local Red Cross Disaster volunteer and from my Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training that might be useful in supporting a more resilient Dominica or other Caribbean island in the current environment.
Supplies and other things I've already collected and packed

So, still waiting, not so patiently.


Love always,

John

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yam harvesting

Image
Roger and I went to farm to harvest yam on Saturday morning, September 13, 2014.  In Ghana a yam is a root crop that is different from a sweet potato.  We have sweet potatoes here as well. Yam recently harvested Preparing a yam for boiling The yam has a white flesh – softer than a white potato. In this area the yams are planted between April and June.  Harvest continues into December and January depending on the weather and pigs getting into the field. The plant is a vine – which is grown on stakes rather than allowed the spread out.  The plants are placed on a raised bed about 2 feet high.  The beds are surrounded by flat trenches.  This allows the rains to flow around, but not wipe out the yam crop.  Intercropping seems to be common practice with yams planted in the raised bed, soybeans around the edges, and rice in the trenches.  The occasional corn or okra plant is also among the yams – although the bulk of those crop...
Read more

Pito – brewed millet

Image
Corn, rice, and millet are the common grains grown in my region of Ghana. All three are used food, but millet is also used to produce the local brew – pito, or daa in the local language. “N nyu daa” - in Dagaree means “I drink pito.” There are several varieties of millet grown here – a red and white varieties have loose heads. These are used for pito and other foods. There is also a smaller seed variety with a tight head of seeds that is mainly used for porridge. (Don't have a picture of that variety yet.) In all varieties millet grows on a stalk with the grain head at the top of the stalk. White and red millet in the field Two bundles of while millet to be used for seed next season Converting a grain to alcohol is a common practice in various cultures. It provides a way to capture and digest the nutritional value of the grain. In some places, like Germany and the beer brewing monks, the making a beer was a way to preserve the harvest. In Ghana the millet is ...
Read more

Ghana Archery and Travel to Tamale

Image
Ghana Archery Roger and I were walking to see a man in the community early last week and he happened across an arrow head. It was a long thin metal piece that would be attached to then end of a shaft. That got Roger talking about archery and got me thinking about another blog post. He explained how the arrow worked while we walked and promised to show me a bow and arrow when we got back to his house. He talked about the old times when they made poison. The process involved collecting plants and such things and placing them in a pot which is buried for a year. The poison was used on animals and people in the ancient times. That got me thinking about the information that has been and is being lost in the community from the older generation. Yesterday, I was sitting talking with some of the older men and they were talking about how the grandfathers could dig up the roots and such to make medicine for a variety of illnesses. They told me that the knowledge and practice of m...
Read more