Awesome day in King’ori! Where to start? We’d like to introduce you to two awesome individuals we met in the beautiful village of King’ori: John and Julia.
John, a local of King'ori, has built his own house lighting system by taking apart flashlights and has succeeded in completely eliminating kerosene from his life.
We entered John’s house expecting to ask him our quick survey questions and be on our way to our next survey subject, but after asking him the question “how much do you spend on kerosene per week?” and having his response be “nothing,” I knew he would not just be another data point on our village surveys.
John has completely eliminated kerosene from his life by building his own
Small LEDs taken from flashlights now light John's home at night.
household lighting system by taking out the LED guts of flashlights and wiring them up to 4 D batteries and a switch. He has mounted one LED ring on the ceiling in each of the three small rooms in his house and only has to change the batteries every 4 months. It was a truly impressive home-built lighting system and even more rewarding to see John’s excitement in showing it to us. He explained his plans to improve the system, which he had built 6 months ago, by switching to a car battery and brighter lights, and adding a switch to each room so he could individually control each light. John has succeeded in cleanly lighting his home at night and eliminating expensive kerosene from his life, and from an engineering perspective, I was thoroughly humbled by his self-built home lighting system.
Julia, Godlisten's daughter, shows us her nightly routine of studying by kerosene lantern for two hours every night.
After dark, we returned to Godlisten’s house to pay another visit. This time, we wanted to see how his family and children used kerosene at night, after hearing them talk about it earlier. Julia, his young teenage daughter, who is a student in secondary school, eagerly showed us how she used kerosene to study. She always sits at the table in their entry room and reads her history, English, and biology notes from her hand-made notebooks. She showed us where her siblings and neighbors sit with her every night, and explained that it was more difficult to study by their family’s flashlight because the light was too directed to illuminate her entire notebook. Julia is the perfect example of our goal to make our lights bright enough to read by, disperse enough for multiple people to share it at once, and affordable enough so families like Godlisten’s can light their homes without depending on kerosene.
3 Comments
How neat! I just bought two LED flashlights last month and was surprised by what a bright, white light they produced. These flashlights are powered by AAA batteries. At work two women have sponsored a “battery recycling box” where we can bring all our small dead batteries (like for watches, AA’s, AAA’s, etc.) So now I am not tempted to just toss them in the trash as I normally would have. Where does this inventor buy his batteries?
Hey Lesley! Wow, I can’t believe you’re in Tanzania! That’s awesome. I liked reading about John– it’s so amazing that he was able to create something like that with his limited resources. Sometimes I wonder if people like John (able to innovate even in their circumstances), had they been born in a place like America, could have been the next Einstein. Then again, he’s probably where he’s meant to be
Love ya and best of luck!
<3 Desta
Dear Leslie,
I had been following your blogs from your last visit to Tanzania, and look forward to reading about your current visit. I work for your grandmother’s dentist and she keeps us informed about your adventures.
I just wanted you to know how impressed we all are here at Dr. Bleeker’s office, and we truly admired your willingness to change the quality of life for some many people less fortunate than those here in the U.S.
I will keep you in my prayers,
Deborah