By Matt
This past week David (of Diaconia Nacional) and I have been working with a technical institute in Honduras (INFOP) to train communities on how to make biodigesters. A biodigester is basically a large plastic bag in a trench filled with water and manure. Bacteria digest the manure and produce methane gas. The gas travels from the inflated bag through a PVC pipe to the kitchen where it is used for cooking. This is helpful because the traditional cooking fuel used here is wood, which can be scarce at times, and the smoke causes health problems. Diaconia and INFOP collaborated to build a biodigester in the town of Guacoca to serve as a model and a means of training for the community.
We worked really hard on the biodigester this week. We hauled water, cow manure, and equipment to the worksite. Dug a big trench and filled the bag with a mixture of water and manure. About 12 community members helped out and the entire process was very interactive so that now they are trained to build their own biodigesters. In the end everything looked good. Now we will just have to wait about 15 to 25 days for it to start producing gas. To maintain the process the owner will need to put in a 5 gallon pail of half manure, half water every other day. There are a lot of cows around, so this should not be a problem.
Diaconia has a long term relationship with the community of Guacoca because there is a Christian Reformed Church there. Most of the people we worked with are members of that church. We spent the whole week working there, so it was a great chance to get to build relationships and get to know my brothers and sisters in Guacoca.
3 comments:
Amazing you guys! That's really incredible.
Partners Worldwide is working with a guy here on that only I think his is cement maybe? I'll have to pass this along to them.
The biodigester looks pretty interesting, Matt. I didn't know it was that big. Does one digester go to a single household? Or could it go to more than one?
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