OK, it's 15 days until our small team leaves for Cameroon to do some product testing! We are really excited and the last minute tasks just keep adding up. Add this onto the normal overload that occurs at the end of the semester, plus the fact that it is the holidays, and you can only imagine how "fun" it is to try to get anything done right now. But, the good news is that the team has been hard at work for three months now and the prototypes have been assembled and troubleshooting was minimal. The bags are getting packed, lists of what to bring are getting made and we are about ready to go.
We hope to post something while we are gone but we may not have access to internet. We'll be staying at the home of Dr. Morfaw, in the village of Mveh. This is near Menji, which I can't find on any map that I have found. However, the area is "findable" on Google. Type in Fontem, Cameroon. It is right on the P19 "highway". If you draw a triangle by starting north of Fontem at Atebong and go down to Elumba, then over to Mbo and back up to Atebong, that'll give you an idea of where we are going to be. No paved roads in sight!
We'll be working in the fields with farmers, harvesting cassava root. We'll then use our prototypes to get the goods to some of the local markets – on foot. We'll also be meeting with some of the local blacksmiths and metalworkers in the area to show them our proof of concept prototypes and get their idea of how they would make them in their shops. We hope to be able to visit local markets and also see some of the traditional cultural events that still take place in this remote region of Africa. We'll have a local NGO representative with us all the time, along with our cultural emissary, Nkemnkong (aka Dr. Steve Wilcox of Design Science in Philadelphia).
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