Building Stoves
There are numerous volunteer projects here in Guatemala. One that interested me was a building stoves, so I went with Dave from Vernon, Canada, who I met at my hostel. He and his wife recently retired and came straight away to volunteer. They´ve been working with this wood stove project over the past couple of months. We picked up a couple of university students enroute to a Mayan village near Momostengo, about a two-hour ´chicken bus´ride from Xela, where I´m staying.
This village is located at 9000 feet. On the way from the main road, through the woods, we walked about a km toward the village. We came upon the women washing clothes in a stream. The beautiful traditional colors of their clothes made the whole scene look pretty spectacular. Very sureal.
These people are standing in front of the kitchen. There are about 4 buildings, none completely enclosed and two made only of wood, including a tiny outhouse which is the cleanest baño I´ve seen since YYC in Calgary.
The kitchen is so smoky one can hardly breath. The kids all have watery eyes. Apparently there are a lot of respitory illnesses, not suprisingly. Thus the need for a stove. There are plenty of these stoves being built around here. A women´s group determines the order for most needy family and it gets built in three stages. Dave and Kathy have built about 15 of them so far.
The kitchen is so smoky one can hardly breath. The kids all have watery eyes. Apparently there are a lot of respitory illnesses, not suprisingly. Thus the need for a stove. There are plenty of these stoves being built around here. A women´s group determines the order for most needy family and it gets built in three stages. Dave and Kathy have built about 15 of them so far.The families are producing like rabbits. Last week there was a funeral for a woman who died of aids, only a few months after her husband. The five children are going to be taken care of by an uncle who already has seven of his own.
I got started right away by mixing clay with a stick, then eventually my hands. The kids all joined in. It was chaos, but fun!
Teresa helped to cook our lunch. There was sweet milky tea, muchos tomales, and a nicely flavored soup with onions and pork. You can see two ´live´pigs in the corral past Teresa.
Otto is a little shy in front of the camera, but he loved to help mix the clay and cement.
We finshed the 3rd stage in three hours. Nicholas will treat it for the next week or so, and likely fix our mistakes, then the family will wait a month for the clay inside to harden completely. Then, voila! They have a stove with ventilation, instead of smoking themselves out. They will also use half the amount of wood to keep it going and have heat for the winter and cool nights.
I got started right away by mixing clay with a stick, then eventually my hands. The kids all joined in. It was chaos, but fun!The older children speak Spanish, but the younger ones who don´t attend school yet only speak K´iche´. At the moment, I´m struggling pretty hard with Spanish, however, gestures go a long way and latinos seem to have a lot of patience and humour, which helps a lot.
Teresa helped to cook our lunch. There was sweet milky tea, muchos tomales, and a nicely flavored soup with onions and pork. You can see two ´live´pigs in the corral past Teresa.
Otto is a little shy in front of the camera, but he loved to help mix the clay and cement.
I´m not actually certain if he is part of this family of eight or not. It´s quite a close-knit community and people were wandering in and out to check things out.
The family was very appreciative and I feel so fortunate to be part of this project. In fact, I´m going back this Saturday once again.
Building stoves... Ilsa recommends!
posted by Ilsa @ Saturday, March 29, 2008
2 Comments:
Amazing story!
Thanks.
Clem
Yes, it is an amazing story!
It reminds me of that saying...Think globally; act locally...or something like that...
Stay well!
carl
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