A mirror for Cassie's Birthday

It's been a while since I had a chance to build furniture. I took a break from house projects to build Cassie a mirror for her birthday. It was fun to work with wood again.  

Her birthday was early in December, and I finally got the mirror finished and hung -- only 3 weeks late.  The design is Stickley inspired.  Traditionally made out quarter-sawn oak, I opted for red elm.

A battery monitor for Christmas? Just what I wanted!

Update:  Well, it looks like I did more damage than I thought.  The energy monitor worked for about a week. Now the numbers are all over the board.  I talked with Outback about getting it repaired.  They "might" be able to repair it, for 90% of the original purchase price. I've decided not to replace it with the same model.  I'm not a fan of black box electronics that are not repairable.  Instead, I'm going to build my own.  The electronics behind are actually relatively simple, the parts are affordable, and I can build it to my own specifications.  It won't integrate directly with my outback power system, but I will get over that part.  More on my progress later.

Original Post:

OK, I did not actually ask for a battery monitor for Christmas, but I am really glad we finally have one.  A couple of weeks ago we bought a Flexnet-DC battery monitor manufactured by Outback Power.  The bulk of our energy system is made by outback, so it seemed like an appropriate brand. 

Getting the monitor hooked took some work (and one rather significant mistake) but we finally have it running and collecting data.  I think I have mentioned before that not having access to system performance data has been driving me nuts.  This is only partly due to my own neuroses -- there are also valid reasons.  First and foremost is that fact that we will likely need to replace our battery bank in the next year.  The current batteries are dropping off like flies.   They have been undercharged for there entire life which is a common cause of premature failure.  Before we drop a few thousand dollars on new ones, I want to get a better idea exactly what we need so we don't make the same mistake again.

Hooking the monitor up turned out to be quite the challenge.  The original wiring was a bit of a rat's nest, so I took the opportunity to clean everything and make sure every wire had a purpose.  It was debatable on a few of them.   Overall the install went well, but I did make one significant mistake.  On connecting the windmill back up to the battery, I shorted the wrench across the battery leads.  This seems to have rendered one of the three monitoring ports useless - a major bummer.  What it means overall is that I can't monitor the wind mill and solar separately.  I can live with that.  I didn't cause any more damage than I think.

So what have we learned so far?  Well, the windmill has been burning about as much energy as it has been creating.  The problem is, it has a dump load connected to it so the batteries don't get overcharged.  Well, the charge settings for the solar are high enough that they trigger the wind mills dump load even if there isn't any wind.  I talked to the wind mill manufacturer about it.  They recommend disconnecting the dump load, so I'm going to give that a try.  The wind mill has an alternative mechanism for avoiding overcharge - it slows itself down.  Between that and the fact that I have never seen the wind mill come close to over charging the batteries makes me pretty comfortable running without the dump load.  The monitor has only been active for a few days.  We'll see what else we learn as time goes on.  

Thanksgiving 2011

My younger twin brothers brought their families to Montana this year for a Blue Cloud Thanksgiving celebration. We smoked one of our turkeys and my brother Jake brought a 13-pound prime rib. My nieces and nephews livened up the place, and Stewie-dog was in heaven with all the attention. 

Here are some our favorite recipes to share from the feast.

"How do they taste? They taste like more." -H.L. Mencken

BBQ Rub

Adapted from Steven Raichlen's fabulous Barbecue Bible series. We rubbed this on our turkey before smoking; we used about half the recipe for an 18 lb bird. The rub can be used on anything, ribs, pork, chicken, turkey, steak. It's pretty awesome.

Just combine the following in a bowl:
1 1/4 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup course salt
1/2 cup paprika (we used smoked paprika)
3 Tbls dried parsley
2 Tbls dried basil
2 Tbls dried oregano
2 Tbls dried thyme
2 Tbls dried onion flakes
1 1/2 Tbls dried worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 Tbls lemon pepper
1 Tbls garlic powder
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground cinnamon


Gingered Cranberry Raspberry Relish

from Eating Well

1 12-ounce package fresh cranberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup crystallized ginger, minced, (choose soft nuggets over disks, if possible)
3 cups raspberries, (2 pints), fresh or frozen (not thawed)
Preparation
1. Pulse cranberries in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Transfer to a medium bowl. Stir in sugar and
crystallized ginger. Gently stir in raspberries, it's fine to crush some of them. Cover and refrigerate for at
least 3 hours to let the flavors combine. Can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.


Horseraddish Sauce

Again, adapted from one of Stephen Raichlen's mouth-watering cookbooks.

1 thick piece, about 2 inches long, horseradish root, grated. You may add more to taste.
1/2 cup sour cream
2 Tbls chopped mixed fresh oregano, rosemary, basil and/or parlsey
1 Tbls lemon juice
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 to 1 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 cup heavy whipping cream, chilled


Mix everything except the cream. Beat cream until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the sour cream mixture. Add more salt, pepper, lemon juice to taste. It only keeps a couple of days, so eat up!

Apple Pie

Adapted from America's Test Kitchen. This pie slices up beautifully. We own the 10th Anniversary Best Recipes collection from these authors and would recommend anything they create. If you're looking to expand your cookbook selection, grab one of theirs!

1 recipe of crust (see below)
2 1/2 lbs firm tart apples (about 5 large), peeled, cored, and sliced 1/4 inch thick (we used Honey Crisp but some other options include: Granny Smith, Empire, or Cortland)
2 1/2 lbs firm sweet apples (prepared same as above) (we used Golden Delicious; other options include: Jonagold and Braeburn)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp grated zest plus 1 Tbls juice from 1 lemon
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon


1. Roll out the two pieces of dough into 12 inch circles. Place one in pie dish, the other on wax paper. Refrigerate both until ready to use. 
2. Put the apples, both sugars, zest salt, and cinnamon into a heavy pan (we use our stove top Dutch oven). Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, about 15-20 minutes. Dump apples and juices into a pan and let cool to room temp, about 30 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 425.
4. Drain cooled apples, and reserve 1/4 cup juice, Stir lemon juice into the reserved 1/4 cup apple juice.
5. Put apples into the pie plate and drizzle with lemon-apple juice mix. Cover with 2nd piece of dough. Trim, fold, crimp edges. Cut vent holes in top. Brush the dough with lightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with the 1 tbls granulated sugar. 
6. Bake about 25 minutes, until crust is golden. Reduce heat to 375, and continue to bake about 25-30 minutes longer, until bubbly and deep golden brown. Cool about 2 hours to let set. Serve with vanilla ice cream!


Crust (makes one double crust 9 inch pie): 
2 1/2 cups flour, plus extra for the work surface
2 tbls sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening, cut into 1/2 inch pieces and chilled
12 tbls (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces and chilled
6-8 tbls ice water


1. Using a food processor, mix  flour, sugar, salt. Add the shortening and pulse until finely mixed. Add butter pieces and pulse a few more times. Put in large bowl. 
2. Sprinkle 6 Tbls of ice water over the mixture. Press dough together, until sticks. Use up to 2 extra Tbls of water if needed to make it stick.
3. Divide into two pieces and flatten slightly. Wrap tightly in the plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. Before rolling the dough out, let sit on the counter for a few minutes to soften up. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Evolution of the garden

This year Bill and I tried to green up our thumbs. It was our first attempt at growing a garden (other than the hanging-tomato-plant on the porch variety). The garden was built over about a 12 month period, and is still a work in progress. Our soil here is clay and rock...lots of rock. Our garden went through several variations during the planning period, and impatience and frustration ultimately led to some poorly-thought out decisions, as well as some purchases we probably could have done without. However, we are happy with the final result: we grew some stuff!

Before we moved to Blue Cloud, I read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". I've always liked the idea of self-sufficiency and local food dependence, but her book really made me look hard at how we live and decide that we could do it. I have a picture of a "vegetannual" on my kitchen wall, a visual concept Kingsolver discusses in her book to describe the growing season progression. Here's a beautiful interactive rendition of the vegetannual.

We started breaking "garden" ground in October 2010, when we moved here. We originally planned on a modest plot, but with all this land, we couldn't contain ourselves and ultimately measured out a 1400 square foot space. We placed it with full southern exposure, and it sits right in front of our house. We wanted to keep it easy walking distance from our front door, so as not to dissuade us from walking out to take care of our plants or of making daily harvests.

As noted before, our ground is full of boulders. We spent three days digging out grapefruit- and pumpkin-sized rocks and piling them up outside the plot. I ruined a shovel in the process, and Bill flared up his tennis elbow.

The next thing I concentrated on was building up our soil. I never formally tested our soil pH, but our well water is about 8.0, so I think I can safely assume the soil is pretty basic. As mentioned before, our top soil is thin and compact, and heavy on clay. One of the methods of soil-building that I became fascinated with was sheet mulching. The idea is to quickly build soil and suppress weeds. The best information and how-to guides I got my hands on were found in Toby Hemenway's "Gaia's Garden" and Bill Mollison's "Introduction to Permaculture".

My method of sheet mulching was bare-bones. I didn't add any soil supplements, and I really just relied on whatever bulk materials I could scrounge up. I hit up my friends, hardware stores, and local farmers. I must have made 10 trips with the truck to gather and load up my supplies.

I first watered the garden area heavily. Then I applied large sheets of cardboard, gleaned from recycling bins and from hardware stores. Next I applied a layer of cattle and horse manure about 1-2 inches thick. The manure was fresh, but I applied it in the fall, to allow some aging before we planted. I was nervous about inadvertently applying manure with herbicides, but ultimately, I just trusted my suppliers and went with it. That probably could have really burned me, but I think I survived unscathed.  Next, I threw on any materials I could get my hands on: leaves, grass clippings, topped with a thick layer of straw. The mulch averaged about 9-12 inches thick. I covered this with deer netting to keep it from blowing away. Lastly, I watered and waited.

The construction of our garden fence was meant to be deer and bomb proof. I think we succeeded. We ended up with a 6-foot high, mesh-wired fence, running along T-posts, anchored with corner posts in cement. Little did we know, the deer don't really frequent our yard here like they did in town. When we lived in Helena proper, the city deer would frequently hang out on our deck and eat everything; in the mountains the deer are more scarce. Mostly, I think, our deer fence just serves to keep out our dogs.

Over the winter I had time to plan our plot. I went through several sketched out editions and then stumbled across this gem of a planner from Mother Earth. The M.E. garden planner has a yearly fee, but I think it's worth it, not only for the design efficiency, but also for the entertainment value. I spent many nights tinkering around with design ideas, and trying different arrangements of vegetable companion crops.

We decided to implement some raised beds, to extend our growing season and make gardening a little easier on our backs. Bill and I crafted 13 boxes, using this basic design provided by Sunset magazine. We used fir, even though it will break down quicker than ceder. However, the price was right, and our drought-like climate will give our fir structures extra longivity. We're hoping for at least 10 years.

When spring came, I started to worry that the sheet mulch would not yet be ready for planting. I panicked and ordered some top soil from a local garden supplier: 5 yards dumped in our front yard. To stretch out the soil, I combined a straw-bail garden technique I've read about. I first applied 6 inches of straw into each bed, added bone meal and blood meal, then covered it up with just a few inches of top soil. Surprisingly this worked really well. I'll need to add more soil to the boxes next year, as things have certainly compressed, but even my carrots grew great in this arrangement.

We did half of our plantings in raised boxes, and half in the sheet mulch. The sheet mulch turned out mixed results: cucumbers were non-existant. But overall, were impressed with how the sheet mulching turned the compact soil into something that looked like quality garden black gold. The corn and squash thrived in it. The raspberries loved it, and the sunflowers took off.

One of the interest elements of building the garden was creating an herb spiral. The idea is to create mircro-climates for different herbs (oregano on the sunny south side near the top, parsley on the wetter side, near the bottom on the north, etc.), and to grow a large amount, in quantity and variety, in three-dimensional small space. In a five foot wide mound, you can grow about 30 linear square feet of herbs. To build my herb garden, I piled up some top soil, and used our boulders to make a spiral design, outlining the growing pattern.

Another interesting growing technique I learned from a fellow off-gridder, who lives in conditions with poor soil, involves straw and potatoes. (I had no idea how useful straw is; I've used it routinely throughout this whole process). To grow our potato crop this year, I placed the potatoes on top of my sheet mulch, and covered them with straw, about 6-8 inches. I was a little skeptical, but this method worked amazingly well, and the straw kept them from drying out. Best of all, the spuds were easy to harvest; all I had to do was pull back the straw, and there they sat. No digging!

When the days got long and hot, we were forced to face our watering conundrum. Our well produces 10 gallons per minute, but our off-grid, solar-efficient well pump produces far less than that. For most of the year, an undersized breaker caused the pump to shut down any time we ran more than one sprinkler at a time.  A little research fixed that, but we are still limited to two impact sprinklers at a time.  We also struggled with the constant wind, which blew away a lot of our water from the overhead sprinklers. A lot of the initial watering was with buckets or hose, by hand. Eventually we installed a cheap drip system which was a disaster from the start. If you're going to "go drip", put some money into it. Finally, we settled on a system of some overhead sprinkler and some hand watering. As a result, our watering was inconsistent and our produce showed it. Eventually, we'd like to like to incorporate a gravity-fed/rainwater system, but for now sprinklers are the cheapest and easiest solution.  We'll tackle it again next year.

My favorite things to grow included a dwarf blue curled kale variety. Also, the straw potatoes were a satisfying experiment. Another favorite were the beets; they grew like gangbusters. (For something delicious and new, try this beet recipe. It's Bill's favorite. He modifies it a little by subbing maple syrup for the brown sugar, and by doubling the glaze to beet ratio. Yummy.) 

Other than our disastrous cucumber crop, my biggest flop surprise was the strawberries. Only three plants survived my huge plot. I also planted a strawberry barrel, using this design, which did OK, but not as well as I'd hoped. One more puzzle to work on next year... 

Improvements in the Works: 

1. Wind was a big factor for us. We're in a perfect corridor for our wind turbine; but it sure sucks for the garden, especially the tomatoes. We'll implement a wind block (fence for the short term, but we will be planting trees in the coming spring for a more permanent solution). 
2. We're making plans for a greenhouse/chicken coop. The idea is to someday implement a solar hot water system to keep it warm. More to come later...
3. Bees! Adding a hive or two to our farm would sure benefit our garden and orchard. I'm still getting up the courage to invest in these amazing, but finicky, creatures. 
4. Indoor seedlings were a problem for us. Grow lights weren't realistic, given our limited energy in the winter and spring. We have great southern exposure windows, but as the sun got higher in the sky in the spring, we just couldn't get enough solar energy to grow with much success. I think next year we'll stick with just growing from seed, buying local plant starts, and perhaps implementing some cold frames. 

We still have a long way to go before reaching our desired level of self sufficiency, but we're motivated and working on it.

How We Get Our Energy

Well, we're one year in and...we've learned a lot and we're not ready to give up yet.  I must admit, the engineer (a.k.a. geek) in me has really gotten a kick out of studying and maximizing the efficiency of our energy system.  There are several ways to survive/thrive off-grid.  Here are few in no particular order:

1. Hire a company to design/maintain a state-of-the-art renewable energy system designed to meet all of your needs.  
2. Buy a lot of propane.
3. Scrape together what you can to get by and go to bed when the lights go out.  
4. Use less energy.

Most people I've met that live off-grid in Montana do a combination of #2 , 3, and 4. Not many people get by completely with number 1. The people we bought the house from tried to get by with #1 and a fair bit of #2.  They bought a good system.  Unfortunately it wasn't designed very well for them and they never really embraced the idea of energy conservation.  I feel like we've done pretty well on the energy conservation side things (more on that later).  We have also learned that you're better off learning how to maintain your system yourself than relying on any company to take care of it for you.

So here are the nuts and bolts.

Energy Producers:

• Solar: We have ten 150w solar panel with a total energy producing capability of 1500w in full sun. They are mounted on a stationary pole and no, they don't "track" the sun.  We could add a sun tracker and may at some point.  The concern is that it may be more trouble than it's worth since we get so much wind.  

• Wind:  We have a 1000w Bergey wind turbine.  Bergey is a reputable company, but the wind turbine never really functioned properly for the first winter of use.  It produced very little power and was extremely noisy.  Enough so to keep us awake at night.  By spring, the power production dwindled down to zero and we knew that it was time for maintenance.  With longer summer days (and plenty of solar input), we opted to lower the tower in May and perform repairs over the summer.  Turns out the rectifying unit (the part that converts the AC to DC current) inside the wind generator completely burnt up.  The turbine blades were also in need of replacement.  We contacted Bergey and they replaced all parts under warranty.  We finally raised the tower again last week.  So far it runs like a champ and is a lot quieter.  It will be nice to have this winter.    

I suckered a group of friends into helping me lower the tower.
We got the tower about 10% of the way down before raising
the tower back up and running away with our tails between our
legs.  100' is a long way up!  Some things are better left for the professionals.  

• Generator: Kohler 12 kw propane standby generator.  Our goal is to use this as little as possible, but some use is unavoidable.  Having enough solar and wind to account for every day of the year in Montana is an expensive proposition.  A more realistic solution is to size the system to meet your needs for the majority of the year and use a generator to get you through the darkest of days.  Last year, we used our generator about a total of 75 hours.  Just for comparison, the previous owners put 3500 hours on it in roughly 4 years.  That was after they burnt up their first (undersized) generator.  The generator comes on automatically when then batteries get down to a certain voltage.  Once it comes on, it generally runs for a couple hours and shuts itself down after the batteries get back into a comfortable range.   

Energy Storage:

Batteries and lots of 'em.  (This part gets a little technical.) When we first moved in we had twenty  6-volt batteries. Each battery has about 400Amp-hours of storage.  To put this into perspective, an average car battery has about 100 Amp-hours of storage.  Since our batteries are 6-volt, however, it takes 2 batteries, wired in series, to make a 12-volt circuit with 400Amp-hours. So, 2 of our batteries have about 4 times the amount of storage as a car battery -- we have 20.  However, since our system is designed to run at 24-volts, it actually takes 4 batteries wired in series to make a single 24-volt circuit.  Since we "had" 20 batteries, we had 5 sets of four batteries, each set was wired in parallel which increased our total capacity to 5 x 400 = 2000Amp-hours (or 48,000 watt-hours). What does this mean?  Well, since we use about 4000 watt-hour per day, we should have 12 days of storage, right?  Nope!    

• Problem 1:  Batteries should stay above 50% at all times.  That drops us to 6 days.
• Problem 2:  Batteries like to be fully charged every day or at least every few days.  We don't generate enough power to charge that many batteries.  Here are all the details if you want to know why.  

So we have lots of good batteries, but because they haven't been taken care of, they are dying young.  Based on my recent calculations, our current system and our needs, we are much better off with only 8 batteries.  I am in the process of pairing down our batteries to the best 8 and we will give that a try for a year.  Hopefully we can keep them charged and make them last a little bit longer.  A few of the batteries have already expired.  The rest we will keep in storage, and charge a couple of times of year, cycling them into duty as other batteries die. Eight batteries should give us roughly 2.5-3 days of storage.  We rarely have a 3 day period where the sun doesn't come out or the wind doesn't blow.  Even if that happens, that generator will come on automatically anyway.  We can live with that.  

Energy Use:

Since our batteries are wired for 24-volts DC, do we need 24-volt appliances?  Nope. Our house is wired just like everyone else's, with both 120V and 240V AC outlets.  Two, 3500-watt inverters convert the electricity into AC current.  Having 7000 watts of capability means we have roughly 50 amp service.  Most people who are connected to the grid have 100 amp or 200 amp service.  To be honest, we rarely use more than 1000 watts at any one time, so this really isn't a problem for us.  It does mean I can't run woodworking tools with large motors, but that's about the only downside so far. 

Energy Conservation:

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average American household uses about 29kw hours of electricity each day.  We don't really have a good monitoring system, but we estimate the we average about 4 kw/day.  We are going to invest in a monitoring system as soon as we can fit it into our budget, so then we'll have a much better idea.  Here are some steps we've taken to lower our energy usage:

• Lighting: All of our lights are compact florescents and we turn them off when we're not using them.  In the grand scheme of things, lighting accounts for a very small percentage of our total energy usage. 
• Deep well water pump:  We have a very efficient water pump for our well that runs directly off our batteries.  Although it doesn't have very high capacity, it meets our needs and uses very little energy.
• Refrigeration:  Our refrigerator and freezer are certainly unique.  A standard stand-up fridge uses about 2000watt-hours per day!  This varies widely.  If you're interested in lowering your energy usage, take a good look at your refrigerator.  We don't have a stand-up fridge.  Instead, we use a chest-freezer and regulate the temperature using an external thermostat designed for beer coolers.  Packing a chest freezer took a little getting used, but the benefits in energy savings are significant.  Freezer are inherently well insulated and since the door is on the top, the cold air sinks to the bottom when the door is opened.  In a stand-up fridge, much of the cold escapes when the door is opened.  This freezer-converted-to-fridge design uses about 300 watt-hours per day.  We also have a solar-specific chest freezer. It is super-insulated and runs directly off our batteries.  It runs on about 600 watt-hours per day.  So, we use under 1000 watt-hours per day on refrigeration, with a lot of food-space capacity.
• Space Heating: First of all, our house is very well insulated.  A central wood stove easily keeps the house in the 60's even on the coldest of winter days.  The house is equipped with in-floor heat, powered by a propane boiler, but so far we haven't used it very much.  Firewood is plentiful and we just don't really like the idea of burning propane if we don't have to. We used roughly three cords last winter to keep us warm and happy--not too bad for a Montana winter. In the long run we are hoping to incorporate some solar hot water heaters.  If we design it right, we will be able to pump the hot water through the floors on sunny winter days.  
• Water heating:  We have an on-demand propane hot water heater.  The on-demand aspect of it is efficient, but we hope to limit our use of propane once we install solar hot water heaters.   We also hope to install a hot water heating coil in our wood stove which will help distribute the heat through the floors. 
• Cooking:  Our stove and oven are propane.  OK, not really energy efficient, but we sure like it.  This is a luxury that we are unlikely to give up. 

Otherwise, we live pretty much like everyone else.  We have a computer (with satellite internet), a big screen TV, and most modern appliances.  We are a lot more conscious of the energy we use and both like that aspect of it.  We also feel like we are much more in tune with the weather and what's going on outside.  It's been a great experience so far!

Unazungumza kiSwahili?

Jambo, habari sana!

I've just returned back from a two-week venture into Tanzania. I went there with a small, local group of medical professionals from the Helena area. Coming home took some serious transitioning. I caught myself, on the large airliner, somewhere over northern Africa, admiring the spaciousness and cleanliness of the lavatory, until I realized it was exactly the same as before--it's just that my brief experiences of third-world poverty reshaped my view of the flushing toilet. It was very humbling to work in the circumstances we did and to see and treat the people of Tanzania, who were grateful for anything we could do.

While in Tanzania, our small team of two PAs, one ophthalmologist, five nurses (one in training) was able to see and treat over 1,000 Tanzanians. Most of our time was spent in clinic, but there was some time set aside to see the sights of the very cool Ngorongoro Crater, which is part of the Serengeti. More on that later...

Mt. Kilimanjaro, viewed from our base in Sakila.

We were based out of Sakila, about a 45-minute nail-biting drive--eastward--from Arusha, and well within easy viewing distance of the awe-striking Mt. Kilimanjaro, whenever the clouds parted to permit us to see it.

Loaded up in the truck, ready for another day in clinic.

I found this video put together by the medical team who preceded us in Arusha. The main difference is that my group did not operate out of the Sakila clinic. We were on the road every day, loading up our supplies, and ourselves, into the back of an open truck, and then bouncing down the road to a new village every couple of days. We did not have the luxory of shelving or, for that matter, organization beyond cardboard boxes on the ground. Each clinic we set up was in a village church house, sometimes on a dirt floor. We hung sheets between the two examination rooms, grabbed our indispensable interpreters, and then we opened up the doors and worked like hell until our last patient was seen.

The vast extent of the medical care that is needed in these small villages is overwhelming. Only some of the people who show up in the mornings are able to get through the doors before we have to shut down. Some people wait for hours and are never seen. It is very true, as in the video, that many people you just cannot help. I was able to do some small procedures, pull some teeth, and hand out the supplies (ie: pain meds, antibiotics, vitamins, antifungals) we had. More importantly--but most challenging for me--we had the ability to give a limited amount of life-changing referrals. Our funds allowed us to send some people for more intensive, life-changing procedures (ie: large mass removals from the head, extremities and torso, or simple surgical procedures like hernia repairs or hysterectomies). The decision came down to those we could help, and those whom we had to send away. Some were way too progressed in their illness and likely to die, despite treatment. Some required treatment which was not even available in the hospitals of Tanzania. To determine when to help, what you could do to help, and when holding the heroics was the help, was the difficult part.

Amani clinic. ("Amani" is Swahilian for "peace".)

The women, who are the manual workhorses, inevitably had neck problems, back pains and headaches, which came at no great surprise; a typical woman you see walking down the roadway or trail has something on top of her head, whether it's a bundle of bananas, or a five gallon bucket full of water. I get a headache just thinking about it.

The children struck me most of all. Many of them were hungry. Many of them had not eaten or had anything to drink in more than a day (we arrived to Tanzania in the midst of a drought). Many were infected with scabies or intestinal worms, and nearly all had some form or another of ringworm. We sent many for ventral hernia repairs, some for mass removals, and others for orthopedic procedures.

Kids at clinics in Roadtoll and Amani.

However, when we rattled down the roads, they would rush from out of the bush, barefoot, sometimes howling "Mzungu!!!" (white person), each child waving one or both of their arms frantically, eyes dancing. I was always surprised that each time a child climbed up onto my exam table in the clinic, each one--no exceptions--first politely removed her or his shoes, despite that their feet were as filthy as whatever they had on their feet.

Running after us in Sakila.

Here are some more of the patients I saw. Beautiful Tanzanians...

Majichai Clinic

 Without an exception, every day in clinic, the town leader, which was always the local pastor, stopped our work to serve us coffee and snacks. Roasted fresh peanuts were served, most of the time, with boiled eggs. Then again, we would stop for lunch. Always lunch consisted of rice (which is actually an expensive nicety in this part of Tanzania, where corn is the staple), some form of meat stew (beef or goat), boiled spinach, and sometimes skinny pieces of fried chicken. Watermelon, too, which is an Arusha export. Nearly each meal we were also served bottled soda. This special treatment came at great cost to the villagers, most of whom eat ugali (boiled cornmeal, which basically tastes like a form of polenta) every day, period. No frills. Even more maddening, one day after clinic, we were tossing out our used wash water, and the preacher stopped us, requesting us to put the water into a big plastic bin for them to reuse the water. I treasured every warm bottle of Coke after that, even though, going down, it burned my throat and my eyes, having to drink it in front of all those hungry kids watching me.

Roadtoll Clinic (pronounced: Rho-add-tall)

A typical day started when the 3 AM gong woke us up, though we didn't have to be up and moving until 6AM. Breakfast at 7, on the road by 8, travel and set up clinic, then close down shop at 5PM to make the return trip. Dinner at 7PM. By then, I was dirt tired, dirt-caked, and ready to crash. We got a shower every third day, which consisted of a cold rinse off for a few seconds, enough to jolt you awake and wash off some grime.

The last day of clinic was heartbreaking. When people realized they would not be seen, there rose almost a panic outside the church. Mothers held their children up against the barred, but open-aired, windows of the church. Old women pointed to their bodily infirmities or the rotten teeth in their mouths. People cried and yelled and begged. It was all I could do to keep focus on those who were already inside the church, those who were lucky enough to be seen this time.

Ngordito Clinic

At the tail end of our visit, we took a day safari into the Serengeti. During the 4.5 hour drive to get there, we traveled out of the desert, and through coffee plantations, into banana fields and eventually rice paddies, and then up and over the great African rift, into Maasai country. Entering the Ngorongoro crater was mystical, with the fog heavy and the visibility short. Eventually we burst through the fog and could see the giant crater below. Apparently the drought this year has wreaked havoc on the large herds, but there was still plenty to see. Dancing zebras. Terrified hyenas tearing through the grass. One lone, methodical elephant with enormous tusks. Lazy wildebeasts. Snorting rhinos. Birds of every color and size, including ostrich and the African crowned crane. And a lion snoozing right by the side of the dirt track. It was absolutely magical.

Looking down into Ngorongoro Crater

Wildlife of the Serengeti, viewed from the pop top of our forerunner. 

Herd of Wildebeasts

Interestingly, there is somewhat of a battle between the Tanzanian government and the Maasai people, nomadic herders, who have inhabited the Ngorongoro crater for the last few centuries. (One of the towns we held clinic in was home to many uprooted Maasai; they had been stripped of their cattle and their land. And they were, basically, pathetic, poverty-stricken, and lost.) The government plans to uproot the Maasai from the crater, as well, as their cattle are contributing to erosion problems in the crater. I see no easy answer to this problem.

On the way out of the crater, we were able to visit a tourist-friendly Maasai village. Most folks in the tribe abhor their picture being taken, as it is believed that photos rob them of their souls; however, this particular village was happy to take our American dollars in exchange for a mug shot and entry into one of their dung huts. Our tour guide, the chief's son, took questions while we sat in the dark hut (with two windows the size of softballs on either side). For whatever reason, out of my mouth popped a question about the community toilet. Chieftain Jr.'s limited English comprehension did him a disservice that day, as he proceeded to tell me how his father, with 16 wives, sent the kids away to another wive's house during copulation. It was extremely awkward, and hot, in that small hut, and I was happy to escape.

Maasai village: The kid is peaking out from behind a dung hut. The women are sitting in the cattle corral making jewelry. The men are dancing. The Maasai dress in beautiful reds and purples, and the men always carry their spears or herding sticks.

Part of our time working was spent giving medical care to kids in an orphanage near Arusha. Nearly all of the kids here have lost their parents to AIDS. Looking these kids over and spending time with each one was certainly a highlight of my trip. Overall, they were well taken care of. 

Orphanage near Arusha.

Probably most of the adventure I had, besides sampling and sustaining myself on the local village fare, was riding down the road, whether in the way back of the truck, or inside the land rover, speeding down the narrow, heavily-peopled highways. Seatbelts? Nope. Helmeted motorcyclists? Definitely nope. Pedestrian rights-of-way? Hell no. Here's some of what I saw from the road...

Thanks for reading. It was certainly a remarkable, and life-changing, trip. Good times and memories in Tanzania. Until next time, Kwaheri.