StoveTeam News

Her tenacity brings ‘miracle’ and then more

2008-12-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

BY BOB WELCH
Register-Guard Columnist

It began with a young Guatemalan woman, Irma. Nancy Hughes met her in 2004 when the Eugene woman had been part of the kitchen crew on the Cascade Medical Team.

Irma told the team members about how she had fallen into an open cooking fire in her family’s home at age 2. Her hands had been so badly burned that she had been unable to open them. Now, after 16 years, the medical team had given her back the use of those hands.

“She said she’d prayed for a miracle,” Hughes says, “and we were that miracle.”

If the moment marked an ending to one story, though, it marked the beginning to another.

The moment planted a question in Hughes’ mind: Rather than treat burns, how can we prevent them?

More

Heading Home

2008-11-18T07:18:00.000-08:00

I’m writing on the plane on the way home, but will try to reconstruct the past ten days for you as best I can.

Our team of eighteen left San Salvador after visiting the Archaeological Museum and stopping for lunch at a former coffee finca now raising talapia, growing hydroponic vegetables, and experimenting with cacao production. We arrived in Nahulingo where Gustavo explained why and how the Ecocina was made. Neri and the boys took the team through the construction process of the Ecocina. Then, as a few of us met with the office staff, the rest of the team learned to make fire. Fire is started with paper and matches, but not with ocote or pine as pitch causes smoke. Of course, the villagers know their wood better than we do, and I later learned how to tell green or pitch wood from good dry wood.

After “fire practice” we returned to the hotel to host the Santa Ana Rotarians. They are sponsoring our next grant and are a great group. It was quite a celebration, as not only were the Rotarians there, but we celebrated Bob and Susie’s birthdays with a surprise piñata.

The following morning Gustavito and Marvin took a few hardy souls to the beach, and the rest of us slept until it was time to meet Martin.

Martin was the very first Peace Corps Volunteer to distribute Ecocina stoves and, due to his work and Gustavo’s continued marketing, we have made and distributed over 4,200 stoves since December of 2007.

I spent the time in the factory with Gustavo, Gerry, Marga, Elvira and Luisa, as Martin had arranged the entire visit to his village. Stoves were distributed, school supplies were donated, and there was great interaction with many of the previous stove recipients.

Although Ecocina orders keep pouring in, we are always anxious to hear comments to know if there are design improvements or flaws in the current model. Marti had designed a question and answer session that we will continue to use. Four women were brought from another village so the volunteers could query them about the Ecocina. We had no set questions, but the volunteers covered everything…

How much wood are you saving?

Do you like the size of the comal?

Have you noticed any changes in your family’s health, etc.

Not only did we get good positive feedback, but the timid new stove recipients received good information without having to ask questions.

When the team returned, they returned to some village excitement. It was “Pupusa Day” in Nahulingo and Elvira and Luisa had prepared the masa, cheese, beans and cabbage to make absolutely delicious pupusas. Of course, they cooked them on the Ecocina. Gustavo had made a banner near the exhibit and people crowded around to see how the stove worked without smoke. We were invited up on stage and I gave my first speech in Spanish before a huge audience. It must have been adequate as the following day a couple from a nearby village came to pick up a full-priced stove.

That morning the team returned and built fourteen new prototype models of the cement Ecocina.

We are now changing from a metal exterior to cement. It has taken us six months to design the molds, but we are confident that we now have good ones to bringing to Aprovecho for testing. The weight of the pumice used for insulation has also been an issue, so half of the prototype stoves were filled with fiberglass and half with rock wool. Having the team complete the stoves gives us samples for distribution. Each stove is carefully marked and identified and now the only issue is price and availability of material.

That afternoon we boarded the Pullmantur bus for the four-hour trip to Guatemala to help construct a second factory. Oscar, our driver, met us with the spacious Coaster van and we were off to Pension la Merced in Antigua.

The following morning the team was up early to breakfast at Fernando’s next door, and there they met Marco Tulio Guerra and his son, Maco. Maco, age 9, was on vacation and wanted to work with his father, so he accompanied us to San Antonio Aguas Calientes where we began to really work.

The team was divided into a construction crew and a grounds crew and started from the ground up… literally! By the end of the day a “gallery” had begun to take shape… metal pieces were welded, wooden work tables were nailed together, areas of brush were cleared, rocks were moved to make a rock wall, and the volunteers were exhausted. One of the women said, “When you said we would build a factory, I didn’t really realized we would BUILD a factory!” However, when you start with a few acres on the edge of a former coffee plantation, that’s the way you start.

Throughout the next few days the factory began to take shape, the grounds looked organized and cleared, and although the final truss was not up by the time we departed, all of the steel was welded and all of the tables were built.

Every evening we ate typical Guatemalan food in the village, and although in the future we would design the experience so people had a chance to shower and clean up before supper, everyone seemed to enjoy eating typical food.

On Saturday, the construction crew was so engaged in the process they gave up their “free” Saturday morning to help finish the welding and put up the first truss. Many on the team shopped and toured Antigua, and others visited a local organic coffee cooperative to see the entire coffee process from the point of view of a small coffee farmer.

We ended the trip with a lovely dinner at Casserole with Marco Tulio and Ana Luisa. We have complete confidence that Marco Tulio will not only be able to produce Ecocina, but spread it throughout Guatemala. His goal is to have a main factory and various small factories employing local people in each of the 22 districts of Guatemala.

So, as a result of this week’s work, a second factory has begun in Guatemala in the village of San Antonio Aguas Caliente. Marco Tulio’s business is called EcoComal and he will produce three types of stoves, a plancha stove, the EcoComal, and now the Ecocina.

Our mission is, and always has been, to help local factory owners start businesses to produce fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly stoves for those who cook with wood over open fires. I feel we are well on our way!

Nancy

First Day

2008-11-10T07:17:00.001-08:00

Hi all,
Just a quick note to let you know that we have arrived safely in Sonsonate and the team is again absolutely wonderful. Of course we have gotten used to the usual Central American "slow time" but everyone is coping really, really well.

For a first day, yesterday chock full of amazing experiences. We had spent the night at two small hotels in San Salvador and in the morning the team went to the Museum of Archeology while three of us met with the San Salvador Rotarians to try to get the last of the money owed from the Major Matching Grant. Again, no luck, but it is promised for today (for about the seventh time! So, as we lacked money for the materials needed to work at the factory we took our time getting to Sonsonate. Everyone really enjoyed the young woman guide at the museum and it was a great introduction to not only the history but the current political situation here.

We had a beautiful day and drove by Lake Coatepeque to a small coffee finca for lunch. The owner explained that due to the drop in coffee prices he had converted his farm into a tourist destination where he was experimenting with growing hydroponic vegetables and flowers. The team learned how cacao was grown and made into cocoa, how lettuce was being grown in a floating garden, and how the river had been diverted through natural springs so it was clean for the fish and the vegetable production.
We all had talapia with fried yucca for lunch and then went on to the factory.

Upon arrival at the factory I was overwhelmed by what Gustavo had done since we had last been there. Not only had the exterior been painted with a huge sign "StoveTeam Internacional Oregon - El Salvador", but there was a huge poster with photos of all of our work. Amazing! There was, in addition, a new two-burner stove for schools, and an enormous white-board showing daily production and delivery.

The boys, Nery, Tino, Salvador, etc. took the team on a step by step demonstration of how stoves were produced while Gerry, Marga and I met with Gustavo, Luisa and Elvira to go over the accounting. Gerry was thrilled to discover that everything was in order and all was exactly as we had hoped. We all feel very relieved that the factory is not only doing what we had hoped, but more! We now have not only the Ecocina, but a two-burner stove for schools. This is beyond our wildest dreams and makes us so proud of Gustavo and his team.

To top all of this off, the team learned to make fire in the Ecocinas on-site, and then we walked down to the center of Nahulingo where the town was celebrating National Pupusa Day. Our Ecocina was right on the corner, and Elvira and Luisa were making pupusas on the two stoves. Don, Gerry, Charissa and I were invited up on stage to thank the town for inviting us to participate in the celebration, and then team got a look at Nahulingo. And again, the pupusas were fabulous. The best I have eaten in my seven trips to Central America!

In the evening we returned to the hotel where I took a very quick swim, and then it was time for dinner with the Santa Ana Rotarians. There were ten of them with their wives, and of course Billy Cader's adorable children, and then the big surprise of a piñata to celebrate Susie and Bob's birthdays.

So, not bad for Day #1, eh?

More anon...we're off to a Peace Corps village this morning...in 80 degree weather and gorgeous sunshine!

Love,
Nancy

News from the front lines

2008-09-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

Good Morning!

I’m on the plane from Orange County to Portland and finally home to Eugene. I have been away since early July and am very anxious to return home at last. However, realized that I had left you in the midst of Central America, but so much has happened since then that I haven’t had time to write. So, here you go. More adventures. And if you’re as tired as I am you can skip this and know that I’m going home at last!

Since I'm currently on a plane, I can’t check to see where I left off on my StoveTeam blog, but our trip through Central America was fascinating, filled with Rotarians and people clamoring for Ecocina stoves.

After we left Leon, Nicaragua, we returned to Choluteca to meet with Rotarians interested in having a local technical school begin producing stoves. From there we drove 12 hours to Tegucigalpa where we navigated the narrow, steep and unmarked streets in the pouring rain. We had hoped for a visit to the beach, but due to the rain pressed on to Copan Ruinas.

We decided to take a day off from “stoving” and drove to the Mayan ruins. They are famous for the beautiful carved staircase, remains magnificently carved columns, and a fascinating museum. Our guide explained Mayan “football” and history. Gustavo relaxed while Ethan and I clambered about, and Ken took the day off to read.

After our tour, Ethan mentioned he wanted a Honduran flag, so we went to a local tourist shop. He was wearing a StoveTeam shirt, and the owner asked what StoveTeam did. We were tired, but as we had a stove in the car, we showed it to him. He was extremely enthusiastic and said that they definitely needed the stove and we should arrange for a small factory in that area. We indicated that although it would be a great idea, all we wanted was to sit and relax and have a liquado or smoothie. He indicated a shop not far away and we left to relax.

Within moments of ordering my watermelon liquado a nicely dressed woman came up to us saying, “Hello! I’m a Rotarian here and I’ve learned about your stove. We need it, and please let me know if you would collaborate with us on a grant!” Whew…and we thought we’d have a day off!

Upon leaving Copan Ruinas we returned to El Salvador and quickly drove to Guatemala where we were to meet Juan Carlos, the former Executive Director of Helps, and Marco Tulio, also formerly of Helps. The car was making funny noises and Ethan thought we should check it out, but we pressed onward. We arrived in Guatemala City, had a lovely lunch with Juan Carlos and discussed future plans for grants and establishing a factory with Marco Tulio. We gave Juan Carlos a prototype stove and from there went on to Antigua. It’s a lovely town of cobble-stoned streets and colonial buildings, the former capital of Guatemala.

We had been trying to contact my ELAW friends Jeanette and Estuardo Noak by e-mail to no avail, so on the way Gustavo called the factory where his wife indicated that Estuardo had been there for a visit. We got the number and Gustavo gave him a call. He mentioned that we were hoping to meet him in Antigua the following day at 3pm in the hotel, and he responded that he would be there.

The following day we told the hotel owner we would be at the table in the back, and were waiting for our friend Estuardo. Marco Tulio had arrived and we were anxious to talk to both of them about starting a factory. Sure enough, in a few moments a man arrived looking for us…NOT my friend Estuardo, but another Estuardo, a Rotarian who had seen our project featured on Channel 12 from El Salvador and who wanted to write a grant for our stoves! We all got a good laugh about the mix-up and now we had one more Rotarian interested in the project!

Anyway, in the next few days we went to the site Marco Tulio had rented for a stove factory, discussed how we wanted to bring a team to help him expand it in November, talked to Juan Carlos about the intricacies of finalizing another Rotary grant, and showed Ethan around Antigua.

Gustavo left us after two days as he had a meeting in El Salvador, Ethan stayed a bit longer to have a rest before returning to Nahulingo for his remaining month and a half of internship, and the rest of us relaxed before our return flight to Portland.

Of course, all did not go well with Gustavo. The car broke down on the way back to El Salvador, he missed his meeting, and we worried about him all the way back to Portland. The good news is that within a week the car was repaired, Gustavo back at work, and Ethan was back playing soccer with the Stove Team!

After returning to the United States, I flew to Southern California. I’ve given twelve talks to Rotary clubs in my brother Ray's Rotary District (5320) in the past five business days.

In case you think that’s enough…in the middle of all of the speaking engagements I received a call from Gustavo in San Salvador. He had gone to a conference on wood burning stoves in Mexico, D.F. He called with some exciting but scary news…the government of Mexico is interested in producing 600,000 stoves per year for the next ten years. They want 2,000 Ecocina stoves per month for the next four months!

So now we’re trying to figure out how to respond. All of us are scrambling. It’s exciting, scary and intellectually challenging. And in the meantime we’re busy planning how to take our 20 volunteers to El Salvador and Guatemala on November 8th.

So, I’m keeping the fire burning and hoping all will go well in the next few months. The plane is about to land, and I’ll be happy to be home at last!

Nancy

El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala

2008-08-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it seems I've left you in the lurch after we left the slippery road in El Salvador, but then again it's because not only the computer crashed but the car decided to take a little time off as well! That's a later story, so let me summarize our extensive trip for you first.

The time in El Salvador consisted in a number of visits to various stove sites and Rotary clubs to assess their interest in our program. There was really no need to find out if the stove was acceptable as we are getting more orders than we can cope with at the present time, but it is always interesting to see the stoves "in the field" and see how people are using them and talk about what improvements they would like to see.

One day was especially interesting as Channel 12 had decided to come for an entire day to photograph the factory and a small finca where stoves had been distributed. The factory visit was routine to us, but the newscasters and photographers were very impressed with the work and anxious to see the stoves in a village. We drove up the Ruta de las Flores away from the intense heat of Sonsonate to a lovely coffee finca. We passed piles of wood cut and stacked for sale, and I asked the finca owner if buying efficient stoves would impact his wood business. He answered that his finca was becoming so denuded of trees that he would be delighted to give up the selling of wood!

At the finca we encountered a woman who was completely enamored of her new stove and spoke on camera about the benefits to her family and her child who suffered from asthma. It was great to get this on camera and we all loved seeing how the finca workers lived in a beautiful plantation filled with flowers and fruit trees. Later that week we watched ourselves on television in a five minute news segment showing our work. Now we've had our five minutes of fame!

Another highlight in El Salvador was a visit to Trifinio, an area where three countries come together at a beautiful lake. Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala manage the lake jointly and we were hosted by the head of the Department of the Environment for that region. He is a big proponent of the stoves and if the Santa Ana Ciudad Heroica Rotary will sponsor us in that area we can make a big impact on three countries. Santa Ana has signed a grant for us but we are still waiting to hear if they have done the required reporting to Rotary International on their previous grants. They hope to work with us and with CESA, a local cement company, who may also give us some help with our cement stove production.

After El Salvador we drove via Honduras all of the way to Leon, Nicaragua. On the way, we met with Chrisitian, a friend of Gustavo's, who had been promised stoves a year ago. He is anxious to start a factory and we are hoping to partner him with Rotarians from San Miguel. The San Miguel Rotarians were very welcoming, anxious to partner with us on a new grant, and have requested further information which we hope to send to them soon. They are about one year out on a grant, so we have a bit of breathing room.

The San Miguel Rotarians then sent us to Rotarians in Leon. Ken had hoped we would go to Estali, but the Rotarians said we would be much better off in Leon, so off we went. We arrived in Nicaragua without much incident other than Gustavo locking his keys inside of the car at the border. Luckily, those money changers at the border knew someone who could open a locked car in less than 5 minutes, so we were on our way.

Nicaragua was beautiful, but HOT! Really hot!!!! I had visited a few years ago, but only Managua and surrounding areas and found the country extremely poor and very corrupt. The people, however, are lovely, and so was our hotel. We split for a very nice place with a huge pool, and all but Ken jumped in the water at the first chance. Dining at the hotel was also a huge treat as each table was set individually under a palapa in the garden, and the palapas each had individual lights. Formal waiters brought our delicious breakfast each morning and we felt that despite the intense heat we could cope with the day.

We had put off the Rotarians the first night as after twelve hours of driving I didn't feel we could cope with cocktails and supper with guests. They arrived, however, at 10am and we had our agenda laid out. We took coffee with them and then visited the owner of a stove factory nearby. This stove factory was producing the EcoFogon that I had seen on my previous visit to Nicaragua. Not only had I seen the EcoFogon, but I had met the owner of the factory! He was gracious and showed us his stoves that are extremely heavy and cost over $100 apiece. When he saw our new design, he was very anxious to produce the Ecocina, so once we get a bit more organized we'll send him all of the design information. We did find, however, that we may need to have the help of the Rotarians in bringing the comals and other metal pieces from El Salvador as the price of metal is three times higher in Nicaragua!

to be continued…

Nancy

StoveTeam Update

2008-07-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

As the rain is pouring down with lots of lightning at the moment, I have time to clack away on the computer while Ken reads about Morocco and Algeria.

This morning was nothing sort of amazing. Gustavo let us sleep in, and then he arrived with Salvador scrunched into the back of the Kia with a stove and Ethan and Elvira as passengers. Ken and I joined them and went off into the country to do a "demonstration." Normally, our demonstrations are uneventful. We drive to a small village, someone gathers the local woman at a central place in the community and Gustavo explains how the stove works, introduces me, we light the fire and start getting the ladies to cook tortillas. We take a few orders and leave.

Ahhhh, that's the way it normally works. Today was different!

We drove a little ways to a small village and met the Mayor who was, of course, a friend of Gustavo's. He introduced us to another gentleman who hopped into the back of our little Kia with Salvador and the stove and off we went…straight up a hill, and basically up a riverbed! Rocks (slippery ones covered with mud) were what held the car on the road as we bumped along dipping occasionally into large puddles of slick mud.

We climbed up into the clouds with fields of cane and coffee on either side and beautiful vistas across to the nearby volcanoes. The further we went, the deeper the holes in the road, until it became evident some of us needed to disembark and walk.

At this point the road was so slippery that I had to hold on to our local guide and use him as a burro to guide me down the hill. Again, we got into the car and bumped along and then again we disembarked. It took ages for us to reach our destination with most of us walking down the last stretch slipping and sliding while Gustavo caught us on film.

Once in the village of Suisa1 with members of Suisa2 in attendance we realized we had over 100 people gathered awaiting our arrival. We realized that if these folks need anything from town they have to walk for an hour and a half to get there, and most of the children walk this incredible road every day back and forth to school. The area is absolutely gorgeous so we understand why they want to live there, but the road is unbelievable. Thank goodness for the 4x4 on a truck chassis! Next time we may have to come by horseback.

We learned that this beautiful area had never been exposed to the war as neither the army nor the guerrillas wanted to go there because the access was so difficult. Ken said it reminded him of Vietnam and why he said on first arriving there he was convinced there was no way Army guys from Kansas could ever win the war! THICK vegetation combined with INCREDIBLE humidity but INCREDIBLE scenery.

So we did the demonstration and when we finished it and Gustavo asked how many wanted to buy stoves EVERY hand went up and people started pulling out their I.D.s and crowding around our host to get their names on the stove list. One woman standing behind me kept saying "I'm in LOVE with that stove!" WOW! Enough to make a woman proud.

Of course, then we had to return…this time on a different access road that was still a challenge but not like the one we came in on, and again we stopped at a local comedor for lunch. Again the food was fabulous (rice and chicken with hot tortillas) so we had a relaxed lunch for six for $10.00. Ethan said each time he looks at the initial plate in a comedor he thinks he won't have enough to eat, but each time he leaves with his stomach bursting.

In the afternoon our job was filming for the documentary so we drove off through a cane field to another beautiful site. This was land donated by one of the richest men in El Salvador prior to the war. He had the feeling he wouldn't live long so he donated his land to the local compesinos, and sure enough, six months later he was gunned down! The land was fertile riverbed with numerous small homes alongside the river.

We crossed a hanging bridge on foot and entered a nice-sized compound with a large family. It was typical Salvadoreño style…hammocks hanging from porch rails, kids playing with marbles on the dirt, a girl hanging up laundry, and various animals and birds roaming about, a few guinea hens, chickens, piglets, and a parakeet. Elvira played with the tame parakeet while Gustavo and Ethan filmed the creosote covered walls, the open fire, the new stove, and Lupe, the mother.

Lupe had received the stoves two weeks ago and interestingly was enchanted with it but wanted to "save it" so it continued to look good. For this reason she cooked coffee on an open fire but only used the "new stove" for tortillas. Gustavo had to convince her that it would last for years and that she didn't have to protect it at all. She could use it for everything!

Ah…again the challenges of culture…but she did say that her cough had been eliminated and she felt better when there was no open fire. We left hoping she'd continue to not only appreciate but use her new eCocina. It was hard to leave as there was a birthday party with piñata and mariachis and none of us wants to leave a party.

Eventually we started back for Nahulingo and the factory only to discover that this week is Nahulingo Fiesta Week, and we had arrived at the best possible stop to see the big parade of men in drag! After a few moments of fun we pressed onward, but then found Gustavo's neighbor who collects antiquities. We bought a few before making it back to the hotel as the storm hit.

I've been typing long enough now that the rain has stopped, and I'm going to join Ken in his reading marathon now that he's sharing his books on Morocco. After all, Ethan's coming for a swim and tomorrow the car goes into the shop to get new bearings. I figure it needs more than that by this time.

Nancy

StoveTeam update

2008-07-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Here's a short note, or maybe a long one, to let you know what we've been up to…

We arrived safely on the most efficient Continental flight ever. Ken and I were on different flights but arrived within 10 minutes of each other so it was easy, easy easy. Of course Gustavo had a surprise for us…new StoveTeam shirts with fancy embroidery so we'd look good on camera.

Then Gustavo hit me with the news that they have been unable to make stoves for two days because it's been impossible to make tiles due to heavy rains. He hoped to get back to work with stove interiors within two or three days. It'll probably be Monday or Tuesday by the time we get the tiles and start to work. In the future, Gustavo hopes to stockpile tiles so we don't again have this problem. Of course, if we had the money, the solution might be to build our own kiln. Manny, the tile maker, has offered to come, but it all boils down to money and cash flow.

By the way, the weather has been super…not blue skies, but not as hot as anticipated and almost no rain. If this continues we should be fine, albeit a bit mosquito bitten.

Ethan arrived after a red-eye flight at 7am today and we rushed down to Sonsonate to the factory to find Channel 12 ready and waiting for us. It's a shame they came when there were no stoves, but it showed off the demand as all have been given out. They interviewed everyone in sight and, just because there must have been some divine intervention, a number of people showed up…

First was Kelsey, the cute Peace Corps Volunteer from Montana who came to say that this is the only project she has worked on where there have been absolutely NO complaints. the only complaint is that there aren't enough stoves to meet the demand. She told the interviewers how fabulous the project was and that she'd come to order more stoves. Of course Ethan was a bit enchanted with her as well, so despite a lack of sleep he was okay.

The next person to show up was a man without his left hand. He had lost it while working in a mill 16 years ago and Gustavito immediately fitted him with a new hand…t.v. cameras rolling! Rotary District 5110 would be proud.

Then we took everyone to a village on the Ruta de las Flores up on a coffee finca where the owner had purchased loads and loads of stoves. He took the camera crew from house to house as he explained the benefits of the stove and that he wanted many more for all of the people there. It surprised me as one of the finca's projects is to cut and sell wood, but he said his land is being deforested so he wanted to protect it as well as benefit the people who worked for him. He's not receiving stoves through the Rotary grant, but just buying them directly from us after reading about the project in the newspaper.

At the finca there were many women using the eCocina but still some using an open fire. The owner said that it was a cultural thing and they needed to get used to the new stove as many had only had the stove for two months. Others we met said they had stopped the open fires and many had destroyed the open fire areas in their homes. One woman said a neighbor had asked her to come by and cook with her, but as she had an open fire that belched smoke, she said she wouldn't cook that way again, and another said that she was so thankful that her son no longer suffered from asthma after the smoke reduction and that she was grateful not to have to pay for a doctor any longer.

Okay, so the most AMAZING thing that happened was on the way home after we bid Channel 12 goodbye. Gustavo, of course, wanted to stop at Subway, but I refused to eat American fast food and said I wanted local food. Gustavo didn't know a place but found a comedor in a nearby town and popped in for lunch (chicken and rice, of course!). I asked Gustavo if it looked clean and we thought it did so we ate there. The owner was gracious and the lunch delicious. Afterwards the owner stopped Gustavo and said, "You look familiar. Why do I know you and what do you do?" He explained the project and then came rushing out to the car where we were waiting and said, "Nancy, I have a surprise for you!" When I went back inside he took me around back where the woman had cooked our lunch on…you guessed it…the Ecocina! She had purchased one earlier and loves it and uses it to prepare food for her restaurant. How about that?

So, I know I over-use the computer, but I just had to share the news while Ken and Ethan are napping. Anyway, I received another e-mail from a local Salvadoreña who wants to meet us as she's connected with an American NGO and is currently writing a grant for fuel-efficient stoves… and so it goes…

Nancy

No Hands

2008-05-21T17:24:00.000-07:00

Hi there,

I went to El Salvador again last week to see people from the Buffett Foundation and CARE, but ended up doing much more, and now I'm trying to write this without crying.

As we pulled up to REDES (the non-profit rural development organization), Gustavo, the stove factory owner, said, "Oh, you're in luck! There's Ingenio!"… and there he was, the man we'd heard about on our first trip. The man whose two hands were blown off in 1982. There he was as he had been for 22 years, working as a doorman at the REDES office, opening the door with a string attached to his arm.

Gustavo said, "Go tell him you're bringing him a hand!", but as I looked at the tall, handsome 45 year old, I could barely speak.

I told him in my limited Spanish that we were bringing him a new right hand, and he said he had investigated getting a prosthesis but it would have cost $1,800 plus an operation removing a part of his arm, and he didn't have the money.

I told him that we had a hand through the LN4 group that cost only $50.00 and was one that was fitted and strapped on so it required no surgery and that we were donating the hand as we had heard about his plight.

He looked at me shyly and said, "Well I don't need a hand as much as my friends do. I have four friends working in agriculture and none of them has a hand, and I think you should give your hand to them first!"

That's when the tears came. A man with no hands for 22 years was offering a donated hand to his friends.

Would anyone like to help by contributing enough to purchase the hands for his friends?

Nancy

News from El Salvador

2008-04-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

If you had been with me in December, and you were here with me now, you would know it is a miracle! When our team of eight volunteers arrived on the 6th of December we encountered a bright, dedicated Salvadoreno and a house with a nearly empty and overgrown back yard. Some of the land had been cleared by a team of oxen and a shelter of corrugated metal had been erected to protect the people Gustavo, the factory owner, had hired to make some prototype stoves.

He proceeded to introduce us to the Vice Minister of the Environment, Directors of FIAES, Habitat for Humanity and others. We spent a busy week planning how to increase factory production and give incentives and directions as to how to improve the stove design.

We returned in March with a team of 29 volunteers to see what we could do to help. The team gave stove demonstrations in the community, helped start the construction of a brick wall to protect the factory site, and build a desk, a few workbenches, and expand the covered area in the yard. The team members returned home satisfied that they had been the start of a grand experiment to help someone in El Salvador start his own business, others to gain employment, and many to receive stoves that would not only improve their health but help with the problem of deforestation and pollution.

Yesterday, when Don Steely and I returned to the factory site we were absolutely blown away! The factory with a large StoveTeam International sign out front was up and running with 10 permanent employees, a number of temporary employees, and an enormously expanded facility. This all happened in less than 5 weeks! There is now an office, nicely painted and with pretty curtains, where there is a computer expert, a secretary, and someone to receive payments and distribute the stoves. The tools have been individually photographed and inventoried by date received. There are official invoices for the stoves and there are banking procedures in place.

Out in the yard the work area has been expanded to twice the size, and there is a work area covered by blue tarps where two women are filling the stove bodies with pumice and finishing the tops. Each employee has his or her own designated tools and many of the tools have been re-designed or custom designed to make the job easier. The stove body is not only cut with a plasma cutter, but one of the employees designed a stand with a ring magnet to hold the steel in place to make cutting easier. The bead roller has been attached to a post to make the job of finishing the edge easier. Tools for bending the parilla have been designed and produced by Gustavo. The employees have been divided into teams working together to make all of the jobs more efficient. A ten year old boy comes each morning to clean the site in return for having his school fees paid by Gustavo.

Production is up from 100 per month to 1,000 per month in five weeks, and there is still room for additional workers. Each employee wears protective equipment, fans have been installed, respirators put into use, and painting is now only done on Saturdays to keep fumes from contaminating the others.

Don and I met with attorneys and accountants yesterday and will be making decisions this week as to how to proceed. In the meantime we have had meetings with various governmental and non-governmental organizations who are increasingly more interested in our project. Yesterday the members of San Salvador Rotary came to the factory and were also so impressed they are having a special meeting to see about redesigning their program to help. The governmental organization in charge of bettering the lives of women took all of our information and they hope to include the stoves in their house production program. And, to top it off, last night we received a call asking for another 4,000 stoves!

Today we are meeting with another Rotary Club from Santa Ana, visiting a bilingual CPA, checking out hotels and transportation for future volunteers.

Tomorrow is the CARE demonstration to prepare for the Warren Buffett delegation. Warren will not be coming in late May, but will be sending an advance team to check out the site where CARE is working. It is five hours across El Salvador from the capital and is supposed to be the hottest area of the country. We'll be ready to go at 5 am and happy to show off our stoves.

In addition, we will be stopping to investigate two potential sites for factories in that area and will return to San Salvador to pick up Marco Tulio from the bus station so he can work with us in the factory in Sonsonate and decide if he wants to work with us in Guatemala.

The three days spent in Guatemala were extremely productive as we now have two or three people from there who are interested in starting factories, and one will be here on Friday. Also, I met with a film crew there that is interested in producing a documentary on our project. We have possibilities of much more publicity, but our attorneys have advised us to wait until we get our legal processes in place before doing too much, so we have cancelled today's television appearance and put it off until early June when we return.

So all is well with StoveTeam International and Don is busy tweaking some last minute changes to the latest stove model. Martin, our fabulous Peace Corps Volunteer, is contemplating spending a couple of years working with us in a special project funded by the government. hey would pay all of his expenses if he decided to stay. We would be more than thrilled to have him!

When the next group arrives in late May, we will not only be working with stoves and the factory site or sites, but will be bringing a mobile dental unit, provided by the Rotary Club of Irvine Spectrum and Dental Care for Children, to go out into the villages on weekends to do dental care. We have one dentist here and one from the USA to start the project and our local dentist is contacting others to help. We're more than off and running…and we're hoping you can come and join us soon. Our next scheduled trip is in November 2008. Please come!

Nancy -