Stove Project San Pedro: November 2007

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Why Stoves?????

Why Stoves?
The indigenous Mayans for centuries have cooked their meals using an indoor fire pits located on the house floor called a "three stone fire".
As a result……
* There are high instances of burns due to the open flames allowing children to fall into these open fires.
* The excessive unventilated smoke in the home results in impaired eyesight issues, respiratory problems, such as asthma, cancer, and allergies. The World Health Organization declares it is the leading cause of death for Central American children under the age of 5.
*The CO2 (carbon monoxide), a deadly toxin, is typically found to be twice the level considered to be dangerous.
*Deforestation due to the wood needed to fuel fires is occurring at a 2% rate per year. Results in more energy being spent by the family, primarily the women, due to time for long treks to obtain firewood and carrying heavy bundles for long distances.
*For the many villages located on hillsides, more and more mud slides are occurring during rainy season, which at times, wipe out entire areas of villages due to deforestation.

The solution: A new stove which costs approximately $100

* Less burns due to the lifting up of the stove from the ground.
*Proper ventilation results in less deadly carbon monoxide and smoke inhalation. Resulting in improved overall health.
*60% to 70% reduction in wood consumption means long term benefits for the environment.
*Better quality of life for the woman which means less time spent gathering wood and less medical issues. Allowing more time for family, social and economic activities.

How did I end up in Guatemala wanting to build stoves??

Last winter, once my daughter Brittany entered college, and after much thoughts and much planning I quit my job and spent the winter traveling around Central America and Southern Mexico. I was both exploring and working on different projects along they way.

This is Brittany!

and my home in Onset MA.
By the way, Brittany is coming during her college break to help out!

Back to the project...

During my travels, I spent 6 and a half months working on various different projects. Everything from a well drill in El Salvador, for a community without water, to a homeless shelter. Volunteering in communities here and there. One project that particularly interested me the more I read about it was "the stove projects" in various communities... Then when I met and spent time with Jutta and Heinz and learned all about there Bella Vista school project> Nothing made me happier when Heinz expressed interest in bringing the stove project into the village. I was so happy to work with Heinz and Jutta getting the first stove installed last year and decided I would commit to raising funds and coming back and building stoves for the month of January.

Jutta in the Bella Vista schoolhouse

A bit about the village,lake,people,culture and the area

At the southern edge of the broad highland belt that runs through Guatemala, captured in a mountain basin commanded by three towering volcanoes, lies Lake Atitlán. A score of Indian settlements, dwarfed by the mountain backdrop, lie scattered around the twisting shores of the 1ake which measures twelve miles long and half as wide. Like the million and a half Indians that make up half of Guatemala's present population, the residents of the Lake Atitlán basin speak dialects of the Maya-Quiche linguistic stock, akin to the language once spoken by the builders of the fabled Maya Empire of lowland Guatemala and Yucatan. The women weave on backstrap looms, the men cultivate corn on mountain slopes and valley plots, and the people of different villages exchange goods in open markets.
The villages surrounding the lake differ from one another in size, specialized crops, and level of wealth. Each has its characteristic costume, its peculiar dialect, and its distinctive customs, despite centuries of cross contact. Each community has repatterned its twin heritage of original Indian and introduced Spanish traditions into a way of life as distinctive from the others as are the personalities of different individuals. Every village may be said to have its own culture. Reliant on spoken rather than written tradition, yet increasingly subject to city ways, these peasant communities combine primitive and civilized features.
San Pedro la Laguna, has a cluster of some five hundred adobe houses compactly grouped in blocks around a central square. With a population of 2400, the village is third largest of the lake settlements and occupies a terrace more than a hundred feet above the water at the base of an inactive volcano whose steep sides form part of the agricultural hinterland. Situated about 5,000 feet above sea level, the village enjoys a temperate climate, the annual cycle consisting of a wet and dry season of about equal duration.
No roads connect San Pedro with other villages. The people travel on foot and occasionally on horseback along narrow paths winding around precipitous hillsides.