Davies volunteers in Kenya


By: Carol Hansen Davies
December 16, 2009


Carol Hansen Davies (right) traveled to Kenya to teach how to use the sun to cook food and clean water. The students also tested their drinking water for contamination and compared it to water that had been heated by the sun.

Carol Hansen Davies just returned from Kenya, where she taught water microbiology workshops, solar cooking and water pasteurization techniques and was involved with an elephant surveillance project during her personal growth leave (sabbatical) from IDEXX Laboratories.
She worked with the Nairobi office of Solar Cookers International and helped train Kenyans on fireless cooking techniques using solar cookers.

Due to the drought, wood is in high demand and many family members are forced to travel miles to gather enough firewood to cook a single meal.

With the introduction of the simple solar cooker, which consists of a foil-lined cardboard reflector box, a black pot and cooking bag, anyone can use the sun as a heat source to cook food. By using solar rather than typical wood burning techniques, illnesses due to smoke inhalation can drastically be reduced.

Training included how to convert recipes to the solar technique, plus it was an opportunity to demonstrate that besides simmering, the sun could be used to roast and bake items such as breads and cakes.

Besides training women on the art of solar cooking, Davies also instructed them on how heat and pasteurize their drinking water to eliminate potential pathogens. Two hours of direct sunlight is sufficient to raise the temperature of several liters of contaminated water to 149 degrees, which is sufficient to kill viruses, parasites and bacteria such as cholera and typhoid.

One part of the donated kits included a wax indicator tube that does not melt until the desired 149 degrees has been met, ensuring that the water has been properly heated. Her team collected sufficient funds to donate more than 30 units to needy families in Kenya.

Davies also traveled to Egerton University in the Rift Valley region of Kenya, to introduce students and staff on the principles of the Portable Microbiology Lab system and solar pasteurization.

This kit consists of two simple testing products that can easily identify and quantify the amount of fecal coliforms (either human or animal) in any water source. One of the tests in the PML is the IDEXX Coliert tube that will indicate either the presence or absence of fecal contamination.

The other is a 3M product called Petrifilm that allows the tester to actually count the number of positive colonies. Once both tests have been inoculated with only 1 ml of water, they are then incubated on the tester's body, either in a pocket or under one's belt so no standard incubator is needed.

Students brought in samples from their local water sources, set up both tests, incubated them on their bodies for 24 hours, and then were able to find out how contaminated the water was at their local sources. Those positive samples were then pasteurized in the solar cookers and recultured to prove that the sun actually worked to eliminate the pathogens.

Davies and the IDEXX team donated 20 Portable Microbiology Labs, capable of testing more than 500 water samples, to the university. The 90 trained students will now be able to continue testing a multitude of other water sources with the goal of identifying and then treating the contaminated water. These simple and portable labs can be taken any where, are easy to use and interpret and do not use any electricity.

Davies also volunteered for an elephant surveillance research project in Tsavo East National Park, through the Earthwatch organization. For 11 days, she and seven other volunteers tracked elephant location in the park with GPS and range finders, plus documented their behavior, family size and ages, available water and food sources.

This data collection allowed the researcher to determine that most of the elephants had already traveled north out of the park due to drought and communication would be necessary with other park rangers in order to eliminate the possibility of poachers following them to their new location.

Davies is the daughter of the late Milton Hansen and Marian Hansen, formerly of New Auburn. Davies currently lives in Marlborough, Mass., with her family and is employed as the laboratory manager for IDEXX Laboratories in the North Grafton, Mass., location.

Article at: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20396138&BRD=1134&PAG=461&dept_id=150860&rfi=6