An Engineer’s Darfur Journal – Part II – Planning
I’ve been in El Fasher for almost three weeks now and if there’s one word to describe my time so far, it’s ‘planning.’ After settling into the Oxfam America guesthouse, a spacious and comfortable compound just outside the town’s main market, I soon found that our shipment of tools and stove materials had been delayed again in Port Sudan. This setback has given me ample time to plan the stove workshop and meet my new colleagues, however. Everyone at both Oxfam and the Sustainable Action Group (SAG), Oxfam’s local partner for the Berkeley-Darfur Stove project, has been incredibly kind and generous. After just a few days, they made me feel right at home and I already know that I will stay in touch with many of my friends here long after I leave.
Every workday, the SAG staff picks me up at the Oxfam guesthouse in their SUV and we drive east through town, past several NGO and UN offices, a diesel storage facility, and hundreds of kids on their way to school. The SAG office compound has three rooms inside the main building, a 24-hour guard, and a rakoobah attached — an enclosed space with woven thatch walls and a sand floor — that will serve as our stove workshop. After spending some time getting to know each other and talking about the project, we have been busy planning the infrastructure in the workshop. During the first week, we drove to the market to pick up the custom-made worktables that the stove assembly workers will use; they look beautiful with their shimmering blue paint, but unfortunately we don’t have anything to put on them yet! Last week, we wanted extra tool storage in a small shed outside the SAG office, so we hired a metalworker from the market to install two shelves into the concrete wall. When we receive the generator from Khartoum, we know exactly how much power we can use in the workshop (for tools) and in the office (for lights, fans, and computers). We also organized a storage room in the office to house the stove materials as well as completed stoves.
Without parts to work with and most of the 3-day Eid holiday to myself, I have gone over the stove assembly steps in my mind again and again, trying to think of the most efficient setup for the workshop. What sub-assemblies should be made at each workstation? How long will it take the workers to perform each step? How can we ensure that every stove meets our quality standards? I have drawn up a number of diagrams and asked SAG for suggestions (as well as the Darfur Stoves engineers back in Berkeley), so now we just need to wait to see how it all works out. We’re ready…now bring on the stoves!
