Nepal Visit: Prototype Transfer and Field Visit

This is Kazu from the financial division. On this post, I would like to report a visit to Nepal in a nutshell. The visit was about two weeks (from 7th to 21th August) and part of the expenses were funded by the Hisao Taki Fund for learning abroad Summer 2011. All of the activities were requited to organize by myself and activities for IDA had mainly two purposes: One is to transfer the prototype of our cooling system and the other is to visit Sudal village for the first time in almost two years since our field survey that precedes to the submission of the initial proposal to Mondialogo Engineering Awards 2008/2009.

Thanks very much to a Nepal memeber, Shrisiti and her family, my stay in Nepal was safe and quite comfortable despite the messy political situation there. Shrisit was about to leave for Canada for her master's program but devoted her time for me during the first couple of days of my stay.

(From left) Me, Shristi and her family@Tribhuvan Airport

Prototype Transfer
Deepak and Girish, other Nepal member, were the ones who actually worked with me during the stay. The prototype of cooling system transported from Japan was still being processed at the airport. We spent a week to collect the parts due to payment of the interest to custom and persistent ask of additional money collection by corrupted officials. The collected parts were reassembled in the garage of the Robotics Club at Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University (IOE-TU).

(From lest) Deepak, Me and Girish @Robotics Club Garage, IOE- TU

Transferred prototype

We have still many challenges to achieve the completion of our proposed plan; The major ones are the improvement of the performance of the system, cost reduction and local procurement of the parts. Even though, the installation in the IOE campus became our big event that symbolizes the transfer of initiative of our project from Japan team to Nepal team. In that sense, a generous offer from Mr. Shyam Pradhan (Shristi's father) for being the longer term coordinator with village representative of the real real testing site at rural area was really appreciated.

Meeting with Mr. Shyam Pradhan (Shristi's father)

Also, the recruitment of new member from IOE-TU is another challenge for us to speed up and sustain the activities in Nepal. It was pity that the orientation session to undergrad students at IOE-TU scheduled on last day of my visit was cancelled owing to unexpected entrance exam in the campus on the public holiday. Still, I believe that Nepal team can attract new members from IOE-TU for our project.

Field Visit
The second purpose of the stay was, field visit of the real testing site of our project. The place is called Sudal Village and it takes two hours by bus and walk from Bhaktapur (half day trip from Kathmandu). With the guide of Nepal team, I could meet village representative (Mr. Guna Raj Subedi) and his family. He is the school principal of the community and her daughter is an active member of women's community group. I stayed one night there and his son took care of me and taught me many things about the daily life in the community.

Mr. Subedi (Village Representative, far left) and his family
including his elder daughter (3rd  from left) and son (far right)

I felt the village was quite modernized than expected. They were connected to electricity grid (although blackout is very much common) and could use bio gas for cooking by utilizing cow dung and the facility seems funded by a Japanese NGO. We may consider the difference of the condition to more rural area in Nepal, but they live far more sustainably relying nature and most of the contexts seemed relevant to our proposed system. At the time of my visit, the family has just started to plant potato between the maize stems, which are already harvested. They said the yield of crops are good this year since they had much rain for the rainy season this year. (They had far less rain for the last two years)

At last, let me tell you a heartwarming story about Mr. Subedi's niece, Rachana. Her family lives just next to the Mr. Subedi's house and she came to the house for play (maybe because I was Japanese and new to her).

Rachana (Mr. Subedi's niece)

She was curious about the camera as well as other villagers and we played some hand games. She taught me a game in English (♪ Butterfly, butterfly, which colour do you like...). I showed a Japanese hand play called "いっせーのせ" instead but it was too complex to her to understand. 

At the dinner, she unexpectedly gave me a letter with bashful face.  

In the handmade envelop was her drawing of Nepali house and Japanese house!

I thought we got a precious thing and I decided immediately to put it on the wall in our garage back in Japan.

More photos and the detailed report are going to be uploaded at our website in a week. Don't miss it!

Go hometown

How many people go hometown on Summer vavation? I think all parents wants to meet their sun. As you know, IDA member is about 70 % foreign people. This means that we dont have a lot of opportunity to go hometown. Frequently going home is out of the question for espeially foreginer.

I am informed of Christmas day is very important for Philippino. What about Japan? I guess Happy new year is important and usually get togheter with familiy on this day.

Eceybody is keen about Otoshidama which is New Year's gift moeny from their parents lol
In my case, I am liable to spend lottery, and then lost money><

anyway, i hope everyone is good terms with familiy^^

Yokoyama Taikan

Today i went to the Yokoyama Taikan exhibition. He is a artist painter and worked on his paintings only from early morning until early afternoon, for these were the hours when he could enjoy the full sunshine spreading into every corner of his ateler. His paintings were thus captured by brushes that dripped brilliant sunshine. In the present exhibition Taikan's full of light "fusuma" paintings are being shown to the public for the first time in 30 years. Over a 90 year life that spanned the Meiji to Taisho and though to the Showa eras, Taikan produced a wide range of paintings by flexibly adopting the various artistic syles that characterize Japanese painting. In sensing the aura of these paintings, you will discover the soul of a Japanese master.

Non-Electric Fan will become a artistic object as well ^^

IDA will come on 3331!

IDA Japanese cluster will attend 3331 which is arts exhibition. We will exhibit Non-Electric Fan as an art object at this time.

3331 is a redesigned school where artists and creator can free to express at there. We are not artist but we need to think of the way of expressing our idea. We think artist is as same as inventor.

At this time, Kawatti is charged with this project. He has a good aptitude of artist. We call him "God of artist".

We will be exhibiting Non-Electric Fan from September 3 to 18.

Volunteer in Ishinomaki

Today I want to share my experience about Volunteer Work in Ishinomaki. Ishinomaki is one of serious devastated area by Tsunami. I have been there from Aug 9 to 12. I stayed at Primary school and surprisingly more than 100 victims still live in there. The central camp is Volunteer head office.

On firs day, What i did is digging out around the house. Tsunami washed away house, car, ship, and so on. The oil run out of ship, after that soil absorbed oil and this come to slime. As a result of this, so many flies emerged. We have to dig out slime as soon as possible we can.

On second day, we clean around grave because Obon was coming. Obon is that our ancestor can come back to this world only this day. We believe in this, this day is special for Japanese. I pull up the weeds and wash the grave.
After i finished this work, i worked on replacing things. The second floor on a house is not usually damaged. Thus, we can replaced things on the floor to other people who want to use.

I went for a bike ride near coast line, they ware so damaged. Everything was washed away by Tsunami. I cant believe it, It was shocking time.

On final day, I distributed food, water, livingware to victims at gym. They said  to me "it is very hot, thank you for coming as a volunteer". I could not find the words. Because they are more painful than me. They lost everything.

If you have time or opportunity to go, please help them. I hope they will be restored soon.

Summer Vacation

It has been almost three weeks from starting summer vacation. We have two month and half. It is especially long time at this year, because of brownout.

Anyway, How do you spend on summer vacation?
Go to see Hanabi? sea? study? Anything is fine!!

IDA Japanese cluster will be held IDA CAMP on 31th August.
This is aimed at sharing our idea, individual and our vision, determining next step.

We want to correlate individual vision to IDA Goal.
Everyone perceives their growing every they finish project.

We are looking forward to coming this day^^

We held 2nd workshop!

We held 2nd workshop for children 7th Aug. This time, we made flashlight of LEGO. Every child was very fun and they could make it! Moreover, they created cool one!! We could see that children had excellent creativity and they were geniuses.
Our workshop was success. They enjoyed making and they said to want to participate the next workshop if we hold the next.

As a matter of course, we enjoyed making with. We hope our workshop was helpful for their future. Thanks a lot.

Next Work Shop is about・・・

Wind-up type Flashlight!!

Next work shop is held on this Sunday. We will make the wind-up type flashlight. Do you want to know how to make it? I think it is our dream, it is dreamy product even if we are adult.

LEGO!!!!!!
i cant show you product, but here this is part of our image.
http://4wdlego.web.fc2.com/hoka/senpuuki.html

So coooooool!! We are sure children like it and make it easily!!
We made Non-electric fan last week. Unfortunately, it is a little bit difficult for some child. At this time, this is not difficult to make it.

ta ta-for now