Super crew aka family aka nut brigade
We had this really awesome (and exhausting) alternative cookstove training a few weeks ago. Cookstoves or fogones are traditional stoves that everyone uses here, for the most part. Unfortunately, they are super smokey and have caused a ton of respiratory illnesses. Therefore, a lot of PCVs have projects to build safer, less smoky, cookstove alternatives for their communities. Unfortunately, a lot of families that need one badly are unable to afford the popular model used by most PCVs. Well, recently PCVs partnered with a local NGO to create this nearly free cookstove that works just as great, though not as pretty, and cost just $4! It is made out of the very dirt/clay that the families live on, and though labor intensive and messy, it is easy to maintain and repair and works wonderfully.
I find a picture is worth a thousand more words (and speaks more eloquently than I can write) and so here is the process in pictures:
Rock gathering. Go Andrea!
We gathered the rocks to make this base, rolling them from a field nearby.
Ripping and cutting the straw into smaller pieces so it acts like support beams in the dirt/clay mixture.
Like that grape lady, I stomped and stomped that dirt with the freshly added straw and water and sand to make a nice, thick clay mixture that we can throw. Unlike the grape lady, I didn’t fall once.
It’s ready! Stand modeling how when the mixture is ready it should not fall when you make a snake.
All hands on deck to make the bricks.
Pack and throw. Working that upper body.
Ta-dah! We have a “brick” for our stove.
Then we take those freshly made bricks and destroy them by literally throwing them as hard as we can onto the rock table to start building the stove. This was my favorite part.
Then you keep building, using plastic buckets lathered with oil as the holes for your cooking pots and air duct system.
The bottle on the left is for the Donas to add wood and the one on the top is going to be taken to and the hole is where they will set their pots on to cook.
Horrible picture…but as you can see we used anything an everything for the molds. This President beer bottle will be for the chimney.
DONE! Well, almost. The clay dries for a few days, then the families can smooth it, remove the molds, and decorate as they wish with paint, glass, etc.
Sweaty and Satisfied with our work. 1.5 days of work created something that a family can use for years to come. xoxo
xoxo
B
Letters from the Dominican Republic 