AUTHOR: Nancy
TITLE: Seattle, WA and Antigua Guatemala
DATE: 1/26/2009 03:49:00 PM
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BODY:
Good Morning,
Elke, our new StoveTeam intern, and I spent last week-end in Kirkland at the ETHOS conference learning about the advances in stove building and distribution. The lectures on carbon credit financing and ceramic fibers were interesting as was Aprovecho's film of their factory in China that is now producing tens of thousands of small metal stoves. These are stoves we had once considered distributing, but in Central America we feel our local production model is still the best.
The attendees were from such diverse areas as South Africa, Malawi and Korea, and all told stories of differing types of stoves. For me, it was interesting to speak with a woman from Sudan who is in charge of one of the IDP camps in Darfur and to know that our model of building local stove factories might not suit a country where most of the population has AIDS and life expectancy is around 35 years. Each country and each area has its own set of parameters when it comes to cooking stoves. Fuels range from kerosene to coal to wood, and stoves come in metal, ceramic, and cement. Ours is just one, but it still seems the perfect solution in Latin America and we hope that carbon credits may assist us in financing our projects.
So today we are in Antigua, Guatemala. The big news here is that it was SNOWING in Huehuetenango. I've never before heard of snow in Guatemala, but climate change is real, and we are experiencing it. It's still 75 during the middle of the day in Antigua, and the sky is still blue behind the volcano. It is my favorite place in all of Central America despite the tourist influence.
Since we've been here we've had productive meetings with Marco Tulio and seen the progress on his factory. I continue to be impressed by his business sense and how he is approaching stove production. Marco Tulio has a long-term approach and is building a factory for the future of his two young sons and daughter. He is working on a cost-analysis basis making sure that the three stoves he is producing are priced correctly from the very beginning. His spreadsheets include the cost of social security, the cost of insurance, and all of the details of production. He will be selling stoves to non-profit organizations as well as to individuals. The stoves will be priced the same for each.
As to his factory, the beams our team put up last year now hold a lamina roof, and a cement block wall has been started to enclose the factory area. There is great progress, but there will be much the next team can do to help!
Gustavo, Ken and Don are also here. Everyone had delayed flights and we are all beginning to come to life after a few nights of good sleep in Posada de la Merced. We will go to Lake Atitlan where Gustavo will be doing a demonstration of the Ecocina for Sharon of Mayan Families, and tonight we will meet with Juan Carlos Cheves of Guatemala Sur Rotary. Ken has been analyzing the two additional stoves, the Ecocomal and the Plancha Stove that Marco Tulio is producing, and all of us have visited the proposed tile maker and learned about the mixture of "black dirt" with clay.
For those of you who have been on a team, you will be happy to know that Hortensia, who lives next to the factory, is DELIGHTED with her Ecocina and she is using it EXCLUSIVELY! She says she is using half the wood she used before and her neighbors are interested in stoves as well. Elke met her and turned on her carbon and particulate matter monitor yesterday and we hope to have some beginning results today.
Well, it's time for breakfast and I'm off to Fernando's Cafe to have my "typico"…scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions accompanied by black beans and plantains…not a bad start to the day!
NancyLabels: Guatemala
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR:
DATE:Thursday, January 29, 2009 7:32:00 AM
Good post, Nancy. Keep 'em coming.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR:
DATE:Thursday, January 29, 2009 7:33:00 AM
Good post, Nancy. Keep 'em coming.
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