Today, we finished construction on our first fuel-efficient cook stove. It may be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. After months and months of endless planning, mobilizing, grant-writing, agonizing waits, and materials-gathering, even I had my doubts about whether this was actually going to happen. Today, it did, and everything else just melts away.
Looking at the underside of the tin roof, covered in the black char the doñas have been breathing for years, the simple tin chimney we installed seemed more relevant than ever. The doñas, of course, don’t care so much about this as they do about the aesthetic quality of the stove, and I would be lying if I didn’t say I feel so lucky to have masons who are proud enough of their work to pay attention to details. This is what this family was cooking on before, actually a step up from a lot of others, who cook with their pots balanced on rocks on the ground.
And this is what we made.
I hope this feeling lasts throughout the making of the other 19+. We picked a great family to start with, people that I’m very close to and who were more than willing to help with construction. I can only hope that the coming experiences will be half as rewarding as this one.
1 comment:
Congrats, pal! I am proud of you.
I like the doorway of your stove. Very aesthetically pleasing ;-) .
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