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Wood-conserving Stoves and Ovens - Belize

Wood-conserving Stove Demonstration in San Ignacio

I was lucky to be in San Ignacio in the Cayo district of Belize, near the Guatemalan border, on August 8th. There I met with Nana Mensah, the Belize Director for Sustainable Harvest International, at the Mana Kai campground near the marketplace. Nana had been invited there with a small crew from the Toledo district, in the south, to demonstrate the construction of a very efficient, easy-to-build wood-conserving stove and oven. Sarah Kennedy, Outreach Director for SHI, was also there leading a group of about twelve young women volunteers, along with their counselors, from Camp Betsy Cox in Vermont, who were taking part in a Smaller World Service Trip with SHI. These volunteers had spent the previous two weeks in the Toledo district working on family farms and assisting in various projects, including tree planting, constructing of pig pens and chicken coops, and building of wood-conserving stoves and ovens. These stoves are especially important to the Maya of Toledo because they often have their traditional open cooking hearth inside their houses with no chimney for the smoke, and according to Nana they are often breathing the equivalent of eight packs of cigarettes a day. Not only do these modified "rocket" stoves have stove pipe chimneys to eliminate the smoke, but they are so efficient that just a handful of small wood is enough to cook a meal. No longer is it necessary to spend the day and walk long distances gathering enough wood for cooking. Now just the prunings alone from the Cacao trees, cash crops that are grown for chocolate, are sufficient fuel, leaving more time for farming and other activities. To date SHI has built over 165 of these stoves, saving 1,650 trees per year.

I was joined by two local artists from the nearby village of Bullet Tree Falls, Jairo Diaz and Sandro Teck, who were anxious to observe the construction and return to their village to teach others. To me, this free sharing of knowledge is one of the most important aspects of the work SHI is doing in local communities. By the time we arrived at 9:00 the crew had already laid and mortared the base of concrete blocks, about 3' by 4', and the side walls about 3' high for the stove and 4' high for the oven. The girls were busily mixing red clay that had been brought from the Mountain Pine Ridge, although any kind of clay works as well. The clay is used to line the inside of the stove, hold the blocks in place, and for insulation. A small firebox was constructed of tiles and set in place, and the base of the stovepipe chimney was set and mortared. Then the inside of the stove was filled with ashes and clay for more insulation and the stovepipe was set. Next the metal cooking surface, which had been previously constructed, was set and mortared.

While all this was going on, Nana had gone to pick up the oven, which was easily put together by a local welder from oil drums. The fire is built under the baking drum, which has a hinged door for placing the food inside, and the heat and smoke go around the drum and are caught by the half drum above and directed out the chimney. The sides of the oven were also packed with mud by the girls and finished off with a smooth plaster of cement.

By noon all but the finishing touches of the stove and oven were completed, and most of the work had been done by the girls. They were covered with mud but in great spirits, singing songs and enjoying the beautiful warm day. A place to swim and wash off was just down the hill in the Macal River, and a delicious lunch of fresh fruit and local delights was waiting under the thatch-roofed palapa. After lunch the volunteers boarded their school bus to visit the nearby Maya temple of Xunantunich, the Stone Maiden, while the crew put the finishing touches to the construction and applied a smooth waterproof plaster of cement. All that was left to be done was to wait a few days for the cement to dry, and then to paint the stove any colors of the rainbow, perhaps with a mural by Sandro Teck.

For more information on the wood-conserving stove, please go to http://www.sustainableharvest.org/stoves.cfm

For more information on Betsy Cox Camp please go to http://www.campbetseycox.com/

Terry Crouch
Garland, Maine