8th Day of Thanks&Giving - Modern Conveniences

I have been reading my grandma and great-grandma's journals and I recently read a book that was set in 1906, and it got me thinking about all the things that make my life SO much easier. Honestly, how did they survive? . . . computers, phones, Internet (how else would I be able to tell you all the details of my life?), stove/oven, washer & dryer, microwave, refridgerator, disposable diapers, vacuum, dishwasher, power tools, digital cameras, video camera, printer, copy machines (I actually have an old activity book that says "get a blank paper and trace this picture" - can you imagine?), flushing toilets, furnace, fast food, mass transit, airplanes!, batteries, electricity, and on and on. There are so many things that my great-grandma, who is 100 yrs old, didn't have growing up or when she was raising her children. Although it could be argued that some of these things have bogged us down, made us lose touch with our families, or made us not rely on each other like we should, I am still EXTREMELY grateful for how they have improved my life.

I did a post already this year where I highlighted the work that HELP International does in building adobe stoves in less developed countries (click here), you should read this to understand some of the reasons why this is SO needed. Can you imagine having to cook ALL of your meals over an open fire - inside a hut, while caring for your children? That also means that you or your kids must collect wood, or some other type of fuel, and cut it EVERYDAY. I think of all the development projects I have done, this is definitely one of my favorites. Mostly because it has the most immediate short-term and long term effects on so many different areas. It improves health, saves money and time, and it is so cheap and simple!

There are many, many other organizations building all different versions of these "fuel efficient stoves" throughout the world. This is because the same thing is seen in impoverished countries around the globe - poor health from smoke inhalation, burn accidents, malnutrition, deforestation; the list goes on and on. To help you understand, here is a story from one such organization called Mercy Corps:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo, for short) has suffered from years of conflict. A recent escalation left hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in large, barely habitable, camps. In the three territories where Mercy Corps operates — Goma, Rutshuru and Masisi — there were more than 850,000 displaced people living in thirteen sprawling IDP camps by the end of 2008. These camps were all located on the border of Virunga National Park, one the most threatened World Heritage Sites in the world. Not only is the park a bio-diversity hotspot but it is home to the last vestiges of the mountain gorilla. The Park was already under severe pressure from local population growth before the IDPs arrived.

When displaced families use traditional food preparation techniques, which typically consist of an open cooking fire, the daily firewood needs for each IDP household amounts to seven kilograms of wood per day. For the total displaced population in the area, this translated to a total daily need of over 900 tons of wood every day.

The fuel needs for these cooking fires was not only causing severe deforestation in the National Park but the collection of fuel wood in unstable areas was placing women at risk of rape and murder by some of the remaining rebel soldiers.

Thanks to funding received for this project, Mercy Corps has been able to construct 20,000 fuel efficient stoves for IDP families. The introduction of these stoves, together with training in improved food preparation techniques, has had a dramatic effect. Not only has firewood consumption been reduced by around 50 percent, but the use of the stoves has improved the security and health of women and their children. It has also reduced CO2 emissions by an estimated 24,000 tons to date.

Some of the IDPs are now beginning to return home. Many are intending to construct fuel efficient stoves in their home villages and Mercy Corps will be providing ongoing support in this transitional period.

Check out these other links if you are interested in learning more:
Darfur Cookstoves
CHF International
Stove Team International
Escorts Foundation
Lorena Stove powerpoint - this is a really good informative description of how this type works and why they are important

Gettin' dirty

In Uganda, as in most developing countries, women cook indoors or semi-enclosed over an open fire. Obviously, this poses a great health threat to her, as well as the children she is likely caring for at the same time.

One solution that is spreading around the globe is called Adobe Stoves, or Lorena Stoves, or I'm sure there are other names for it. I helped build stoves in Guatemala as well and think it is one of my favorite projects because it is simple, cheap, can involve the recipient, and it has such a huge lasting impact on the entire family. Cooking over an indoor open fire is equivalent to smoking how many cigarettes a day? Anyone? (Click here to find out.)

Part of the stove project this year was actually doing assesments of the stoves built by volunteers last year. So far, we have seen fairly good results. Women are using less fuel, which saves money and time. The stoves are more efficient, which means they can cook more than one thing at once, so the meal is ready sooner. One local told me that one major problem is that meals take 2-3 hours to prepare over a fire, and many times children will fall asleep before they eat, thus contributing to the malnutrition problem that already exists. He also told me that women are more likely to boil their drinking water like they should now that they can have more than one pot going at a time. In our interviews, many mothers said they saw an immediate reduction in their children's health problems, saving them even more money on the costs of medicine - and can you imagine the long term effects! No wonder the life expectancy is so low if everyone is smoking before they can even talk.

So the day I was there, we worked on a couple different stoves that were at different stages. Each time you do a step, you have to let it dry for a few days, so it is a process. But it is so inexpensive. And the real plus is that they locals easily learn how to do it and can then in turn, teach their neighbors. We put a chimney on two of the stoves, which means they will be ready for use the next day. Exciting!

We also worked on a large stove that will be used to feed children at a boarding school. The volunteer women are literally cooking all day long to feed the 100+ children a little bit for each meal. This is where they currently do all the cooking.

It was a challenge to build a stove big enough for those huge pots, and I think this will be a first for us, so hopefully it works. (This is our volunteers showing how much room we need for the pots.)So the foundation had been built previously and the day I was there, we were working on filling and forming it with bricks and clay.

The good part about these stoves is that most of it is made with free or easily accessible materials - homemade bricks, banana stalks, dirt from ant hills (yes, they are huge), clay, etc. For this particular project, we had to collect the clay from a local stream bed, which was just a quick jaunt through this squishy, enchanted forest. A couple of men dug it out, put it in these difficult-to-manage bags and we assembly-lined it back to where we could put it in a wheel barrow to walk it over to where we could mix it. It was good to get my hands dirty, well and my feet, and clothes . . . It was good. I was glad I wore bugspray. And yes, in Uganda, the women wear skirts or dresses everyday, no matter what they are doing. Hence, we do too.