Gabon Summer '15

Any further questions about the design can be answered through a direct tumblr message! 

Maya filtrating and filling water bottles with fresh drinking water from collected rain water. 

Working on a small scale electric fence made out of bamboo fence. The purpose of this demonstration was encourage the people of Massenguelani to build a larger scale one around their plantations. Currently there is human-animal conflict that results in a loss of crops and the killing of local species that invade the plantations. 

Sunset in Massenguelani, Gabon 6:24pm 

In addition on physically working on our projects, we needed an illustration team to instruct how to build and put together these designs. The instructions were beautifully illustrated (obviously, what do you expect from art students?) and the text was translated in French by Katie and Kira. Victoria, Mana, and Juli (not shown) were the main illustrators. 

4th: Kira and Carly

Older boys in the village play cards in the early afternoon while drinking water and eating white rice. Their confused faces may have been a result of a communication error or it might have been the first time they had been photographed by an iPhone. 

Three young boys in the village pose for a picture. The central figure holds up “peace signs” influenced by the American rapper posters plastered on several homes. Although not visible in the picture, they were making sling shots. 

The second’s chief’s wife with a machete in hand after sewing the ground in one of the nearby plantations. She is accompanied by young Cherise in her lilac floral dress with a hola hoop one of the students (Maggie) let her borrow, and an other girl in a bathing suit and jeans sweeping the orange clay ground as a form of recreation.   

Kira (left) and Jack (right) working on the one of the plantations owned by the village of Massenguelani. They are planting corn kernels with machetes.

ft. Jane, Maya, Carly, Maggie, Taylor

These four children come up the hill with a dead cobra with its head cut off to show all of us. These boys insisted on posing like “rappers from the U.S.” Blood was still coming out where the head was severed, and they told us that they were going to eat it later for dinner. Some of the students had the opportunity to touch and hold it. 

May 16, 2015 

6th photo from left to right: Maya, Kira (Cherise on lap), Jane (JoJo on lap), (forgot her name), Maggie

Stamps school students in collaboration with the Refresh Project worked ten days in the village working on several projects. We built two cookstoves from a group-designed brick-press, an electric fence demonstration from bamboo and a car battery, bee boxes (man-made hives) from found wood, and hand-washing stations from local resources. We also explained that car batteries could be charged using their solar panels and suggested that there could be potential for an inter-village business distributing such batteries. Some of the students also taught some English to the children in the village. 

photo creds: Victoria Zakrzewski