Wessel Badenhorst's Blog (9)

January the first came by me once again, but this year the party is different. I'm still overlooking the parade. My friends are drinking the same cocktails. If it weren't for the excitement, the parade below would seem stale. But this year everything seemed fresh and new. The town counsel spend months digging up every tar road for miles, and replacing them with strange slabs. At midnight the electricity was turned off. The band began to play. The march started and in an instant the wh*** town… Continue

Every day I get up at 5:40 and my brother and I hit the gym for a workout. We decided to save the money we would spend every month working out in a regular gym, and bit by bit build up our own home gym.



During the last 2 years our local power company ESKOM (from South Africa) raised their tariffs significantly, and plan on doing so every year for the next 4 years. This made alternative energy production instantly viably.



All our pulley systems, rowing machine, treadmill,… Continue

A young man from Malawi spent some time reading about windmills, the knowledge that he gained from this process lead to the adventure of a lifetime, but more importantly, it lead to a revolution for the people around him. Having light at night is something we take for granted so easily. I realized from this story that with a little imagination and the drive to make it happen, nothing is impossible.



William Kamkwamba show us that you do not need a deep understanding of the elements of a… Continue

In the spirit of the game I'm building a small tunnel to grow most of my vegetables in a very small space using tiered grow boxes and a solar panel to power the pumps and circulate the air. If this projects works, and once I have perfected the system, I will have a grow system that can be duplicated in any terrain on earth (or maybe not even only on earth) The system is self sustaining and a such do not need expensive infrastructure to be rolled out into the world's most rural locations.

Food tastes a lot cleaner these days. I remember a time when tomatoes still had earth on them. The food crises hit the wh*** world at once, even the powerful nations had to beg for food. a single cherry costing more than an ounce of gold. Those were strange times.



I take another bite, I miss the taste of the earth. Peas are still green, pumpkin still torment children across the globe, although the kids seem to eat anything these days. I guess once you had to go hungry, really hungry,… Continue

Not far from my home, hugging the N2 highway, there is a ever growing informal settlement. The people in the area do not have food, or work. They lack in almost every one of Maslow's basic needs. There are farms in the area, small holdings designated to local farmers, but these farms have not produces a single crop for the benefit of the community, and some of the farmers have taken to growing marijuana.



There are a number of groups that bring food into the area, focusing mainly on… Continue

In 2020 I will still be living in Africa, but the Africa I will be living in will be on the verge of emerging as a world leader in supplying food to all the nations on earth. I look around me and the people are happy, smiling, one again living in tribal communities. Children are taught what it means to be African, on the knees of their fathers. But my Africa has not regressed. Our buildings are green and blend into the landscape, but inside the picture has changed, we are infinitely connected,… Continue

I Subscribed to the website http://www.afrigadget.com/ ; The idea of people using scrap metal to build a working helicopter and robot, are some of the things that gets me exited, it feels like living in the era of da Vinci. When great projects like these come from people's back yards, I feel home flare within me. If we can change the way people interact with their environment, and help them to see the endless possibilities that they live in, we can… Continue

Do the hard work needed to find a simple solution.



Living in a developing country teaches you a number of lessons, the first of these is that out there, complex gadgets do not last. Mobile phones will fall from the top of a building if you have them on a construction site, or hit the water if you coach children to swim. Our country is a hard place, and we the people are hardy. The red dust flow thick through our veins. Complicated solutions often need to be… Continue