Saturday, September 26, 2009

Photos of Living Learning Centre



The front of the Centre faces north. This is the west side of the Centre showing the kitchen window and kitchen entrance. The window at the corner of the house nearest the water tank is the kitchen pantry, which now doubles as the solar power collection/storage headquarters (see photo further down). Beyond the water tank you can just make out the bedroom & bathroom windows, which face the south. The brown object jutting out of the ground in front of the kitchen window is a tree stump!




The raised water storge tank holds about 1000 litres and water has to be hauled to fill it. We have arranged for gutters (eavestroughing) to be installed and for a 5000 litre tank, which will be placed on a pad at ground level. The ground level tank will then collect rain water, which can be pumped with a manual pump to the raised tank. It's amazing the amount of water that comes pouring off the Centre's roof during a rain!




The team ate very well! Rice, sweet potatoes, matoke (steamed, mashed green bananas), Irish potatoes, beans, cooked cabbage with a tasty seasoning, a variety of cooked greens, free-range chicken, smoked beef in peanut sauce, farm-fresh eggs, pineapple, papaya, sweet bananas, watermelon, fresh roasted groundnuts, chapatis...Everything was organic, prepared from scratch and was cooked over a wood fire outside or on these charcoal cookers in the Centre's kitchen. The cooks were awesome!





Here's the solar power collection, storage & inverter system, which converts 12v DC into 240v AC for everyday use at the Centre. It will produce enough power for lighting, computer use, and charging of cell phones. There are 4 solar power panels installed on the roof, each producing 130w of electricity per hour under full sun. There are 4 batteries, each capable of storing 200Ah. Together they store 800Ah, which equates to 800 x 12v = 96w hours, of which only 60% can be used. Fully discharging the batteries will damage them. (Ted)












Leading a Mission team for the first time was a challenge ... you never knew what they might be "getting into"!




I discovered this photo on my camera after the team had left ... Sylvia looks like she's enjoying the ride!

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