Frank Schiavone was our BRIDGES Historian until his passing in 2008. He was a dedicated peace activist and our very favorite atheist. Frank could not understand the need for threat of punishment (hell) or promise of reward (heaven) was needed as a motivating factor to prompt “right” action. We loved his stories and we encouraged him to repeat them so we could remember. He served three years in federal prison as a conscientious objector to war and found it ironic that he served with murderers when his crime was refusing to kill. He poses here with our Advisory Board Member, Jennifer Hale.
“Let Peace Fly” was painted by Ana Tierra to celebrate Frank’s birthday and all of his life. It tells the story of his growing up in new York with a family of Italian immigrants. It shows him as little boy with his father’s push-cart. We see him in prison as a CO. The wildlife around him is of Florida, where he resided for many years until his passing. As the boy becomes a man, we see that he has Ghandi in his head. Frank loved to work with youth at Peace Camps and was our favorite Italian cook, famous for his baked ziti. He liked to teach birdhouse construction to the campers. We see him dressed as Santa Claus, hitting the malls at Christmas-time with a sign saying “Don’t Buy War Toys!” The explosion in the painting represents the destruction of war. He went on a peace march in Russia and visited the massacre site of Baba Yahr. Every time he told us that story, he cried. Finally, we see the whole of his life encased in a Peace Dove. The inscription on the painting says, “For you who could not believe in the Creator, but the Creator believes in You.”
What an amazing experience! We achieved our stated purpose of giving hope, opportunity to grow, and pockets full of good memories to young people who live life in the midst of war. Jaque, Darien, Panama is the last town on the border of Jurado, Colombia, site of numerous massacres that prompted mass exodus over the “imaginary” line.
Hosting camp on warring borders is a challenge indeed. We were constrained by inflexible regulations and security concerns. We were unable to take the group outside the town because many of the Colombian refugees do not have their official papers that entitle them to move around somewhat more freely.
Bridges Across Borders’ U.S.A. Director, Carol Mosley, and Ana Maria Vasquez, Darien Projects Coordinator, facilitated the gathering. We were accompanied by Compañero, Kenneth “Kenito” Weeks, who photographed and served in numerous other ways. We also found a new friend in Stephen Hodges, Botanist, who we first met at Miami International Airport and diverted for a few days on his way to Costa Rica. He led a workshop on Botany and befriended the communities of Jaque and Biro Quera, the Waunan village up the river from Jaque. Jaque itself is an Afro/Embera/Waunaan community. We were distressed to find that, in addition to the usual military base at Jaque, a base has been located within the indigenous community of Biro Quera and we were horrified to learn that landmines have now been planted in the mountains there. 
As “Divine Synchronicity” would have it on this trip, the Human Rights attorneys from Panama City were on their way to interview refugees in Jaque, who had recently been informed that they must return to Colombia or be repatriated. The lawyers did a workshop on Panamanian Constitution and Derechos Humanos (Human Rights). They then headed for a gathering of Indigenous leaders in Yaviza, another endangered border town.
We arrived to an already planned talent show as a kick off of the Youth Gathering. What fun. And what talent! As a pre-gathering activity, Rosie Yablonsky conducted an extensive workshop on videography, to be an ongoing part of documentary reporting of life on the border. The video camera has already proven to be a very important tool there.
Using conflict resolution materials and mediation techniques, the students learned tools for effective communication. We also did workshops on Healthy Relationships and recognizing “What is Abuse?” We had some very lively discussion on women’s rights and male machismo. We examined the benefits of cooperation rather than competition, and of seeking win-win rather than win-lose outcomes. And we played cooperative games, where the winning is in the collaboration that results in the achievement of the collective goal. 
We discussed endangered species and extinction, and examined the human responsibility to ensure preservation. One of our ongoing projects is Sea Turtle Preservation, and in fact three new turtle nests were buried while we were there. We talked about how mobile phones endanger the Mountain Gorillas in Africa and how our choices have an overall effect on everything else. We heard of one of our group witnessing his father shoot a Harpy Eagle, just because it was such an incredible find.
We visited an organic farm (most farming is organic, but the push to modernize with pesticides is strongly growing) and we talked about DDT and dioxin in the environment. With no means of disposal, plastic is frequently burned, releasing toxins into the air. The “jovenes” (youth) made posters expressing what they learned.
The youth wrote letters to our friends at the Lasky school in Cambodia. They were concerned how we would manage to get their letters translated from Spanish into Khmer. They are also anxious to connect with students in the U.S., so invite us to your school or youth group to make the connection for a cultural interchange.
A goal of the gathering was to develop appreciation for the wisdom and skills of the town’s elders. Each morning before school, five 
dedicated young men learned to make drums from Don Pininin Domingo, the drum maker and wood crafter. They cut their balsa logs and, using machetes, hollowed them out. They attached the skins of the wild jungle pigs, used as food in the indigenous communities. They will continue with Pininin so that they will be expert enough to teach others. Don Pininin was beaming as he shared with us his joy to finally have apprentices to carry on. The next session will include some interested young ladies who also want to preserve the knowledge for future generations. (We have a few of the drums for sale to help support our projects in Darien.)
Each evening we shared a meal together and shared expressions of our lives in a sacred circle. We talked about how the circle has no beginning nor end, lack of heirarchical structure and that all perspectives are equally valid, how we can see each one’s face, and how the energy can travel around it. We explained that only the person in the center with the “talking stick” should speak and all others are listeners and how the particulars expressed there should not leave the group. Trust does not come easy on warring borders, where rumor of sympathy or displeasure with one group of armed actors or another could get your name on someone’s “list.” 
A common concern of the youth of Jaque is that there is no school from grades 9-12. Those who can, send their children to Panama City, hopefully to stay with a friend or family member. Or the family leaves Jaque and moves to a poor section of the big city. Most, especially those who are Colombian refugees, find themselves without option for continuing school. Some refugees have lost years of schooling already because of the conflicts in their home country. No matter which way it goes, this is a loss of great potential creativity for the Darien region being lost for lack of opportunity. This is a critical issue, and we are now investigating possibilities for addressing this problem. We believe a certified private (international?) school with a charter focus on (especially Rainforest) Ecology, Peace Studies, and Language Arts may be the way
. These themes can be the framework for all other studies of Science, Math, Economics, Sociology, Ethics, Arts and Music…
The inter-generational nature of our projects is so crucial. In addition to the new relationship between our Jovenes and Don Pininin, we had a visit from Eusebia to tell us about Jaque Unidos, the cooperative that was formed when she was a young woman in the town. They were in their teens and twenties, and they worked together to get the clinic built and to see to the needs of their elders. The youth were inspired to know that such collaboration had once gone on in their town. It was a testament to the power of human creativity. While on this trip we have come to identify twenty seniors (and about an equal number of children) who are in severe lack of essential nutrients, to say nothing about other physical needs. We share the dream of nurse Maritza Gonzalez of eventually building a House for Elders where those in most need would get care in their end time. For now, we hope to find senior to senior sponsorship for a “meals on heels” home delivery of a nutritious meal five days a week. Thanks to the generosity of our Historian Frank Schiavone, we now have 22 elders in the program.
We intend to initiate a community service program where our youth can earn rewards for exhibiting their leadership qualities in bettering their community. This will serve to enhance the sharing of intergenerational knowledge. For example, our elders can visit the preschools and our youth can serve the meals on heels.
At the end of the Gathering we issued certificates and T-shirts to the youth participants. They must wash them each night to wear again the next day, because we would see them walking in newly bonded friendship groups, proud of their leadership development. They pleaded to do it again (but not wait a whole year). In the future we would like to bring a few youth from other countries to share in cultural exchanges, but that is only a whisper of a thought being thrown to the wind at this time. We will see what wants to manifest itself for the future.
The need for connecting youth in an international realm was in honor of Angela “Kiki” Meslans, who wanted to go to the Middle East to work with Palestinian and Israeli women working together for peace. We know it is “people to people” that our concepts of an enemy can be shattered.
We are grateful to the Wallack Foundation, Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice, and the individuals whose funding made this event possible.
COLOMBIAN REPATRIATION REPORT:
Jaque, Darien, Panama
Dec. 9?12
Our delegation arrived in Jaque on Tuesday, Dec. 9. We consisted of the following groups (about 15 people total): from Panama?Center for the Research and Promotion of Human Rights (CIPDH), Center for Popular Legal Assistance (CEALP), Vicariate of the Darien (Catholic Church), Justicia y Paz (Catholic Church); from Colombia?Project counseling Service, Norwegian Refugee Project Colombia office. There were 4 from the US including Roberto de Roock and myself from Tucson. The other two were members of Bridges Across Borders from Florida who have projects in Jaque such as preschools and youth camps. Immediately after our arrival in Jaque we began interviewing folks who were scheduled to leave for Colombia in two days to verify if they really wanted to go or not. What we found was that almost all who were on the final list did want to go back??this was a huge relief as I feared a much worse situation when I got off the plane that day.
On Nov. 28 Panama’s ambassador, Roberto Alfaro, had responded to Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and 14 other members of Congress who had written the president of Panama to express concern over the treatment of refugees. Alfaro stated, " We cannot accept as refugees, illegals, terrorists, drug dealers, arms smugglers, and paramilitary which constitutes the majority of border violators."
When I was in Jaque last July Panamanian authorities had forced most of the refugees to sign voluntary deportation forms using threats and intimidation. About 220 people ( half children and adolescents) were to be sent back. They were told if they didn’t sign they would fall into the hands of immigration authorities who would deport them without any of their belongings. To avoid another public relations disaster like the one that occurred last April when 109 refugees were deported by force, the Panamanian government allowed the United Nations High Commission on Refugees to observe this repatriation and agreed to other important measures. First a group of six refugees were actually taken to Jurado, their former home in Colombia, where they could see first hand the situation there. When they returned to Jaque they had a closed meeting with other refugees to describe what they had experienced. Then just days before the scheduled repatriation, all the refugees on the list were given the chance to state again whether they truly wanted to return or not. The list dropped from 220 to 80 after that new census was taken.
So on December 11 the 80 Colombian adults and children did voluntarily return. There were also six Panamanian citizens who went due to family connections such as being married to Colombians. One Colombian woman who was being deported to Colombia against her will was taken off the list after members of our delegation met with the joint Panamanian?Colombian government commission which conducted the repatriation. A plane load of journalists was flown in to cover the repatriation. Overall things went fairly well. The refugees were taken back to Colombia on a huge ship.
While this repatriation was voluntary, it is important to note that all the refugees complain of how hard living in
Panama is for them. They are under constant strain. Very few have been granted refugee status. They cannot leave Jaque. They are often not allowed to farm or fish. They have to report regularly to the police, some as often as three times a day. For many who returned the difficult situation in Panama was the primary reason.
The refugees are returning to a Colombia still in a state of war. The Colombian government said they could only guarantee safe conditions in town and a couple of kilometers beyond. One of the two high schools in Jurado is used as a military base. There is very limited health care available with only one doctor in the clinic and little medicine. The returned refugees will only receive food assistance for three months.
The head of the UNHCR delegation in Panama, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa (son of the famous Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa) eloquently stated at the press briefing, "The people who are going back to Colombia today all have hopes and dreams for the future. The refugees staying behind also have hopes and dreams. We can’t forget them. Their situation in Panama is very difficult. Hopefully things will improve for them here."
We had close friends among the ones who went back to Colombia including our next door neighbors in Jaque, Casimiro Mena and his wife plus their daughter and three year old son Ariel who was our two year old daughter’s favorite playmate this past summer. No one was allowed to take any animals so they had to leave behind their two dogs and cat. The poor cat wailed all night like a baby and it was hard for us to sleep. The two dogs didn’t budge from the abandoned house for days. To our relief other friends said they would feed them.
On our final day in Jaque our whole group planned to travel upriver to visit an indigenous community where we have traveled many times to visit friends and buy crafts. For whatever reason the police refused to let us go this time, perhaps because the river is so heavily militarized and we had a journalist traveling with us.
Part II of Panama Journal
Since returning to Panama City I have been reviewing news coverage of the repatriation from Jaque. One paper carried an article about Amnesty International calling the repatriation on Dec. 11 "totally unacceptable" since the refugees were being sent back to a dangerous area where it is very likely they will suffer human rights abuses. Another disturbing article quoted the Director of Immigration in Panama saying the repatriation was a great success and that 600 more refugees will be repatriated in February from Puerto Obaldia and Central Darien. This is a very real possibility and these repatriations could be far less voluntary. Overall the Panamanian government has enjoyed good publicity from this repatriation so this may build momentum to clear out the remaining Colombians. It is unclear what will happen to the remaining 200 plus refugees in Jaque??the authorities may make life even harder on them with the hope that the rest will also decide to leave. If they are denied refugee status (which would give them greater protection against deportation) their future in Panama will be extremely precarious. But perhaps the most vulnerable refugee populations now are the ones which reside in more remote areas in Puerto Obaldia and Central Darien. Repatriations are scheduled for early next year from these areas.
Dec. 13?15 Central Darien
On Saturday Dec. 13 our delegation left the coastal town of Jaque and we flew into the heart of the Darien Gap region to the town of Real. This is one of the most remote areas in Central America. Real is about in the middle of the Darien Gap between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Real is about an hour down river from Yaviza which is the end of the Pan?American Highway. The highway has never been completed to Colombia so a seventy mile gap remains. We traveled to Yaviza that afternoon by boat to have a meeting with refugees who have been living there for seven years. There is a lot of support in Yaviza for Colombian refugees. A banner hanging on the front of the Catholic Church states "Let the Refugees Live in Peace." The banner was put up after 109 Afro?Colombian refugees were deported in April from the upriver settlement of Punusa. Punusa
has been entirely wiped off the map as the houses were burned. Many of the refugees in Yaviza and Central Darien in general are from the Cacarica River area in Colombia which is racked by violence and largely controlled by brutal paramilitary forces. There is also the peace community of Cacarica which has a humanitarian fence around it to keep all armed groups out and has constant accompaniment of Colombian and international NGOs. All of the refugees who were deported from Panama in April are now living in the Cacarica peace community.
The story of the refugees in Yaviza (and all other areas we were in) were very similar. They had been threatened with deportation if they didn’t agree to leave "voluntarily." The mayor of Yaviza was very outspoken in favor of the refugees being allowed to stay. The UNHCR is supposed to open an office in Yaviza soon as well as ONPAR, the Panamanian refugee agency which has a history of abuses against refugees (the new ONPAR director seems far better than the notorious old one). There are over 60 refugees living in Yaviza. After our meeting we returned to Real for the night and rest up for the last and most ambitious day of the trip??a three hour canoe trip up the Tuira River into the most conflictive part of Panama.
We left at the crack of dawn in two motorized canoes and were accompanied by a Salesian nun from Real who had also gone with us to Jaque. We were unsure of how far we would be permitted to go. The day before the police chief (note??Panama has no army but all the police dress like soldiers and carry automatic rifles) in Yaviza had told the Panamanians they were most concerned about the two US citizens (Roberto and myself) in the group. It was obvious he was referring to the incident last January where two US backpackers and a European journalist were kidnaped by Colombian paramilitary forces in Panama just upriver from where we planned to go. They were released unharmed after 11 days of captivity but the same paramilitaries assassinated four Kuna indigenous leaders in the village of Paya after accusing them of collaborating with the FARC (Colombian guerrillas). The FARC moves in and out of the Darien for whatever reason??they have even been sighted close to Jaque. This has led to a very precarious existence for the residents of Darien. People are accused of collaborating with the guerilla such as selling food to them and then risk the wrath of the paramilitaries or Panamanian police. The region is heavily militarized as a result of this and residents seem to complain most about heavy?handed police tactics which restrict their daily lives in many ways.
Our first stop was in Boca de Cupe, the last significant village (over 1,000 pop. with about 160 refugees) before reaching the Colombian border several hours upriver. The situation there was somewhat in crisis. About six Embera indigenous including a child had just been taken away by a police helicopter the day before. It was unclear what they were charged with though I later overheard a police telling the local priest that they had no documents to which he responded that no Embera have documents. In Boca de Cupe we met in the Catholic Church with a large group of refugees. As in every place we visited, our Panamanian counterparts described in detail what had just happened in Jaque and they gave out posters for them to put up on their houses which list rights they are entitled to and should demand as refugees. Manuel Acevedo of the Darien Vicariate of the Catholic Church stated, "Jaque was a first step where the voice of the refugee was felt. Here there shouldn’t be second or third class people. We are all equal. Should Panamanians and tourists be the only ones who can freely move about? You (the refugees) didn’t chose to abandon your homes and enter Panama as a pleasure trip. Some have come here with only the clothes they were wearing. Refugees shouldn’t be punished for coming here and made to feel like they’re in prison."
The Catholic nun based in Boca de Cupe spoke very strongly. "We have seen people taken away and we don’t know anything about what happens to them. We have known of cases of torture. Here there is no rule of law. It is a police state in this area. Civil authority doesn’t exist. Just the other day police were firing their weapons off right in front of the church. The Vicariate is being harassed by authorities for having denounced these things."
One Afro?Colombian man in the crowd (the refugees in Central Darien are a mixture of Afro?Colombian, mestizo, and indigenous unlike Jaque where they are almost all Afro?Colombian) mentioned he had just fled Colombia within the past year and that he was from the village of Rio Sucio. I asked him if the knew Marino Cordoba, an Afro?Colombian leader from Rio Sucio who is a friend of ours and who is living in Washington, DC after receiving political asylum. Incredibly he said he was related to him and had even had a dream about him the night before.
We received permission from the police to continue upriver (the day before nobody was allowed to go upriver) to the small community of Tolocua which has about six Colombian refugee families and an agricultural project supported by the Catholic church. It was from Tolocua that four refugee families had left the day before after hearing that they were to be sent back to Colombia on Dec. 14, the same day we were there. These types of rumors are rampant throughout the Darien especially after the awful events of April.
On our way back to Real we made one last stop to meet with refugees living in the village of Yape. We made it back to Real at dusk after traveling for a couple of hours in a cold hard rain.
So that is how our days in Panama played out. At least another major atrocity was prevented in Jaque but that doesn’t mean the future is brighter for the hundreds of refugees remaining in Panama. The future for the people who just returned to Colombia is also very uncertain. What is clear is that people shouldn’t be made to suffer as refugees so they will feel compelled to return to a war zone. While some Panamanian authorities say that no refugees will face deportation for the time being and that their status will be reviewed on a case by case basis, other authorities such as the Director of Immigration continue to speak of imminent repatriations. Hundreds of Colombian refugees in Panama have no documented status and are certainly the most vulnerable of all.
The new year will certainly bring new challenges and difficulties for the refugees. The question of whether the Jaque repatriation represents hope for the future or more suffering ahead will be answered soon.
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Maya Luna
Mexican Farmer and Child
Resurrecting Earth
Chico Mendes
Amor Pareja Totumo
Beluthahatchee Stetson
Earth Weaver
Let Peace Fly
La Playa de Choco
Let the Sun In
Living Ark
Musica, la Musca
Pacha Mama
Seeking Refuge
Spanish Dancer
Tree of Life
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Turtle
Turtle Mother
Virgin de Guadalupe
Weaver of Life
Chrysalis
The Lovers
Jungle Christ
Border Christ
Lady of Our Borders
Hacia un Mundo Posible
American Woman
Jungle
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Bridges Across Borders
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Recycled Paper Cards (6 pack)
Waunaan Basket
These baskets are one-of-a-kind, made by the artisans of the Waunaan community in Viro Quera, Panama.
Waunaan Basket
These baskets are one-of-a-kind, made by the artisans of the Waunaan community in Viro Quera, PanamaItem
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Adopt a Turtle Nest! Adopt a Sea Turtle Nest in Jaque, Darien, Panama. You will receive an Adoptive Turtle Parent certificate and a tagua (vegetable ivory) carved turtle
Adopt our ‘Meals on Heels’ Program
Help us feed our elders in Jaque. Adopt our Meals on Heels program for one month, six months, one year, or longer!
Item
DescriptionViva La Mujer T-Shirt (Mens)
This shirt features Rosita the Re-vetter, painted by Ana Tierra
Viva La Mujer Shirt (Womens)
This shirt features Rosita the Re-vetter, painted by Ana Tierra
Pacifist Bumper Sticker
Don’t be a passive acitivist; Be an active pacifist
Bumper Sticker
Another sticker
Basic methods for Jaque sequential batch anaerobic digester
By Douglas Renk
This unit is designed to hold shredded organic wastes. We used leaves, grass clippings and about 10-15 percent pig manure from the nearby farm.
Starting up a batch
Use the bags we made from fish netting to line the tanks. The bags are intended for easy containment and hoisting of the spent compost at the end of the 4 week cycle.. There were 4 bags stitched together when I was there. Some really nice netting vanished from the store room at fe y Alegria when I was there- sorry I don’t have more there. (looks like it would make some nice hammocks) I could maybe send Ana Maria with some more fabric from the US if the bags are beyond repair. The bags are not absolutely necessary- they were made (we intended) to assist in handling the material.
Julio and I built an A frame structure over the tanks and I sent some pulleys from Panama City to use to hoist the heavy bags out. I don’t know if the pulleys were ever installed to the heavy wood frame made from large post beams.
We loaded the material- leaves, grass, manure and sometimes sawdust or wood chips from the furniture shop in layers. Put a few cups of wood ash in the layers. You may be surprised how much material it takes to fill the 100 gallon tank. Tie off the top and fill the tank about ¾ full of water- no more as the water can expand when ”carbonated: in the first (acetogenid) stage. We discovered this to be a problem when we filled too full with water and the liquid was coming through the top gas valve when we opened it- (not good). Surprise!
The first batch is the most difficult because there is an acidic first stage that can destroy a bacteria culture if not corrected in time. IT will actually ferment or “pickle” If you have a pH meter it would be very useful. I can send some pH strips with Ana Maria. We left some pH test kits with the system last year with indicator drops for solutions.
With subsequent batches, you may recycle the leachate from the first stable batch to both inoculate the material with the culture you have established and to neutralize the pH. I will see if I can find a bilge type pump to send for this recycling. The rotary pump we used last year was very hard to turn. See pictures.
The best local source of material to buffer these acids (caused from what is known as the acetogenic bacteria) is wood ashes. We went to various folks who cook with fire and asked to keep them dry for us. Test the ph of the ashes ( a little in solution)- I think it is very high-depending on concentration.
Last year we added about two pounds of wood ashes at start-up. We allowed the grass to dry out before loading into the tank. It packs better and water in the material does not produce gas. There might be some baking soda left over from last year also- but he ashes work fine and are “free”. Check the pH once or twice a day for this first and most critical batch. If more ash is needed we found the only easy way to introduce the ash to the digester was to take the lid off and pour ir on top- followed by water recirculation from bottom to top.
To do a pH test all you need to do is draw a little water from a ball valve. Often we would find different pH values at he top and the bottom. We would try to recirculate the liquid from the bottom to the top to get the leachate to dissolve the ash.
Making a slurry of inoculum
Julio and I collected some organic samples from areas likely to contain microbes decomposing in the absence of air. We went to a ditch at the end of a muddy swale along he road near the elementary school. There we extracted a few shovelfuls of mud from below the water level. We dug to the bottom of the pig manure pile and also the bottom of the compost heap at fe y Alegria, taking a couple of scoops from each area and mixing them together in a five gallon bucket and covering with water. I think this was helpful for the quick results we obtained, but some sources I’ve read say that this inoculation step is not critical, that anaerobic bacterium is ubiquitous in organic wastes.
This process is only needed for the very initial batch due to the ability to introduce liquid from one tank to another by way of the upper and lower ball valves with hose connections. See pictures.
Sealing the lids
This proved to be the most difficult part of the project. If the tanks are not leak-tight, then no gas will be collected and oxygen will get into the tank.
We used a borrowed bicycle pump and a short piece of the clear gas line tubing as a coupler over the tire pump end and into the top gas valve to pump air under pressure to test for air escaping. After pumping, we would lightly pour water from the hose over the lid and look for tiny air bubbles.. This method worked. Here in the US we use a pressure gauge plumbed into one of the PVC ball valves and watch the gauge needle to see if it remains absolutely constant at 5-10 psi. I don’t think this system can handle pressure much any higher than that. When we used the tire pump, I think we went a little beyond 10-15 PSI-
The tanks were built to be water cisterns, not pressure tanks, but they still worked quite well with some creative sealing. The lids are about a little larger than 20 inches. We used strips of rubber from 20 inch bicycle inner tubes to use as large o-ring sealing gaskets. I sent several down from PC to Julio on my last shipment before I left for the US. I also sent some Perma-Tex and axle grease. I really hope this is all there still.
The pieces of inner tubes were cut about 2 inches wide and length-wise to get. I think, two o-rings out of each inner tube. There was a store in Jaque that did have some more inner tubes when we were there. The o-rings stretched nicely around the top of the tank. We pushed some plastic shopping bags under the edge of the rubber seal on the tank side to puff up the rubber to make a nice thick rubber cushion. I hope there is at least one of these still set up like that for you to see how we rigged it. The permatex was sent to make a good seal around the rubber gaskets at all of the valves. Use it thick there if you need it. You will see three valves on each tank: two plastic PVC ball valves to drain, fill and recirculate leachate liquid plus one metal ball valve for the gas flow. See picture.
The axle grease is used to seal the treads of the lid. Simply apply a thick layer of grease to the threads.
Heating the reactors
Our crude local technology method to heat was to use composting grass as a blanket around the tanks. It seemed to work well. This can be experimented with and refined if necessary. This material should be maintained to the height of the second valve. See picture. Ideal temperature is about 35-38C, the same as our body temperature. The grass keeps the tanks warm at night. See photos.
Gas Collection
We used a series of inner tubes. Ideally we wanted four tubes for each tank, but at $20.00 per tube, we were short a few. I sent more tubes to Jaque again on the last shipment. I think there would be a total of 8 large inner tubes. When we set up the tanks, we linked all of the gas tubes together with the small clear tubing.
As new tank batches were started, we kept one particular tube for a newly started batch separate until we knew for certain that the gas had produced the proper percentage of methane to hold a lit flame. To test for methane content, we simply tested by seeing if the gas would light. Once the gas in the tube would burn, then that tube can be linked in with the othe
r full tubes.
Data that is useful for students to record
Total weight of solids before and after
Amount of wood ash used to neutralize solution.
Cubic feet or liters of gas produced. May need to estimate volume of the tires.
Note the day after start-up on which the gas began to maintain a flame. It should hold a flame after three to four days, but don’t be surprised if it takes almost a week for the first batch. Gas that doesn’t burn may be high in CO2. Check pH, it should be neutral.
We would like to thank our amazing performers for volunteering their time and talent to BRIDGES and Viva La Mujer
Kathy Sohar has been in the local Gainesville bands Commander Foxy Pants, Bound, and The Other Gods.
Cathy DeW: Brought up in a family with a jazz pianist/trumpeter for a dad and a classical piano prodigy for a brother, Cathy’s constant lifelong companion has been music–from church choirs to rhythm & blues bands to coffeehouse folk to jazz groups–but the most important role of music right now is her work with Shands Arts in Medicine, where she shares her eclectic talents in the hospital setting.
John Alvarez, a native of Miami, FL, has been working with Bridges Across Borders (BAB) since it’s initial founding in 2003. He has served in several areas of the organization, starting off as a Student Intern, to his most recent positions as a Technology Consultant and Advisory Board Member. He was also the Layout and Design Editior for the premiere edition of Between the Lines, BAB’s newsmagazine.
John works for Miami Dade College as the Instructional Assistant of The Law Center, where he provides academic advisement and counseling support services to students from all over Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
