Where Are Steven and Laurie?
Peru, 17 November 2008 - 17 March 2009
Steven and Laurie in Peru, 2007
Cusco, Peru, 31 January 2009
31 January 2009
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
I have had a couple of short messages from Ron, who is now in Recife, Brazil. He says he is fine, but doing nothing and uncertain about future plans. It had rained for two days, so he'd been hanging out in his hotel reading (the hotel did not have Internet). And he says, "I will get a report together in the next few days when I decide what I am doing or not doing."
So, rather than waiting for him, I'm going to send out today's update from Steven and Laurie. Many of you have asked me in person or via email how they are doing, and I'm happy to report that stoves are being built and Laurie's health is improving -- a double dose of good news!
Love to all,
Ellen
Our First New Stove
31 January 2009
Cusco, PeruSo, last Tuesday we went out to C'Orao to make a progress check. We found out where the first stove was being built and walked out there in a sea of mud and animal shit (it had rained overnight). Bernardina and Florencio's house is one of the furthest ones, it was really beautiful once we got out of the main area. Lush fields, a mountainside, clean air, and a huge sky.
To our immense relief as we got closer we could see construction underway, they were putting in the chimney. The stove was well underway. We thanked Tomas profusely and scheduled our meeting with the family. We also learned that another person had signed on, a friend of Tomas' named Erasmo. We gave each other high fives and went out for dinner at Los Perros to celebrate.
In our two days of down time we read a lot. I finished Shadow of The Wind (SO EXCELLENT) [note from Ellen to Inés: this was the copy you brought us!] and also blew through William Gibson's latest book Spook Country which was a lot of fun, with a sly punchline ending. Our local source of English book exchanges (Jerusalem Books) finally decided to keep their regular hours so I was able to trade some.
We also got a call from Jorge, saying that two people had shown up to volunteer at Hampy and that they had stove experience and wanted to do a project. They are going to come over tonight and we will share our hard-earned lessons with them, and probably give them however many stove parts we have left over. We are excited to meet them -- we don't even know where they are from!
Yesterday we did our first teaching session with Bernardina and Florencio. The difference between C'Orao and Sipascancha is huge. Part of it has to do with the women speaking Spanish instead of only Quechua, we can actually have conversations. We fired up the stove (the clay was still wet) and brought a pot of potatoes to a boil, then put it into their new retention basket (they used sheep skins inside of plastic rice bags for the insulation). Then we did our health tests, talked a bunch about hygiene and related things, did our interviews, and left them with a basket full of potatoes cooking away. Around three hours in total, more time than we ever spent on a family in Sipascancha. They were really nice folks and very together in most ways -- animals were separated, food was in bags, and they used a latrine hole (since nobody in C'Orao has bathrooms yet). We also called Tomas in to discuss some fine tuning of the design, we may need to buy extra grates for the wood (to keep air flowing under the wood as well as over and around), because he is using the grates we bought for the ash chute. He also developed this really cool staggered stairstep thing for the burners so that they can fit different sizes of pots.
After we finished at that house, we visited the next one and set up our appointment with them for Monday morning. Finally kicking into gear! Also, we learned that another person from the original group had decided they wanted a stove as well (he had been undecided before), bringing our total to eleven families. We are hoping a few more of the holdouts end up changing their minds when they see the finished product. If we keep up a good pace we could be done by the 3rd week of February. As a result, we are considering the possibility of coming home two weeks early, the climate here is just brutal. It was 46 degrees on Tuesday night, keep in mind this is the equivalent of July here. Yesterday Laurie went back to the doctor after an awful, terrifying two hour coughing fit in the night. She was re-diagnosed with a kind of reactive bronchitis almost like asthma. They gave her an inhaler and a different kind of cough syrup. Another reason to leave early. I have decided to trust the doctors and try not to worry, but it's hard. On the other hand, her back is fully recovered.
Laurie has also been keeping up a brisk correspondence with the Bio-Energy mailing list where all the stove people hang out. Another guy on the list is starting a project in Peru (near the coast) and so we have been sharing our lessons and hearing about some other experiences. A guy named Charlie Sellers (who we met last year at the ETHOS conference) said that when he did a project in Peru he ran into many of the same problems -- stoves being changed, deconstructed, etc. Like us, he found that the need for warmth and the necessity of fast cooking times often outweighed the more efficient but slower rocket design. After all, nothing can bring water to a boil faster than a traditional three stone fire. These are some of the reasons we have skewed our model away from the rocket design and more towards a hybrid type. Our focus is less on fuel efficiency and more on removing the smoke from the room. Another problem with the Lorena design that was used in Sipascancha was that the second pot never got hot enough, since it only had the hot airflow on the way to the chimney as the heat source. Now, both burners have the potential for flames directly under them. Less efficient, but we were pleased to note that during our cooking yesterday the wood was burning very cleanly, with very little smoke.
We (finally) have some new pictures up on the Flickr site and Laurie posted some stove plans and copies of our interview sheet on her blog if anyone is curious.
S
And Laurie's 31 January post from her blog:here we both sit, al lado, typing away, entering something on each blog. and me i will likely cheat and post some of what steve writes as he is faster than i at this typing thing! also, i am posting photos from the purchase of the baskets, some of our little apartment and our last couple trips to mandorani. and if that isn´t enough, i will try to scan the design and our data collection tool and likely put it on the flicker site, as people have expressed interest.
all this will need to be done before the next dose of medicina. i went yesterday for a visit as i continuing to have these incredible coupling spells at night or when i exert myself, where i couldn't catch my breath. here, it is so easy to just go and wait ones turn at the clinic, no appts are necessary, at least in most of the clinics i have (unfortunately) come to know. so after our first educational trip to mandorani i went the same day to la clinca san jose and was ever so fortunate to be able to see Dr Pinedo, el gordito as he affectionately called. he was my original doctor here and knows me by name (and our project!). so i told him what was up and he did a few tests showing no infection and an improved chest xray, but he feels what is now going on is more of an allergic thing, almost like a hypersensitive bronchial tree that when i cough sometimes reacts almost like an asthma attack. i thought it was something like this, being this damn nurse that i am. so he medicated me with an inhaler (i feel sorry for asthmatic peruvians needing an inhaler, it was 125 soles, an incredible price equivalent to about 42 dollars!) ) and a temporary round of steroids and a cough medicine. after the first dose the coughing spells were noticeably less but i still have an attack here and there so after calling him today, i will see him tomorrow at his insistence so follow this closely. i just love him. we talked about the project. he always asks and he said something to the effect, "when someone does something with love it is always good." he also added he will make sure i am OK throughout our time here. (which i might add may be reduced by two weeks as Tomas is moving along!)
besides my health, what is my other most important concern to report here (of course, other than steve, who is great) is our project. our first educational visit went smashingly well. we went to the home of bernadina and florencio, where their stove still was not dry and minus the final (mas bonita) layer of arcilla and pig and cuy hair. it was the first lighting. bernadina lit it patiently and was not surprised it took a bit because of the dampness. our only concerns on using it were to see not enough of a space between the pot for the largest pot on both burners and to see the rejilla nearly buried in the bottom of the fire chamber. currently in some of the pictures you can see a metal piece at the opening but this will be removed once that part is dry. so we sent for tomas who came and assured us on the next model(s) we will address this. he stayed for the interview and the educational piece which was nice. he gets the whole picture as did the family, of what our goals are. and the reception and conversation compared to sipascancha was amazing! but time will tell as one cannot say for sure how these will get used until one comes back! so, in a nutshell, we immediately put the stove on and began boiling water. the plan was to do that all first, talk about the wood and various lighting issues while getting the potatoes ready for the retention cooker. We used sheepskins inside the rice bags to line the baskets and hot pot of potatoes. then we walked around, addressed various hygiene issue (which this family seems to be on top of) and talked more about the stove and the retention cooker and how the two could be used together, or when they were working the chakra, how the retention cooker could be cooking away their soups or potatoes for the evening meal. we did the health tests also and all went well. tomas, as i said, stayed for all and can now prepare the other families for what will follow. he is really being helpful and hopes to complete all the stoves in one week to ten days!
on monday we hope to teach two families, that of victoria and juana. again i will just say these families are with us here and i am so happy we have the time to devote to each!
finally, for me, just a huge thanks for all the folks who have corresponded and encouraged us, especially with regard to this health thing here. i have said before and will say again, knowing you folks are out "there" and keeping up with us means so much. Muchisimas gracias.
Forward to Steven and Laurie's report on working with families, 7 February 2009
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Last updated: 31 January 2009
