Cicalung

I have spent the last few days in my new favorite spot in Indonesia - Cicalung. Cicalung is a small village that is perched high upon a flat-top ridge under the volcano of Tangkuban Perahu (The overturned boat). There is a long and interesting Sundanese legend behind this name. Check it out online if you want. I will just tell you that it involves fathers turning into dogs, mothers staying forever young, and sons falling madly in love with the wrong woman..

PESAT (The foundation for the development of community of self support) is an organisation that is running the biogas program together with YPBB. A few years back, they helped Cicalung install a water system that pumps water from a nearby spring, up the very steep slopes, to the village. My new colleague and friend Wawa, became the local technician of the project. In cooperation with Yono (my supervisor at YPBB), Wawa has now gone on to work with biogas systems, including the installation of digesters, maintenance work and repairs, construction of biogas stoves, experiments, employing local youth and the list goes on and on... It is in Cicalung, just down the road from Wawa's house, that the experimental digestersthat I am working with, have been built. We started measurements this week, which we will be running for the next 30 days. At the same time, multi-family systems will be installed in two different villages, and a prototype for these systems will be built in Cicalung. Lots of exciting things going on in other words!

Yono and Wawa in Cicalung

Experiment set-up: Pressure and safety valves for the digesters.

Water displacement apparatus and pump for measuring gas production.

Checking the CO2 content of Wawa's biogas - Around 37%. Not too bad.
Getting up at 6 in the morning, fetching cow manure, filling the digesters, taking measurements, planning the next installations and visiting the surrounding villages, the days are long and filled with activity. Somehow, however, there is absolutely no stress present and there is plenty of time for playing chess, guitar, walks, hanging out by the window cafés drinking Bandrek (a local drink made of ginger, milk and young coconut) and chatting with people (Almost only in Indonesian by now, with a few english, spanish and swedish words thrown in here and there). I feel right at home in the house of Wawa's parents, being fed delicious food twice as often as I feed myself in Sweden, and being warmly accepted into their daily life.

Daily Manure pick-up.

Stirring the soup before pulling the plug and filling the digester. The bambu cover is for chicken crossing.

Fully loaded gas holder outside the kitchen door. The weights are used to increase the pressure.

Catur! I actually wonthis one.
There is so much more that I could scribble down, but I will let pictures do the rest of the talking this time. I am off to the local market to get some food and inspiration. I have invited everyone for dinner tomorrow night and promised an Indoswedish cuisine which will require some imagination on my part.

Not many trees remain in the area around Lembang. The ones that do are often providing shade for graveyards as in the picture.

Cow manure is often just left next to the cow shed to slowly be drained away b y rain.

Lots and lots of manure and limited space.

Cows and many other animlas are kept penned in small spaces like this cow in Cicalung. Although the meat and dairy industry in other parts of the world may be far worse, it is not fun to see the clear unhappiness of the animals.

The use of pesticides is widespread. This pesticide spreader was constructed in the same shop that Wawa makes biogas stoves.

Birds... no! guess again and look closer