Workin for the weekend

We got started on work this week. We took the first two days to fix things on the farm. We managed to fix their catchment system and the farm rainwater tank is now filling up. It shouldnt take long, we hardly go a day here without a good 2 hours of rain. The rest of the week we have spent working on stoves. I wanna take a moment to explain the stove project we are working on here.

The cultural norm here is for families to cook on open fires in their households. This makes for a very smokey home and releases harmful amounts of carbon and carcinogens into the air. For most families their consists at best two rooms in their homes. This means that 3 times a day when cooking is done for meals that the whole family, including new born children, are exposed to the harmful affects of the open fires. The leading cause of death in Guatemala is upper respiratory infections, closely followed by dysintary. These open fires are a strongly linked to the upper respiratory infections found in Guatemala. I see these affects first hand in my host family. They cook with an open fire, and I often have trouble breathing when I join them for meals. Little ten year old Georgina already has a signifcant nasty cough.

The NGO we are working with, AMMID, has made a strong effort to reduce the onset of the respiratory infections. The have started a large project that builds rocket stoves in select household across the country. These stoves use a combustion chamber and a chimney to completely eliminate smoke in the household and burn half the wood that normal fires use. This not only improves the health of the families, but reduces their carbon footprint and saves them money each year on wood. AMMID uses volunteers like us as well as donations from several larger NGO´s to fund these projects and deliver the stoves at 20 percent of the cost to the families.

We started work on the 2 stoves this week. They take about 4 weeks to complete. We usually have to walk to the villages, and these two are a good hour hike away. Lets just say with the altitude, hills, and the hikes i´m burning the tortillas and beans right off my belly. The families are very nice and often cook us lunch. The kids just stare at us as they have never seen gringos before. Its nice to see some of the comleted stoves too. The families that use them seem to already be healthier.

Kevin and I have gotten over our fight with the evil ameobas of Guatemalan water and I think we sqeezed out a tight victory, though I think the toilet was a casualty of war. We are heading to San Marcos with several of the peace core volunteers to a nature presever this weekend. We are hoping to see the Quetzale which is the national bird of Guatemala which only about 2% of the people in the world get to see, its super indangered as it was hunted for its beauty. I´m keeping my fingers crossed that we will actually see it!! The peace corp people here are pretty awesome, its nice to have some gringo comfort.

On a sappy note the scenery here is fantastic. Most of the homes are built on the side of the mountains and the views we have all the time are breathtaking. The coolest is right after it rains. The temperature drops and the mountains seem to almost steam. The sun sets with the steam and plays some unbelievable colors. There is so much natural beauty out here!

Thats all for now, I hope I didn´t forget anything. Look for next weeks update, we should be working on more stoves, and maybe I´ll have a picture of the Quetzal! Adios, asta luego.