With 52 of the planned 60 Justa stoves now completed and in operation, Nelson Martinez and I returned to Planes on November 30. We spent 5 days meeting with people in Planes and Playitas and surveying how they feel about their new stoves. Most of the stoves have been in operation for a month or so, thus we felt that the women who use them would now be able to give us valuable feedback. [Note: The stoves for the 8 remaining homes in the Planes Project are expected to be completed during the next 2 weeks. Because of their location, the materials for these stoves have to be delivered to a different location using a different road, located on the other side of the mountain, to make mule transport more manageable.]
Because the houses of Planes are so widely dispersed, we spent two and a half days hiking through the steep terrain to each of the homes to interview the women who do the cooking. In 28 of the 32 homes that already have completed stoves, we were able to interview the household cook. No one was home at 3 of the homes (coffee harvesting has just commenced and many people had gone to fincas in the region to earn some income), and in another the brand new stove had not yet been used. On another day we hiked down to Playitas, where the homes are closer to one another, and interviewed women in 17 homes located there. No one was at home in one of the houses there.
We employed a brief questionnaire to obtain feedback on a few key topics:
- How often each owner uses her Justa stoves
- How she feels about the new stove
- Does it work well?
- Does the smoke leave the house through the chimney as intended?
- Is it easy to ignite? How does it compare with her old stove?
- Does it heat rapidly? How does it compare with her old stove?
- Is she content with the cooking surface (the plancha) and is it big enough?
- Is the heat well dispersed across the surface of the plancha?
- Whether she has noted a change in the quantity of firewood she is using
- Whether she has any problems with, suggestions for, or questions about the new stove
The response received was extremely gratifying, both because the people were so friendly, welcoming and grateful, and because they were without exception very happy with their new stoves. All of the women report that:
- they use the stove daily
- the stoves are a great improvement
- the smoke now is all going out the chimney
- the Justa stove is easier to ignite
- the plancha heats up rapidly
- the plancha is very nice and sufficiently large
- the heat is distributed well over the plancha’s surface
- they are using far less firewood
Construction defects were observed in just 2 of the stoves. These stoves will be repaired within the next few days.
All of the interviews were conducted in the kitchen, and in many instances the stove was in operation with an active fire burning within. We can report with certainty that virtually all of the smoke that used to fill the kitchens is now exiting through the chimneys. Below is an array of photographs of women/families standing next to their new stoves:
Doña Antonia (a Community Health Worker)
and Don Ismael Ramirez Alvarado
José Cruz del
They Generously Provide Us Tortillas Daily
Donaldo del Cid Guzmán
and Part of His Family
Juan Angel Ferrera (a Community Health Worker),
Wife Valerina and Two of Their Children
They Plan to Add onto Their House
to Encompass the Justa Stove
Doña Olga Ferrera (a Community Health Worker)
and Three of Her Children
Ivis Argueta (the Plumber for the PlanesWater Project)
and His Growing Family
Vivian Hernandes and Wife Guiermina Tejada
of Playitas with Family
In a small number of instances, the homeowners decided not to remove their old stoves until they had some experience with the new stove. With one exception, they told us that they plan to remove the old stove because they would never use it again.
The one exception is interesting. Although she uses her new Justa stove to cook everything else, Isolina Guzman Ramos says she likes to use her old stove to cook frijoles in her well-worn round-bottom clay pot. She prefers the taste of frijoles cooked in a clay pot over frijoles cooked in a metal one. Because the new stove has a flat steel plancha as the cooking surface, she cannot set her round-bottom clay pot on it. We need to investigate whether flat-bottom clay pots are available!
Isolina’s experience is especially interesting to us, however, because of something that is demonstrated in the photographs. You will note that in the photographs above, the air in the kitchen is clear and clean – there is no evidence of smoke. In contrast, take a look at the two photos of Isolina’s kitchen below and note the evident smoke in the air. While we were there, she was cooking frijoles with her old stove, in the same kitchen where her new stove is located.
Doña Isolina Guzman Ramos
Putting Wood into Fire in Old Stove
Doña Isolina with Her New Justa Stove
Notice the Smokey Air from the Old Stove
After completing the interviews in each of the 45 homes visited, Nelson and I held community-wide meetings in Playitas and Planes with all who could attend. The principle objective of the meeting was to provide detailed instruction on the cleaning and maintenance of the stoves, which entails a number of procedures to be followed at least weekly. We also took the opportunity to compliment the community on its efforts and to emphasize that the project had proven so successful because they had worked together for a common purpose. In turn, the community expressed its sincere gratitude to the Virginia Medical Center Brigade, the Lions Club of Comayagua, and the office of Mayor Carlos Miranda of Comayagua for providing the material support required to accomplish so much in so little time.
