Appropriate technology.

I've been reading an interesting book ('Different Drums') written I think about 1985, by Dr Michael Wood, the then director of AMREF ... or what we used to call the Flying Doctor service !

It may be out of date, but so much of what he writes seems to be true for today in Africa.   In one chapter he is talking about foreign aid ... and how inappropriate so much of it is.   What use is a heart/lung machine donated to a hospital ... with no electricity ?  Why give people a fishing boat which needs petrol they can't afford - or have access to - to run it, when for centuries they have used, quite successfully, their dug-out canoes ?   How can workshops function with the power tools I have seen my son-in-law use, when they have no electricity or training to use them safely ?

So it was good to see on the film/pictures the previous Kisumu team brought back, that tools used on the site ARE appropriate to the job.  No cement mixers, no fancy electric tools, just old fashioned well sharpened saws, planes, shovels and wheel-barrows !   It was good to see the old fashioned plumb bob ... a weight on the end of a piece of string ... in use, and also the hosepipe of water used as a level.   Simple, accessible and accurate.