Biogas, China, and the Bedouin

One of the projects I am currently trying to get some funding for at BUSTAN is to help Bedouin women safely and abundantly power their homes focusing on Biogas technology. Long story short: put human, animal, and other organic waste into a fiberglass dome buried into the ground with some kind of fancy machinery on top and you get usable, clean energy!

Last week I took a delegation from the Chinese Embassy on a tour of BUSTAN's projects in the Negev. The Chinese are currently the global masters of Biogas technology and are sending two local graduate students to China to learn the technology to bring it back to the Negev and help Bedouin women become environmental leaders in their communities using this new technology. Here is the group complete with two dudes from a local community called Dimona who worked on Biogas technology in Liberia, as well as my collegue and friend, Julie Cwikel, who runs the Center for Women's Reserach where I am currently a Public Health Scholar-In-Residence.




A very strange day, the weather was blustery picking up dust and spreading it all around. You can just barely see the electric plant in the background, yet the unrecongized village where these people are standing has no power.



I find myself questioning the relationship between the Bedouin, development workers like me, the powers that Be, and modernization. Its a quandary I find myself in a great deal if I am really questioning (and I hope that I am) what I am doing trying to help the women I am working with. I haven't found a confortable answer yet, but would love to have you all down to show you what I see and hear what you have to say about it. Perhaps you can be the one to provide the insight I crave...hurry! I feel I might be going a bit mad! You can tell by the look on my face in this picture, don't you think?