¡Cocinas!

Something crazy is happening—improved wood-burning stoves are actually being built in Huaca Rivera. Four stoves have now been built and another one is being built today. With each stove I’m starting to feel an inkling of progress.

While watching the construction of the first stove, I realized how unnecessarily difficult the process has been up until this point. First, I waited an entire year to get funding from the local municipality. Various time-consuming and frustrating episodes were endured during that year. Finally I realized that if I actually wanted to build stoves I would have to get funding from elsewhere, so I wrote a SPA grant which was approved and efficiently processed. (Note: the part handled by the Peace Corps was the most efficient part of the entire process.) Then I had to purchase the materials and transport them to my town which also involved the local municipality and, thus, was a near disaster. I had to coordinate with each of the project participants to make the necessary adobes and to build the base of the stove. This required that I give each participant at least 3 copies of the adobe and base measurement handouts, as they repeatedly lost the information. (Unfortunately, less than half of the participants have actually constructed their bases which will cause a delay. Some of them seem abnormally perplexed by the idea of the base—a rectangle made of adobe and filled with earth—while others can’t seem to grasp that it is their responsibility to build the base, regardless of how many times I tell them. I’ve heard a lot of “You mean, I have to build the base?!”) I also had to get a contractor to make the stovetops and a slight altercation ensued when he just didn’t show up. Go figure, he blamed his kidneys.

All in all, the physical installation of the stoves is by far the easiest part. In a stroke of luck, I found two men to do the job who actually show up punctually and who are not confused by the concept of rectangular bases.