Where Are Steven and Laurie?
Peru, 17 November 2008 - 17 March 2009
Steven and Laurie in Peru, 2007
Cusco, Peru, December 2008
23 December 2008
Afton, Virginia, USADear Family and Friends,
The text below is from Steven's message to his list, with an addition from Laurie at the end, and describes the surprising events of their 14 December trip to C'orao and the resulting changes in their project plans.
FYI, the retention cooker Steven and Laurie both mention is a big insulated container (a big basket lined with straw). You bring your pot of beans or soup or rice or whatever to the boil on whatever stove you have, then remove the pot and put it in the retention cooker, where is retains the heat and continues to cook -- but without using fuel or creating smoke. Somewhat the same principle as a rice cooker or a crock-pot, except it gets no additional heat and continues cooking only with the retained heat.
Love to all,
Ellen
New Plans, new project
23 December 2008
Cusco, PeruA week and a half ago we went to C'orao to do followup interviews and updates, as I mentioned before. I also mentioned that we had checked out the stove of a guy named Tomas, and that he had done some interesting things like include a third burner to heat water for his kids to wash their hands. Javier the taxi driver was with us and was equally enthusiastic about the stove. It was clear that Tomas was one of the only people we had revisited who was qualified to teach others.
After we looked at Tomas' stove, we walked back to the weaving market (Purikuq) with Timoteo (Tomas' wife) and Anna (his sister). Our mood was better, since we were seeing better stoves than in Sipascancha. We were excited about the possibility of using Tomas as our trainer in Usi, and we had told him that we would talk to Pave about it. He said that was fine.
When we approached the market, Pave was there. We began to tell her about our plans. Angrily, she cut us off and began to badmouth Tomas, saying really rude things about him right in front of his wife and sister. They turned bright red. Our collective jaws dropped open. We really couldn't believe how she was acting, it was very irrational and clearly had nothing to do with our project. Our good mood disappeared like a popped balloon.
We walked away from the market and back to Honorata's house. We apologized profusely to the women. "Ella esta MAL," said Timotea bitterly. With Javier translating, we learned that some of the conflicts in the market had to do with Pave demanding that Tomas and Timotea produce more stuff, more rapidly, while they didn’t see the point since the stuff that was already there wasn't selling. Again, all this was translated through three languages, so whatever.
Laurie wanted to just leave without talking to Pave, but I thought I would try to say a few things. Calmly and carefully I told her that we didn't want to talk right now, that we weren't coming to visit her house later that day with Ellen and Ron as planned (because all we would have done was argue about what had happened), that we didn't believe her bad words, that they were without excuse, and that we could talk at our meeting in Quiquihana next week. Pave then ran past me out to the street and began yelling at Laurie. I gave up and sat in the taxi with Javier. When it became obvious that Pave was going to continue to argue and not listen to Laurie, I urged Laurie to get in the car and go. Eventually she did, and we left, but not before Pave threatened "it's him or me."
Back in Cusco, miserable and confused, we sat and talked with Ellen and Ron for like five hours, and they helped us draft a letter to Hermana Nellie. In it, we said that we had run into differences of opinion with Pave that made it potentially impossible to continue the Usi project, and would she please mediate since we all respected her. We emailed it to Hermana Nellie, and dropped off a copy of the letter at Pave's the next day since she never reads her email.
Well, this past Saturday we went to Quiquihana. We had not heard a word from either Pave or Nellie, but we went anyway. After a while we got to sit down and talk to Nellie. She had not seen the email. She had been to Cusco the other day, at which point Pave had given her our Xmas presents for the kids, given back the 40 soles we had sent her to buy food for our planned Usi demonstration, and given back the pumice-cutting saw blade that was a gift to her -- in other words, given everything back. She said she would not do the project, and said that everything was my fault because I had closed the car door (???, we think it made her angry that I told Laurie to give up and go, again this is translated through Nellie), and left. Basically she has deserted the entire project, as well as Laurie, her friend of five years. We talked a lot more to Nellie who offered no judgments, but she did say that she felt it was a bad time to try and work in Usi because of the rain, that the road was not safe. We decided that in light of that and all the other stuff, she was right.
On the way there that day, Laurie had come up with an excellent alternative plan (we had a few kicking around our heads). She suggested that we return to C'orao since there were 20 other families in this neighborhood association (in addition to the four we had already worked with last time) who all wanted improved stoves as well. Last time we were here, they sent us a very polite and well written letter asking us to help them out (which came as a total surprise to us, since Pave had neglected to mention them and had basically appeared to play favorites within the group). It seemed like an obvious choice -- C'orao is much easier to get to (20 minutes from Cusco), and the people had already demonstrated motivation. We talked to Nellie about it and she agreed it was a good idea. She also agreed with our "less families, more education" approach. After Laurie filled out a little nutritional primer for the nuns, we went downstairs to watch the kids open presents (and also to play with the most adorable basset hound puppy in all the world, Pipo, who was a new arrival to the shelter).
We are still confused and hurt by Pave's actions, but we are writing her an apologetic Xmas card in the hopes that she will at least resume contact with us.
So today, we went back to C'orao to do some tests on Tomas' stove versus the rocket in Andres' and Honorata's house (the ones with daughter MaFre and the three cute boys we took pictures of last time). We used the same amount of water, the same pot, and the same amount of fuel. The time it took to boil the water was essentially equal (approx. 27 minutes from a cold start for 2.5 liters), even though Tomas' stove is not a traditional rocket design. We talked business with Tomas and Andres, how much they could work to help us, how much the families could pay, how much they wanted to be paid, etc. They also talked a lot about design, and we have tentatively decided to use Tomas' stove with a few modifications to be more like Andres' -- slightly lower holes for the pots, slightly more space around them, and a burn chamber made out of a clay/hair/cactus juice mixture. In the spectrum of rocket design, we are leaning towards less wood efficiency and more smoke removal, since "it cooks too slow" was one of the consistent complaints we heard in the other villages.
On the 25th, we are going to go to a meeting of the whole association starting at 10 AM. It looks like we will be moving forward on this project, and we are excited that we can find most or all of the necessary supplies in C'orao (they have a welder there, we just need to find baskets, bags and straw for the retention cookers). It has been a long tough road this last month, but it looks like we have a new (old) project to work on now. As if to underscore our decision, we were almost immediately picked up while hitching back to Cusco, by a German woman who has lived in Pisac running a restaurant for the last 14 years. She was headed directly past our house and dropped us off there. We promised to come and try her cheesecake next Monday, after we have our last meeting in Paucartambo province at the village of Soncco.
Here in Cusco, the campesinos are descending on the city in hordes, with visions of free chocolate dancing in their heads. The municipal workers are setting up portapotties in the plaza right now. I need to go to the market and get a shave, when I finally found an adaptor for my electric razor I must have plugged it into the wrong polarity (there’s no ground here so you can't tell which way is which) and it blew up in my hand. We are also going to go to Rosanna's tomorrow night for an Xmas eve dinner.
S And Laurie's comments:
so yeah, unfortunately and fortunately, we have abandoned the Usi project as result of Pave being unable to mediate with us about what happened in C'orao. as i have explained to a few people with each visit here, i understand more (or think i do!). in the beginning i would have never thought of challenging anyone, as there was so much that went over my head. now however, its harder to let things pass that really go against who i am. and this incident with tomas was one of them. and because of this i was also concerned we would not get her OK on downsizing the project as well. (she likes numbers, and as we told the hermana we wanted quality vs quantity this time.) so yeah, i am hurt that pave could not cool off over the week before our proposed usi meeting, talk with us, and enjoy a little Christmas at the shelter together. as a group we needed this skill, ie., to be able to mediate. and as i told the hermana, possibly this wasn´t in "God´s plan" after all. ( interestingly enough, awhile back she had written me an email saying that the Usi project would go "si Dios quiere....," and at the time i thought, "well,....hmmm....what does she mean by that??") so, i know now. with everything that has passed in the last month we needed to be with that and pay attention and do things differently, not automatically. (not to mention the upcoming rain in usi....)
so on to C'orao it'll be. when we left after our last trip here we were given a letter by the 20 remaining members of this collective in C'orao (actually this area of C'orao is called Mandorani) requesting us please to ..."please hear the clamor of the other mothers wanting an improved stove...." and on the bus to quiquihana nervously approaching the shelter and anticipated meeting with pave, i realized we wanted to do just 20 people, and if all were to crumble right before our eyes, there were the people of mandorani right under our noses who would be ready to work with us! they were motivated, in the midst of a bathroom-for-all project, close by and conceivably, it could be something we could do ourselves, with the help of a local person or two. so happily it seems to have come to pass. tomas is thrilled to be working for his compañeros and with us. he and andres will be our team. all enjoyed the testing as much as we and it stirred up quite a conversation of what to include of the original and what to include of tomas' model. this conversation will continue on thursday at a group meeting! so it won't exactly be a rocket but it will be the product of what the people want there with a chimney! the material for the combustion chamber will be a mix of clay, some sort of cactus juice, grasses, people, pig and cuy hair and sand. (it is a mix tomas has used with ovens also.) on our inspection it is very hard and does not appear damaged in the last year and a half of use. he has maintained it though. he says with maintenance it will last three years. (we will be following up on this.) his includes an oven and the other twenty will not. we will fluff up the other three! there is a local welder to access for the chimneys and rejillas. our project will include more teaching, more on home management in terms of "home and people hygiene". and we´ll introduce a retention cooker to each family, including the original four participants. And we will continue our interview and testing of family members to try to establish a correlation between less smoke and better respiratory health.
so as steve alludes its been quite a month. the minute we were headed in a certain direction, it changed! we have learned a lot from our experiences and hope with those lessons we will have a positive project for all included.
Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo a todos!
Laurie
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Last updated: 1 February 2009
