Jan. 6 - GO!

Our first day of testing happened! And with great success! Two of the three stoves worked extremely well. In fact, the family my team cooked with liked the Darfur stove so much they started asking questions about how they could get a stove like this before the meal was even finished! They had never seen anything like it before.

Grandmother preparing the dough by the fire.

“What do you think?” I asked once Savita finished cooking. Savita is Grandmother's daughter-in-law.

Savita looked at me, giggled, and then turned to the translator and said, “I am so happy today. The stove is very good.”

Savita after cooking dinner using the Darfur Stove.

She was extremely happy with how well the stove performed.

 

This is it! This is why we are doing what we are doing. All the hours, all the failures, the times I thought my frustrations would get the best of me. This single moment, her happiness, was worth everything. We our working with people so that all of us can perform at our fullest potential and enjoy the best quality of life possible in an environment that is both sustainable and equitable.

In that moment, my mind was racing with all the thoughts I wanted to express. But really, it was simple. “We are happy because you are happy,” I replied back. Everyone was now laughing and smiling. Tonight, there was no "us" or "them". We were one.  

Hard work on everyone's part united us all; the evidence was in the cooking. Savita cooked their normal evening meal of wheat rotis (bread) and dahl (lentil soup) for 10-15 people. It took her half the time to cook this meal. (It usually takes two and a half hours to make this particular dinner. Using the Darfur stove, it only took Savita one hour and 15 minutes.) In addition, the stove consumed around 80% less wood (1.5kg of wood, instead of an estimated 8kg of wood). Most importantly, there was literally no smoke! I was able to sit right next to the fire (closer than anyone else) and had absolutely no problem. This is really saying something because my eyes typically water so much that I can’t even be in the kitchen, let alone sit right next to a traditional wood-burning stove while it's in use.

 

Weighing firewood to assess total amount of biomass consumed.

It’s interesting to note that several of the men congregated in the kitchen while Savita cooked. And I don’t think they sat in just because we were there. In fact, the guys came right out and said the reason they don’t normally occupy the kitchen during cooking is because they simply can’t tolerate the smoke. Tonight, they said they had no problem sitting in the kitchen while Savita cooked. The impact of this statement sunk in when I thought about women and their kids, two groups of people that don’t have the luxury of choosing whether or not to occupy the kitchen.

Less time.

Less wood.
Less smoke.

More life.

Gathering performance data and feedback during testing.

Logistically speaking: Today was a village test day. Our large group broke off into three subgroups (Field Teams A-C). Each team was designated a different home and stove. Our sample size is 3 homes per setting, so each of the three stoves will be tried out by three families. FES helped us recruit volunteers, a total of 9 families (three homes in each of the three settings). Last thing, we are rotating settings between each test. So tomorrow we will test out the same stove but in the city and the town settings. The day after tomorrow we will come back to the village and test out a different stove in the same homes. Each team will stay with the same family at each setting for the duration of the field study. Each family will try out all the stoves, but in different orders (in case order has a biasing effect on preference).