When I set off on my walkabout, I intended to observe. I had a social scientist / anthropologist mindset. I would study what I encountered. What was Mandela’s Legacy? What I encountered engaged me. I got pissed off when I was pick pocketed in Johannesburg. The events sucked me in. People engaged me. Imagine three grown men bawling their eyes out. I wasn’t an anthropologists ass (donkey I mean). Its like the Stones say “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes well you might find, you get what you need “.
I did encounter two sets of friends who were struggling mightily. Thembile and Nomathlubi are raising and sustaining a family while Thembile rehabilitates from a crippling stroke. Mighty courageous! Most recently he is enrolled in a physio-therapy program at Lentegeur Hospital outside of Cape Town. He hopes to gain some control over his left hand. Tentatively he plans to accompany Jeremy during portions of his community development work in the townships. This will give Thembile the opportunity to get out into the public space and practice his communication skills as well as learn to bake. Small steps toward being able to teach again.
Jeremy and Kim are striving differently. They have sunken two years of their life equity into a project with tremendous potential and deserve to be encouraged. They are truly innovating on a social level. Joyce and I are supporting them to the value of an oven (or more with a bit of help). (https://ackotze.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/abundant-nourishing-loaves/).
Think of rocket ovens in the same way you would Wikipedia or Linux. The design is applied, developed and perfected by hundreds of people all around the world. Jeremy and Kim use the rocket oven ‘low cost’ and ‘low cost of operation’ invention to serve a local human need. They have tested and are releasing plans to rocket ovens that will meet the needs of a single family. Such an oven costs $3.50 to build out of recycled cans. Simultaneously, they developed a commercial-scale rocket oven for baking. This oven can bake enough bread to meet the daily needs of 800 people. Jeremy is a skilled pastry chef and trains the bakers himself with the help of a conspirator, agitator and chef, Pete. The training is not just about baking but also about marketing and business management. They plug the bakers into a source of nutritious raw ingredients and a business model. One start-up requires a $4500 micro-finance investment.
I decided to involve my neighborhood in this cause and had a houseful of kids in our home baking. Our intent was to connect my neighborhood to this story in a real way. On hearing what we were doing our local backer supplied all of the ingredients. He had ideas about what grains Jeremy could use and recommendations for micro mills. Michael was not just generous with his product but with his knowledge and experience.
Our baking experiment proved to me that anyone can make bread with a bit of patience. The bread came out so well! We had it ready in time for a block party. Call me if you need any advice on how to bake bread with a kitchen full of kids 🙂 For instance, do you know that flour and water make glue?
Those who are interested in supporting Jeremy and Kim http://www.breadrev.com/ can make a safe donation at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/breadrev-adopt-an-oven. A philanthropic group of friends and colleagues have agreed to match funds that I drive to this site multiplying the value of your contribution. The fund-raising site will remain open for the next 16 days. The matching offer ends September 8.
This is my last post on this blog.
Thank you for your interest in these thoughts. Thank you Joyce for helping follow my interest. I love you.
Tiny
Ellicott City
Inside Outside 
Andre, you’ve got me drizzing again! Like bread, this project seems to have a life of its own. Whenever I’m feeling discouraged, something like this happens, I roll up our sleeves and keep going. This is a real ‘power to the people’ project on so many fronts. Thanks to you and Joyce for being such incredible Raising Agents!