Local Guatemala Stove Project Volunteers

The local chimney sweep, Renny Lambton and environmental consultant, Andre Lalonde, like many from Wakefield this winter, trekked off to Guatemala to take a small break from winter and the same old routine. Renny and I took part in a once in a lifetime experience to build cookstoves for disadvantaged Mayan families of San Francisco Alte Plano district of the Guatemalan Western Highlands. Springing up around 10,000 feet, surrounded by idyllic volcanic cones, our home base was a cheap hostel called Casa Argentina in the city of Quazeltanango or Xela (Shay-lah). 

Renny and I were part of a 23 strongest ever volunteer force of Canadians working with the Perth based NGO called Guatemala Stove Project, who have put their own time and money on the line to help build masonry cookstoves from ``scratch``. Even the energy efficient cookstove, which costs about $225 to build, is based on a traditional Mayan design. The GSP was founded in 1999 in response to a request for help from CEDEC (indigenous peoples non profit group) for masonry cook stoves but the communities they serve lacked the material resources to build such stoves for themselves. The GSP and its local cadre of masons, along with volunteers, have seen the difference between smoke and creosote encrusted cooking areas and those same places after a low cost GSP stove has been installed. There`s no doubt here that these stoves dramatically improve the health, life expectancy and over all well being of Mayan families, especially women and children. The statistics are depressing to say the least, but these efforts by GSP really deserve notice and credit. 

Renny and I got to see that up close. We got to work with GSP and learn more than making firm foundations for long lasting cookstoves, we learned to cement long lasting friendships and trust with these Mayan communities.

``Scratch`` means using basic translation (Spanish to the local Mayan dialect is tricky) and even sign language to communicate firstly and directly with the Woman of the house - to tell us where the stove should go. We then literally ``scratch out`` a stove footprint in the mud and rock encrusted floor, to level out a place for the cinder blocks to be layered down and `buttered` together. Renny and I learned some of the Mason`s basic tricks of the trade, when a volunteer mason from Algonquin college named John Scott showed us how to make this kind of cookstove at a weekend training session in Perth.

Here we were put to the test. We were fortunate to be guided along by GSPs founding volunteer, Tom Clarke, whom I met in 2000 at Blue Skies music festival. In fact, we were very fortunate to have many other returning volunteers with GSP as part of our team this year. Our team was a great cross section including a school teacher and his daughter, a doctor and his wife with 2 kids, a sculpture and his wife, a prospector, an animator, a lineman for Ontario Hydro, retirees, and so many more wonderful people to work with and get to know.

Of course we were given great support and help from all segments of the local family who were receiving the stove, but friends and neighbors as well. A rather time consuming job, soaking and moving cinder blocks, sifting sand, collecting water and making concrete, collecting water and insulation material called pumice. Through CEDEC, our intrepid volunteers split into 4 or 5 groups early each morning for roughly 2 weeks, and worked all day with about 5 local masons who do this kind of thing almost full time through the GSP.

Instead of giving gifts to the kids at the end of the day, I juggled with them and we all laughed as I clowned it up. At the end of the day, us volunteers were good tired and in need of a warm solar shower and a cold Gallo beer and dinner. An early evening became the norm as we got used to our routine of meeting for prearranged breakfast next door at 6:30. It was so cold you could see your breath. 

All the building material had already been lovingly and painstakingly moved into place by the local families and community members. Although the number of cook stoves built by volunteers each year has increased over the years (since 1999), we built 30 stoves in about 2 weeks which given the rotating illness that inevitably makes its rounds with volunteers, we were pretty proud (I think this was a record for GSP volunteers). More importantly of course, is overall, the GSP has built around 4,000 cookstoves in Guatemala since 1999. This kind of work has helped immeasurably by reducing local deforestation and dangerous woodsmoke, training local masons, and instilling a sense of pride of ownership and the benefits a GSP cookstove can provide.

I personally would love to go back to Guatemala next winter and do this experience again with a new group of volunteers. This time I`ll spend a few more weeks in San Pedro and San Juan on the edge of this idyllic lake called Atitlan. I could live here!