Wilson and other third world technologies

We have this story beating around in our heads that sophisticated technologies are going to make our lives better. However, "sophisticated" usually indicates difficult and complex. But what is happening for the third world is the introduction of technologies that are affordable and simple. The technologies include masonry that requires no mortar, inexpensive water filters, teeth flouriding tool kits, smokeless cook stoves, shoes that grow, and Wilson, my virtually indestructible soccer ball which makes standard balls almost obsolete.

Wilson checks out the strange cinder blocks. Like many of you readers, the indestructible has never seen blocks like these before.

On Thursday I introduced Wilson to the Haener construction block. something many of you readers may remember from a year ago when I blogged about building a home for a poor family in Tijuana. (For that story, allow me to direct you to   http://tjposada.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-mighty-haener.html.)

The company which markets this block calls it the "mortarless interlocking system."  Their Web site adds:

Stacked without Mortar, Haener Block can be laid up to 10 times faster than conventional block by skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled laborers. Self-aligning and uniform, Haener Block structures look professional and aesthetic the first time, every time!

Oh, I should mention that last year I misspelled Haener. Well, it's spelled right this year--I think.

It's unclear to me what the rights of duplicating this technology are. As it was explained to me Thursday, families create these blocks and then Esperanza uses them when it comes time for volunteers to build the new home.

This bank gives an idea of the environment where we were making the blocks. You don't buy them at the store, you make them on site.

The blocks are made by shoveling sand and cement into this machine, which creates several types of  cinder blocks using molds. The white strip about mid-way up is a small pallet that supports the block. You shovel the mix in one side, the machine makes a whole lot of noise, and like magic, the block is ready to remove. Doesn't it kind of look like an old printing press?

A bird's eye view of the manufacturing site: sand pile to one side, cement bags, the mixer, and the cinder block machine. Start the presses!

Alex Cratsenberg grabs some pallets for the press.

Wilson watched some women folk drag sand into buckets that wait, like little birds, with their mouths agape.

A fish-eye view of the process. In the background someone feeds the mixer, while the press does it's magic. The shoveler isn't being lazy, just patient. The machine is full and the blocks are about to emerge.

By the way, I should mention that some of the people in these photos won't be identified. My traveling mouse has just stopped working and I have to move the pointer around using the &#*@!!?//(*)&$$ finger pad on this laptop. I hate those things. See what I mean about complicated technology? At least I have an excuse for typos in this dispatch.

Presto! Dos Haeneres (two Haeners). This provides a clear view of how the blocks interlock with blocks that are rested on top of them. Rebar lies in the grooves to further lock them together.

Moving the fresh blocks is a dicey process. If they are shocked or tapped they can fall apart. Susan Nadeau and a colleague wearing a hoodie and therefore known but to God, carefully walk across the work site and down an uneven dirt path over tires set into the ground to stabilize it. They deposited this pair of blocks in a spot with others, they will set up in a couple hours and then cure over the coming day.

Ooooops! See what I mean? One bump and the blocks can crumble at this stage. But then you just drop the broken pieces back into the press and try again.

Some of the sand had rocks in it, so one enterprising worker,Tonyia Cairns, scrounged out a piece of screen and they shoveled the sand into the bucket through the screen.

Occasionally the mixer needs to be cleared out.

Klaus Schweintek relies on his hammer to persuade caked-up mix to let go.

The work site: The wood frame structure that was demolished and then repositioned for the family's abode until a new structure is built; the doorway to the kitchen they will continue to use; and the newly-minted building blocks. We produced 158 of them in just a few hours. A home normally requires about 600.

I promised to tell you about some of the other technologies. Here's one of them -- the shoe that keeps on growing is pictured below. Now I'm not going to spoon feed you on this one -- Google "the shoe that grows" and find out how this simple technology is changing the lives of third world children.

Other simple and game-changing technologies I've come in contact with:

• Break-open flouride kits that can be used on young mouths; you use the kit and discard it and it's good for about six months. I flourided a whole bunch of mouths four years ago using this technology in Peru. This story  and two others immediately below is told in my 2011 blog, incadiaries.blogspot.com.
• Smokeless wood stoves that replace open hearths that women use the world over to cook indoors. The stoves are designed to carry all the smoke out of the home. Google the clean cook strove project. These stoves are easily repaired and use no expensive parts.
• Ceramic water filters, which I helped make in Peru. They remove 99.9 percent of pathogens by simply allowing water to drain through a special ceramic pot made of clay, sawdust and water.
• The One World Futbol -- a virtually indestructible ball that never needs replacing, and brings play to children all over the world in the world's most popular sport --soccer. You already know about that--that's what Wilson is all about.

The point of this is that there are simple ideas that are making strategic changes for the better in people's lives. These products demonstrate that there are solutions that don't require big expenditures, and which are sustainable. We are gaining increasing ability to deliver strategically useful and sustainable technology to ordinary people in the third world.

We can do this!

Since my mouse has died, it's going to be very difficult to deliver more commentary and photos until I'm home in a couple days. There's more to tell, and I hope you're interested. And thanks for coming along.

Love,

Robert, and
Wilson

Paola and Gustavo's youngest child stands at the kitchen doorway, aware that the home she knew is gone, and only mildly aware that the new, more dignified home she will grow up in will arise from those blocks beside her.