Estufas!

I recently returned from Guatemala, and this trip was a new experience for me. I've done a number of different types of service work in Guatemala, but this was my first time helping to build safe stoves for the people in the Quetzaltenango area. 

Just to give you a quick explanation -- many Guatemalan families cook over open-flame stoves in their homes. This creates serious health problems due to smoke inhalation, smoke and ash in people's eyes, and accidental fires. There is also a problem with deforestation throughout Guatemala, and open flame cooking doesn't help the matter since it requires a considerable amount of wood. The stoves that we helped to build have space for an enclosed flame and a chimney so that smoke is carried out of the home safely.

Here's a picture of one of our final products: 

The wood would be inserted through a small opening which is on the left side of the picture above. The smoke then exits through the aluminum chimney.


We divided into teams and worked directly in the families' homes to build the stoves. The stoves are built in three stages. Below is a photo of my team working on stage three:

Part of stage three involves cutting a hole in the existing roofing (in this case corrugated metal) in order to install the chimney. By the end of the week, our whole team had helped complete a total of 12 stoves!

This is Dona Luisa, our safe stove coordinator for the week. Dona Luisa lives in the Buena Vista community, where we worked part of the time. She helps teach volunteers how to build the stoves correctly and oversees their work. She was awesome!!!!

Rachel, our new Timmy High School Outreach Coordinator, is a serious tree-hugger (peace and tree hugs!@), and she was beyond excited to find out that one morning we were starting off the day by volunteering for the Pop-Wuj reforestation project before resuming our stove work!

We were told by the directors that in Mayan culture you talk to the plant, and you tell Mother Earth that you are giving the plant back to her. Our group took that a step further by naming just about every tree we planted and singing to them. The boys were singing Ke$ha and Lady Gaga. I don't know if Ke$ha will really help the trees grow, but hopefully it didn't hurt anything too badly.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a trip to Guatemala without lots of wonderful photos of cute kids!!