Alternative energy home

I am still googling to find out how to get rid of the garbage dump across our street.
The mayor and the barangay captain are supposed to arrange it, but no luck so far for at least the year since I arrived...

Usually what happens is people dump garbage in vacant lots. The poor, especially the kids, search the garbage for recycling...The stray dogs search and eat all the edible food, as do the rats...The cats eat the rats...And finally, when it gets large enough, and it hasn't rained for a day or two, someone gets tired of the sight and smell, and burns it...

At this point, I take a puff of Albuterol and stay indoors with the aircon fan on (to filter the air)...

Popular mechanics has a blog by a guy into alternative energy.

When I read it, I'm amused...for lots of the stuff he uses are actually high tech gadgets.

He even refers to a fancy company to buy solar panels to heat his hot water...Sigh. What I need are simple designs...I know they are simple, because in Africa thirty years ago, we had solar heating panels we made on the hospital roof which supplied all our hot water (if you needed hot water at night, you boiled it).

Although this is interesting (personally, I'd never spend a winter in Vermont without a generator running) it has little to do with the third world. For example, he discusses low tech washers, and about "vacuuming" his house.

Here our "low electricity" washer is a servant who does the laundry and the dishes by hand, and hangs them out to dry (or indoors when it rains). Even when we use the washer, it is mainly to use the spin cycle (the hardest part is not washing but wringing out the heavy sheets etc.)
No vacuum...merely a broom and dustpan (no rugs). As for refrigerators, we have them...But we mainly have our cook buy fresh food daily at the local palenke, and then keep the food covered. We eat it, the staff eats it, and anything left over gets recycled home with the cook, or given to the dogs. (When we used to come on vacation, our cook made huge amounts of food, but I never ate leftovers. When I asked my husband why all that leftover food was thrown out, he laughed and said: It's not thrown out...the cook has six kids).

LINK is a better place with low technology lists...but the PDF files won't download. LINK also has stuff...Again, selling them for money...Despite the "ain't I a goody two shoes for helping poor inferior peasants" tone of their webpages...

Or you can go to Backwoods magazine and get the same ideas with rightwing paranoia...

Oh well, maybe I should start a new blog: How to live in a low tech small third world town that has broadband but no garbage disposal, reliable water, and has constant blackouts"...but cheap servants...