Rot to Gold

I can’t really describe it. Cutting bruises off tomatoes and the tops off of eggplant. Collecting the skins of garlic and onions, slicing avocado peels into smaller bits…and knowing all this waste is going to turn into a beautiful mixture of nutrients, which we will then feed back to our plants.

I mentioned the community garden across the street. I didn’t mention that after going to see what it was about, Bram and I went down to Greater Goods on U street, to pick up the newest edition to our apartment – a compost bin! The EnviroCycler. Greater Good also hosts a variety of “Green Living” classes, which so far have been beneficial. I’ve attended the Solar Panel workshop, which I recommend for anyone looking to know more about how to incorporate solar into their home. (Sorry, renters, it looks like unless you have an awesome landlord, we won’t be getting panels anytime soon).
Yesterday, I attended a composting workshop, which is part of the store’s regular rotation of workshops. Though I didn’t learn a whole lot of new information – I’ve been researching the subject quite a bit lately – I was intrigued to hear that the instructor Cindy Olson, an Eco-Coach, was living an almost-waste-free lifestyle. She uses about four different types of composting, so is able to eliminate almost everything.

I would love to get our apartment to be waste free, but considering how so much is wrapped in plastic these days, it will take some time. Regardless, over the past few weeks we’ve had to take the the trash out less, and when we do the bag is much lighter. It is even more satisfying to know that in a few weeks we’ll have compost and fertilizer for our indoor plants (chives, thyme, and basil) and lots of goodness for spring planting. I will admit, after three weeks of peering into the compost bin, I am getting a little impatient, but I know that when I hold the “black gold” in my hands, all the waiting will be worth it.

I want to make the point, however, that you don’t need a fancy bin to compost in your apartment. Bram and I are lucky to have a roof deck where we can place a larger-bin. However, our neighbors have been setting scraps of veggies out in the sun, and adding the scraps directly to the soil, resulting in some really great herbs. It turns out the only potted plants that survived of theirs, were those that had this simple treatment. Vermiculture (using worms to compost) also seems like it would work well in urban apartments, as you don’t need many leaves, etc. The bins are not too expensive, can be placed indoors with no odor, and are pretty cool in general. Supposedly, owners of vermiculture boxes get quite attached to their pets. At the workshop, we looked at a worm system and it seemed really simple, easy, non-smelly, and a relatively small size. There is also a Japanese system called Bokashi which is an excellent way to compost, especially if you want to be able to rid yourself of dairy and meat waste. The fermentation process seems to break down anything, and quickly. Lastly, you can always opt for the electric composter that pretty much does the work for you, and works with meat and dairy.

Now, if you are lucky enough to have a yard, some chicken wire is all that is needed to really create a compost heap.

I think urbanites, and those of us living on a budget, can benefit from composting, no matter to what degree. Whether this means we work to become as waste free as possible, or simply use the system to take the trash out less, or just want to save money on fertilizer and compost – they are all great reasons to start reusing our waste not-so-novel ways (composting has been around since the beginning of time!).

I’ll report back once our first batch is ready

Related articles by Zemanta

• Readers, Send Us Photos of Your Indoor Composting Bin or System! (treehugger.com)
• Compost: Bin there . . . do that (thestar.com)
• Supercharge Your Garden with Home-Brewed Compost Tea [Gardening] (lifehacker.com)

Power to the Bar

If you are waking up around 6 or 6:30am, showering, eating breakfast, and heading off to work, by the time 10:30 or 11am rolls around does your mind wander from the spreadsheet you are working on to your growling stomach? Mine does. I often find myself in this predicament: too early for lunch, especially because I know I’d be hungry again by 3pm, but in need of a snack. Instead of going to Rite Aid and spending $3-$4 on a power bar or unhealthy junk food, try these amazing do-it-yourself power bars.

The basis for this recipe is from my all time favorite cook book, Super Natural Cooking, by Heidi Pease. If you haven’t visited her blog yet, go there, she is an inspiring cook and many of her recipes can be adjusted to fit what you have in the kitchen. They are also healthy.

The original recipe is in the “explore a wide range of grains” chapter of the cookbook. I remember when I first bought this book I read the entire thing from cover to cover, inspired by her recipes and the lovely photos. When I started this most recent batch, I subbed the walnuts for peanuts we had left over from a hike to Old Rag in Shenandoah. We also subbed the dried cranberries for dried cherries (I recommend), added extra crystalized ginger, and added leftover trail mix from the hike as well (which included dried apricots, random nuts, and other fruits). So, you can really take the original recipe and go anywhere with it. I had left over brown rice syrup from a batch I had made about a year ago.

The original recipe from Super Natural Cooking is as follows:

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1 1/4 cups chopped toasted walnuts
1/2 cup oat bran
1 1/2 cups unsweetened crisp brown rice cereal
1 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger
1 cup brown rice syrup
1/4 cup natural cane sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

“Grease a baking pan with the coconut oil.* If you like thick power bars, opt for an 8 by 8-inch pan; for thinner bars, use a 9 by 13-inch pan.
Mix the oats, walnuts, oat bran, cereal, cranberries, and ginger together in a large bowl and set aside. Combine the rice syrup, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly as it comes to a boil and thickens just a bit, about 4 minutes. Power over the oat mixture and stir until the syrup is evenly incorporates.
Spread into the prepared pan and cool to room temperature before cutting into whatever size bars you desire. Makes 16 to 24 bars.”

*The first time I made this recipe, I bought the coconut oil. But it is not really necessary. I think any mild oil to grease the pan will work. Coconut oil is nice, however, to saute veggies in and cook in coconut milk.

Given that we ended up adding more dry parts than planned, we ran out of syrup. Bram quickly threw some more (about a cup and a half) cane sugar in the pan and made a caramel out of that to mix in with the rest. Be careful with this method, because the sugar hardens much faster than the syrup. We placed our bars in the pan with some saran wrap over the tray, followed by a huge cook book and wine book on top, to make sure everything stuck together (we weren’t sure it would stick at first).

The results were lovely. You could probably make the recipe with all sugar and no syrup if you want to skip that. Also, the past bran and brown rice can be used for breakfast. These bars are delicious, cheap, healthy, and tasty. Perfect for hikes, or that 11am or 3pm hunger during the day. Enjoy!

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to Make Granola (simplycooking.wordpress.com)
• Coconuts May Be Nature’s Gatorade (abcnews.go.com)

A sprouting oasis in the ‘hood

Calendula is used for insect bites and wounds.

About  a week and a half ago, I looked out the front window of our apartment and saw the community garden across the street alive with activity. Saturday mornings don’t get much more adorable than watching little kids run around with watering cans feeding plants. When you can watch this from 5 stories above ground, the birds eye view is quite pleasant.

I had been dying to know who was the driving force behind the garden for some time. That, coupled with the fact that Bram and I had been talking about starting to compost, inspired me to go say hello. I wanted to know if they would like some of our compost if we had enough. It turns out the Girard Street garden is the largest project of www.cityblossoms.org in DC. I had the pleasure of attending their Labor Day potluck as well, and took a tour around the garden. Besides your standard tomatoes, squash, basil, grapevines, gourds, etc. they also had a large variety of herbs. Hand painted signs were posted near the herbs stating their healing quality. When was the last time you saw calendula in your community garden?

I’m really excited to see how this garden progresses. I’m even more excited for our first batch of compost to be ready, but more on my mini-obsession with composting later.

Trying again

I’ve found blogging to be more challenging than I originally thought. Looking back, I realize I put to much pressure on myself to create something new, fresh, and thought-leader-y.

I’m trying again, minus the pressure and plus the freedom to simply write. I believe this will allow me to find my voice. I am looking forward to seeing if, how, and when I consider this site a “success”on my terms, meaning I am happy with my posts. Let’s see!

…to the center of a tootsie pop.

Picture that early 90’s cartoon with the wise owl and the young child. “How many licks does it take to

Image via Wikipedia

get to the center of a tootsie pop?” The question, posed by TootsieRoll, never had an answer. The point? “Just lick”.

Yesterday, I met up with an friend from college I hadn’t seen in a while. We were catching up on relevant life matters, where we had been since graduating, relationships, jobs and lack of

jobs, etc. The question, ’so how is work’ was inevitably asked, and I happily went on to state how much I like my job and how the work I am doing is very exciting. At the end of the day, it is pretty remarkable that I can honestly say I am involved in transforming rural healthcare in developing countries. I mean, who wouldn’t want to say that?

We then got to the subject of buying houses. It was at that point that I said the reason I am postponing buying a house (not like I could now if I wanted to, anyway) was to save money to start by own business. Of course, we ended up talking about my ideas for a green coworking space in DC. The more and more I talk about it, the more I realize it is my passion. I am very passionate about my current work, but it is not mine.

At one point, I told my friend that I know a lot of the things I have to figure out, but I just don’t know where to start. His response? “Well, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? You don’t know, you just lick.” That was his clever way of saying, just do it, and you’ll get there. It was a simple and yet very effective way to visualize what I need to do. That is, start small and work on small tasks rather than getting overwhelmed by the idea of the entire start-up process.

This summer, I’ll use this as my motto. “To the center of a tootsie pop!” (eventually, “and beyond!”)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Coworking 101: A Brief History (menson.wordpress.com)
• Is the Office Obsolete? (usnews.com)
• Why Now Is The Best Time To Start Your Business Zoocamp 20090523 (slideshare.net)

It’s the People, People: Reflections on Kenya

I’m really late in writing this. There is no point in going on and on about being busy with work and school, so I won’t. Let’s get to it.

Having returned from Kenya at the end of March, my team and I prepared our debriefing presentations toour client DataDyne.org and  United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Group Foundation. We also presented at the Science and Technology in Society Conference hosted by the ST Global Consortium in Washington, DC, where we won first place for best presentation. The presentations and questions we’ve received thus far have been valuable in keeping our ideas fresh and helping us plan what we will focus on in our final report. Tonight, we present for about 40 minutes to our capstone class. So we know our stuff at this point, but what are some of my personal reflections on the trip? Please keep reading!

Thoughts on Kenya-

Appropriate technologies are key, but it is easy to get caught up on interest in the technologies and the shininess and excitement of new gadgets. At the end of the day, however, we must remember that technologies are tools. They are there to support us, not do the work for us, and until the days when robots really start to take over, the tools are not meant to do the work for us, nor will they.

As someone who trys to be somewhat technologically ‘with it’ and firmly believes that the way we work and interact and more importantly share is going to change profoundly over the next few years due to technology, one of my personal key take aways is that the people using the technologies and implementing the technologies are vital. I don’t know if I can stress it enough to myself, and even though it seems so obvious, like any other initiative, project or program an organization undertakes, the people making that happen are the most important variable.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the use of social media these days. There still is a lot of uncertainty about the value of various web 2.0 tools like twitter, yammer, etc. It is quite normal. What I find interesting is now our tools are becoming more and more software based and up until very recently, they’ve been hardware based. In our study, the EpiSurveyor application itself matters a lot more than the PDA or cell phone it is being run on. But I think this is a new phenomenon, and possibly one of the reasons certain software tools have yet to be adopted more thoroughly by the public. Since the beginning of time we’ve held tools in our hands, now, the hardware is turning into an enabling device for the real tool, which is the software. Maybe this is why people want things smaller and cheaper than ever before, maybe because we are starting to realize bigger is not always better and that focusing on usefulness is the way to go.

But I digress. Kenya was an amazing experience. The people were fantastic. I encourag everyone to go. We spent our time in Nairobi and Mombasa and the entire experience both professionally and personally, far exceeded my expectations (we had a lot more fun than we though we would!)

To Kenya and beyond

I admit, I have not been great at keeping this blog updated, although I have been thinking about it quite a lot. The good thing is, that it is a process. I doubt anyone who starts a blog is able to make posting a habit overnight. But anyway…

The title of this post, to Kenya and beyond, holds true as I sit here in London’s Heathrow airport on hour ten of a 12 hour layover between Washington, DC and Nairobi, Kenya. About a year ago, I was sitting in a bar in Canada with the director of my graduate program and two other classmates, since we were visiting the University of Ottawa to attend the Allen Bromley Lecture on Science and Technology. Over that beer was when I approached our director about changing the format for our final capstone course to allow students to work for clients and conduct studies or evaluations for them overseas. Fast forward to today, having found a client (www.datadyne.org), secured funding, and developed a framework and model with which to study a user’s acceptance of ICT technologies for collecting public health data. I’ll go into more of that later.

The fact is, this time tomorrow I will be in Nairobi, Kenya. To some, this may not seem like a big deal. I, however, am really quite excited, proud, and nervous. I would not have thought that during my graduate studies I would find myself on his trip. I know I have assumptions and preconceived notions about what Kenya will be like as it is impossible to travel anymore without some level of expectation, be it correct or not. We’ve read about not going out at night, being careful while in cars, not drinking the water or eating fruits and vegetables. We have also read about how the people of Kenya are extremely friendly and welcoming.

I am looking forward so much to this trip in part because we are working on such an exciting project, but mostly because I am interested in seeing how the people live. The way people are similar and different in parts of the world is the learning experiences that I cherish most.

As someone who studies ‘development’ I am looking forward to this trip breaking my assumptions and challenging even more my assumptions and learnings and worldview. I hope this trip inspires me to continue on the path towards development work, while giving me another first hand view of what works and especially what is not working. The ‘what is not working’ discussion needs to happen more often, and though I doubt we will see much of that through our study (since their program is very successful), in general I hope to return home with some valuable insights.

I’ll post pictures and thoughts and hope to learn about things I don’t even know are there to learn. Luckily, I am with a great group of people who are very observant, thoughtful, and brilliant people and I know that together we will get the most out of this trip that is possible.

Thoughts on a Biz

I encourage anyone who reads this to check out my ‘Thoughts on a Biz‘ page. It is basically a running list of ideas on how I want to run a business in the future. It isn’t a list of business ideas (though, one is coming soon!) but rather some ideas that I can refer back to when the going gets tough once I open my business(es). I believe that successful enterprises are built best and last longest when caring people run them. I hope this list keeps me caring about my employees and grounds me whenever I get tempted to take the easy way out.

Productivity Playland

There is a lot going on these days.

1) I’m graduating in May! Although I am very excited to be done with classes and have my nights and weekends free again, I must say I am going to miss being in an environment of learning. Not only have I made great friends that I am sure I will be in touch with for years to come, I have learned more about myself, my interests, and my passions than I ever thought would have been possible in a master’s program in Science and Technology Policy. These next couple of months will be challenging and exciting in many ways.

2) We are going to Kenya! To make a long story short, last year I thought it would be a good idea if our graduate program copied the development studies program’s capstone. Rather than writing a group research paper, I thought our team should try to find a client and work on a project in a developing country. After a few meetings, we started looking for a client in November. As on Friday, February 6, 2009, I am happy to say my team and I not only found a great client, but wrote a fantastic Scope of Work and are being funded to go to Kenya for about two weeks to look at the user acceptance of the Episurveyor, which is an open source surevy developed by DataDyne, for collecting public health data. We’ll be applying the Technology Acceptance Model, developed by Davis, to the Kenya Ministry of Health’s use of the EpiSurveyor. There is lot’s to do between now and mid March to prepare!

3) I need to finish my independent study, using the survey data I collected in Azerbaijan during the summer of 2008 with FINCA International, a microfinance organization. I need to finish it in one week! I’m stressing, since in addition to that, I have work to do for work, and classes to attend, etc. As I often say, however, ‘it will all get done’ (somehow).

And that brings me to Productivity Playland. I’ve been sitting inside all day, despite the fact that it was a gorgeous 60-degree day in February in Washington, DC. I’ll admit, it makes it easier to be inside all day when your S.O. is stuck inside doing school work, too. I decided to call this place ‘Productivity Playland’ and told myself I bought an all-day pass in order to stay motivated and excited about my work. I am actually really excited about all of it, but sometimes I wish it was done!

(I will admit, we did sneak outside for a half an hour to play a game of basketball with some of the neighborhood kids)

As I grow…

As I grow, I will write my thoughts and observations here on this blog, as a learning exercise for me and I hope for all of my readers. As I am young in my career and as we experience both exciting and troubling times, I intend the thoughts I have today to guide me in my actions tomorrow. I have big dreams, however, dreaming only gets you so far.

This blog is about how a green shoot grows. According to Behind The Name, the name Chloe means “green shoot” in Greek.

This blog will evolve overtime, so bear with me.