Into the Forest

I have officially been chewed and spat out by the Sabah rainforest. Over the past seven days I have trekked to three different rural villages and I can honestly say, these villages are very remote with no road accessibility and difficult walking terrain.

Our mini-bus which collected us from CREATE drove for about 2 hours into the heart of Sabah, The bus struggled to cope as we climbed constantly up valley walls. The drop off location just seemed like a random point at the side of the road. From the road side, the plan was to walk deep into the forest towards the first village - Kampung Longkogungan.

The "Sabah Parks" boundary -  entering protected rainforest areas.

The recommended footwear for the forest is the Adidas Kampung (nothing to do with Adidas), which is basically a rubber shoe which is ideal for wading through water and mud. Unfortunately there is no foot support, so my feet and toes were twisted, stubbed and bruised. 

After three hours of walking, scrambling and wading across waist deep rivers we made it to Kampung Longkogungan. The village of Kg. Longkogungan currently has no electricity but Tonibung are working with the villagers to install a micro-hydro scheme. The house we were staying in was very basic with the wooden floor as a bed. I think the children in the family enjoyed my stay, a lot of fun was had shooting me with a toy gun. When it got dark, a car battery was used to provide electricity to a single light bulb in the house - which gradually got dimmer as the night went on. I was also introduced to rice wine on my first night. Rice wine, which is fermented rice is not very pleasant, especially when there's more rice than liquid. Its kind of like eating/drinking alcoholic porridge or rice pudding.

We only spent one night and a day at Kg. Longkogungan. The following day we helped the villagers clear a path through the forest for their micro-hydro piping (penstock). In the evening we set off to the next village down the river, Kampung Kalangaan. It was only an hour trek to Kg. Kalangaan, but I managed to get about four leeches and I didn't notice until I arrived at the village. Once scraping them off, my feet were a bleeding mess! 

Kg. Kalangaan is another village without electricity, the micro-hydro project is on going with the dam and forebay complete. We stayed two nights in Kalangaan and it was on my first night I was introduced to tapai. Tapai is another wine like drink which is made from the root or bulb of a plant found in Borneo. It can be quite strong and the villagers love to drink it. I found the taste to be not too bad, some mixtures of it can taste like vinegar though! Everyone consumed a fair amount of tapai while in Kalangaan, the guitar was passed around and Dusan songs were played well into both nights.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner always consisted of rice and the most recent catch. The first night we ate every edible part of a pig, including a soup with the skull bobbing about in the pot. On the second night, I had what I assumed as the time was more pig, this time grilled. With the dim light from another battery power light it's quite difficult to see what exactly your eating. I did eventually realise it wasn't pig, it was the head of a small grilled bat. But to be honest, it was actually quite nice.

During the day at Kalangaan, we worked on reinforcing the dam for the micro-hydro. On the way back we ended up going spear fishing for eels. Apparently the eels hide under rocks during the day. The villagers dive into the river and dig under the rocks and shoot at them with a home-made spear gun. I gave it a few attempts but unfortunately the eels are not easy to find!

On day four in the forest, we left Kg. Kalangaan and headed to Kampung Pongobonon. On the way there we stopped to catch some lunch. The spear guns and fishing net were back out. I was determined to catch a fish using the net, I haven't quite got the technique yet, so I didn't have any luck. I'm making it an objective to catch a fish using the net and spear gun by the end of the six months!

A big blow was that I was so focused on getting a fish I didn't realise I was getting some really bad sunburn on my shoulders. Trekking with a rucksack and sunburnt shoulders is torture.

The third village we visited was Kampung Pongobonon. Pongobonon does have an installed micro-hydro, but unfortunately the AVR on the generator is broken and needs replaced.

The house we stayed in for three nights can be seen below. You can't really see from the picture, but there is a monkey in a cage outside the door. I asked why the monkey was in the cage and from the explanation it wasn't clear if it is a pet or they are fattening it up to cook and eat. It thankfully wasn't for dinner while I was there anyway!

A family of 10 live in the house which mostly consists of young kids. A big irony I found with this village, is that a lot of the kids have smart phones and will very casually sitting playing Clash of Clans or Candy Crush. Without the micro-hydro, the family are using batteries for electricity which is being used to charge up several smart phones and a stereo system. During the day, western drum and bass songs coming form the stereo were a common sound coming from the house. At night, oil lamps and torches are the only source of light in the house.

During the 2 days we had at Pongobonon, we spent a lot of the time erecting electricity pylons for other houses. We visited the micro-hydro and inspected the ELC, funnily enough it turns out there is no ELC for the micro-hydro in Pongobonon, load control is purely archived using the AVR. Voltage regulation only, no frequency regulation, which creates limitations on the system.

For lunch, returning back to the house after erecting pylons, I was shocked to see there was a bloody carcass of a wild boar on floor. That wild boar was to be breakfast, lunch and diner for the next few days.

On the final day I was ready to return back to CREATE, my sunburn was bad, I was hungover from all the tapei and my legs were a mess with scratches, leeches and mosquito bites.

From Kg. Pongobonon, the plan was to walk the 2 and half hour trek to Kampung Buayan and then from there get a lift back to CREATE. Once at Kg, Buayan, I expected the trip to be at an end, I thought we could then relax and wait for the truck to pick us up.

This was not the case. The journey from Buayan back to CREATE has enough content to have its own blog post!

The truck to pick us up from Buayan never turned up. News reached us that the truck had gotten stuck about a mile from the village. We walked out with the Buayan villagers to free the vehicle which had partly went off the the side of the road. The axial was caught on the road surface and the truck was close to toppling down a very steep embankment.

A solution for pulling the truck back on to the road was tie rope from the stuck truck to another pulling truck. Unfortunately there was only two short pieces of rope. But someone had the idea of using both pieces of rope and tying them together with a 4-way car wheel wrench. When this was attempted the truck on the road pulled, the rope snapped and acted like a slingshot hurling the 4-way spanner with serious force into the bumper of the stuck truck. Everyone dove to the ground when it happened, I just about shit myself. If the wrench had hit someone it would probable have killed them. In picture (a) below you can see the two pieces of rope and the 4-way wrench. After going back to Buayan, collecting longer and more robust rope, we tried the same again (without the wrench!) and managed to free the truck.

(a)                                   (b)

With all of us piled in the back of the truck, we set off back to CREATE. The conditions of the roads are horrendous, with incredibly steep slopes to tackle, boulders and loose rock drive over. Riding in the back of the tuck is a case of holding tight or you'll be flung out! Picture (b) is the only clear shot I've got from the back of the truck.

On the way back we got stuck several times at very steep slopes and muddy patches on the road. In the occasion below, we were stuck for about 2 hours, resorting to trying to pull the truck up the hill ourselves with rope.

I think one of the most memorable and talked about events during the trip happened in the last hour. We were still piled in the back of the truck, standing up and holding on for dear life. I was concentrating on holding on and moving my legs with the suspension of the truck. I heard a shout from the guys behind me to look out and I quickly looked up and saw a barbed rattan vine hanging low at head height. In the split second I moved my face away but not my head. The barbed rattan caught my eat and pulled as we drove past it. I felt the pain, but it didn't feel like it was too serious. We continued on driving for a few minutes until I felt the blood down the side of my face and then the blood was down my arm, on the top the truck roof and falling everywhere. The other guys noticed and started shouting for the truck to stop. I was given a t-shirt to put over my ear and one of the guys gave me a chewed up leaf which is considered traditional medicine to help stop the bleeding.

For the last hour I sat in the front of the truck holding my bleeding ear. From the car mirrors I was able to see the damage done and it looked pretty bad. I'll save you all a picture of what it looked like. Thankfully I still have my ear and the barb didn't rip a hole in my ear. But it did rip on the surface of the ear. I ended up in the local hospital A&E where the wound was cleaned and dressed.

I suppose it gives me a nice scar and a good story to tell!

Mega-Dams

The other day when I came back from town, I noticed that all the trainees were about to set off somewhere. I didn't really think too much of it at the time, with the language barrier, quite often there a lot of things happening and I usually have no idea what's going on. But on this occasion, one of the guys came up and asked me (in broken English) if I wanted to join them for a BBQ down the beach. Sounded pretty good to me, so I just jumped in the Tonibung mini-bus and off we went!

What I didn't realise was that I was actually going to a press-conference relating to protests against the construction of a mega-dam in Sabah. Yes there was a BBQ, and it was at the beach, but there was also the local media and spokes people supporting the movement. The kind of event EWB has warned that us to avoid!

So apparently, the Malaysian government is proposing to construct a mega-dam in the Ula Papar region of Sabah. But this mega dam wouldn't be a very "clean" source of energy. The dam would have a significant negative impact on the local environment and the indigenous people in the area. The dam would flood 12 sq kilometres where 9 indigenous communities are currently located. These indigenous communities would be uprooted and moved without consideration of their culture and environmental sustainability. 

The BBQ (The food was well cooked)

When I arrived at the BBQ, it was a fairly small group of people, close to the beach, chilling out and enjoying the food. But next thing you know, out comes the yellow t-shirts supporting the movement. English speaking people started to fill me in on the real reason for the BBQ. Rather than look the outcast, I wanted to be part of the moment and I threw on the t-shirt. The cameras came out and pictures were taken.

If it wasn't for the t-shirt I would look like a lost tourist.

Supporters against the Kaiduan Dam and me

Of course, at the time I didn't realise these photographs were going to end up in the local paper. So by the end of my first week in Borneo, I made it into the local news paper. But hey, the beach was nice and the food was good!

Local news paper cut-out. (I'm in the picture, up the back)

For some more information on Mega-Dams and their negative effect on the environment, I recommend checking out this article... Mega-Dam Article

Load Controllers, 555 Timers and Generators

Work here in Sabah has begun, As I mentioned in my first post, I've been asked to focus on the controller for a micro-hydro system. What I didn't clarify in the post is that there are typically two types of controller used in micro-hydro systems and the controller chosen depends on the electrical generator installed. 

Electronic Load Controllers (ELCs) which I spoke about in the first blog post, are used with Synchronous Generators. The main principle of the synchronous generator is that the rotational speed of the rotor in the generator is directly proportional to the frequency of electrical signal produced by the generator.

Induction Load Controllers (IGCs) are used with Induction Generators. But I'll go into more detail about these types of controller and generator in a later post.

For most of  Tonibung's micro-hydro projects they have purchased both controllers as off-the-shelf products from Renerconsys - a micro-hydro manufacturer in Indonesia. Now they are keen to progress towards developing their own ELCs and IGCs. So for my first day at work I wanted to get an idea where Tonibung were in this development process. I was presented with an ELC design a past volunteer (not EWB) had developed for a micro-hydro project. I was told that Tonibung and the volunteer had pursued the design, built it and tested it with a micro-hydro system. It turned out that the controller design didn't not work and they wanted me to look into the problem. The design can be seen below.

ELC design with 555 IC Timers

The ELC design Tonibung had used was quite interesting and wasn't what I had expected. The design converts the AC output signal from the generator to DC and then uses two 555 IC timers. The first timer is used to detect changes in generator output voltage and then the second creates a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) signal to a ballast load based on information from the first timer. Theoretically, when the user consumption load changes, the voltage on the generator will change and the controller will adjust the split between user load and ballast load. The main thing to strike me about this design is that it is regulating the load by detecting changes in voltage. This is different from typical ELCs that regulate through changes in generator output frequency.

ELCs are used with Synchronous Generators. Synchronous Generators are equipped with an Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR). The AVR provides a constant voltage output from the generator despite change in load. See where I'm going with this? When testing this ELC the Synchronous Generator was equipped with an AVR, meaning the voltage will not change. The ELC wouldn't function because there is no change in voltage from the generator. Hypothetically this ELC could work if it were to bypass the AVR and be connected directly to the generator. But there is little point in doing this because the AVR available. An ELC needs to be developed that controls the by detecting changes in frequency.

 Renerconsys supplied Electronic Load Controller

Here at the Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology (CREATE) the village trainees are spending two years learning and building skills on how micro-hydro systems are developed, operated and maintained. Once completed they will return to their village and become the micro-hydro technician. Throughout the two years, the trainees will complete several training modules that are essential for understanding micro-hydro. These modules are:

• Surveying and Feasibility
• Civil Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Electrical Engineering
• Operating and Maintaining

I  have been asked to develop the Electrical Engineering Training Module. This module will provide information on the electrical aspects of the micro-hydro system, from the electrical generator right through to the domestic wiring of circuit breakers and light sockets.

Earlier this week I observed the trainees attending an electrical wiring tutorial session. This was located in the CREATE classroom. The trainees were asked to wire together circuit breakers, light sockets and plug sockets. It was interesting to watch and beneficial to get a reminder on the wiring, Unfortunately with the language barrier I couldn't really get involved as much as I would have liked.

Electrical Training in the CREATE classroom

Village trainees practising wiring circuit breakers, lights and plug sockets

My New Home

I have arrived and completed my first week in Borneo! Travelling out here went very smoothly, no problems with connecting flights, no visa issues on arrival and my bag made it all way. Arrival at Kota Kinabalu airport was interesting as much of the terminal was in darkness due to a power cut.

CREATE - Tonibung

For the next 6 months I will be staying with the partner organisation Tonibung at the Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technologies (CREATE). CREATE has mechanical workshop and training facilities for village engineers learning about and developing micro-hydro, solar PV and biomass gasification technology. The center provides accommodation for the Tonibung employees, village trainees and volunteers like myself! Currently, there is about  10 people living in the center and the majority of which speak no English. The center lies near a small town called Dongongon just outside the state capital Kota Kinabalu. In Dongongon there is a Tonibung office where I'll working on my project.

Centre for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology

Centre for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology

The accommodation at CREATE is fairly basic. The “shower” which is no more than a tap and a bucket and the toilet requires the ‘squat and go’ technique. On the plus side, the accommodation does have wifi and there is a TV in the social/eating area. Most evenings its typical for everyone to be be watching the History channel and playing on a smart phone.

Social/Eating Area

The heat and humidity out here will take some getting used to. It’s about 34°C most days and very humid with a short down pore of rain at least once a day.

The walk into Dongongon Township takes about 15 minutes, part of which is crossing a rickety hanging bridge. The local people seem very friendly and are always intrigued when they see me walking through their town. Locals will stop to stare, some will shout “Hello! How are you?”, in cars people will slow down just to look at me while driving past. I almost feel like a celebrity. White western people are rare in the town, tourists don’t usually go this far out of Kota Kinabalu city.

Hanging bridge on the way into Dongongon Township

In the next few weeks I’ll be heading out to several of the remote villages in the Ula Papar rainforest region. I’ll be introduced to the micro-hydro schemes currently installed and investigating some generator problems.