mendenyo February 21, 2011

Hi Nikki (and readers of my open letters at http://dadamac.posterous.com - Open letter readers - I will drop in background information for you as we go along )

Nikki - Can you help me find some information? I'm trying to catch up with my emails. Some, including the ones I have copied below from Graham  and Sam have been overlooked in the past week or so. I feel bad about it - as Sam and his friends and neighbours are facing their problems now, and we do not have the resources to rescue them. All we can do is to try to make it less of a problem in the longer term.

• Nicola (Nikki) Fishman        http://www.dadamac.net/about/Nicola
• Graham Knight        http://www.dadamac.net/network/graham-knight
• Samwel Kongere    http://www.dadamac.net/network/samwel-kongere
• Sam mentions "Lanina" - see news on La Niña in East Africa from IRIN - http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91966

Nikki - Although there is little we can do to make any immediate impact we can try to share some useful information for the longer term - so I've been looking for an update on the clay pot irrigation at Attachab mentioned in your blog
Climate Change and going for ‘Green’ in the New Year | Dadamac

Can you help me find more Information? I think it may be relevant to the emails between Graham and Sam  (Did you meet Sam when he was staying with me?) I don't see we can do anything to help the livestock grazing, but maybe the pots could do something to help the cereal crop - if not this year then at least next year. 

Anyhow I don't want to give Sam only half the story from Attachab - or suggest something that is maybe not working as well as people hoped or anything like that - but if the method could be useful then I want to share the latest info with him as completely as possible, ("warts and all" if there are any - so he can decide for himself).

• Attachab         http://www.dadamac.net/projects/ecology-and-appropriate-technology/attachab

I have memories of John talking about the pots in more detail - saying that in fact they were reviving a largely forgotten local method with the clay pots. I also recall mention of wicks to make the pots more efficient,  but I don't remember  if that was a Graham suggestion or something that John was actually trying.

• John Dada        http://www.dadamac.net/about/john
  

We know John is trying the pots but I don't think he's given us much detail of the results yet - irrigation hasn't been a main agenda item really - more general conversation.

Can you fill in any details for me, or narrow my search, or would I need to check all through the intervening skype chat?

Do we know how John came to start using the pots - via Graham? via things the team saw at Benin? via Marcus or Jim? or even via someone local who could remember how it was done?

• Marcus Simmons        http://www.dadamac.net/network/marcus-simmons
• Jim Guy        http://www.dadamac.net/network/jim-guy
  

I'm wondering if the method 's proved sufficiently successful yet to share the details with others. If it is something we should be sharing with Sam then I'm wondering if it  something he can copy just by reading about it, or if we need to try to help him to get to Attachab to see what is being tried there.

I cannot help thinking that if Minciu Sodas was still active then Andrius would be coming up with a strategy, as he did during the post election violence with Pyramid of Peace (but that is just wishful thinking - because although he made a great impact he didn't manage to raise money outside of his circle and had to borrow much of what he sent - so how could he do some thing like that again?)

• Pyramid of Peace  - some background  - Phone for Peace intro        http://phone4peace.blogspot.com/
  
• Pyramid of Peace -  Archive - http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?PyramidOfPeace
• Andrius Kulikauskas        http://www.dadamac.net/network/andrius-kulikauskas
• Minciu Sodas         http://www.dadamac.net/network/minciu-sodas
  

Pamela
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