Mali is hot. There is no mistaking
it. In my quest to get some green
vegetables back into my diet I considered
buying a refrigerator so I could go into town
once a week to shop for veggies, and then store
them in my home. The problem is that my
electricity is both expensive and
unreliable. The
solution?
The $ 5
refrigerator!
Ingredients:
1)
Porous earthenware container (called a gi
fiyen) ($2)
2) Plastic
bucket ($1)
3) Metal
stand ($2)
4) MUD
(FREE)
You put the sand and
water mixture into the earthenware pot, put the
plastic pot inside the mud, and the whole thing
on the stand. The water seeps out of the
pot slowly and evaporates, cooling off the mud,
and keeping the contents of the plastic bucket
about 20 degrees cooler than the ambient
temperature. If you want things to get
really cold, you can put a block of ice inside
and it acts as a super-cooled
thermos.
I am going to measure the
temperature inside my “fridge” throughout
this year and see if it might have some medical
relevance for maintaining cold-chains or
helping patients store temperature-sensitive
medications.
Thanks to Brandon
County for bringing this idea to us!
