Tuesday, December 7
Today was a very exciting day!
Our first stop of the day was to meet Friday at Rekays, a local construction supplier, to purchase the supplies needed for a reinforced door for the hammermill building.
Loading the door supplies at Rekays
Friday and Muyunda figuring out how to get everything where it needed to go
After Rekays, we headed to Masala market to pick up the pulumusa stoves. The stoves were supposed to be ready at 10am, but when we arrived they were still being constructed. This turned out to be something of a boon: we were able to watch them being built, so hopefully we would be able to explain it later!
A Stove under construction. The double walled design forces heat upward - into the pot!
We headed over to Matthews' hardware shop for a moment to pick up some "round bar" for the hammermill doors, and we returned in time to watch the final assembly of the stoves. We were very impressed with the care they took and the creative techniques they used. They are excellent craftsmen!
As the tinsmiths were putting the final touches on the stoves, an interesting thing happened: another market seller walked by and was immediately very interested in the Pulumusa stove. She peppered the smiths with questions about what they were doing and how it worked. It seems that folks are aware that the traditional Mbaula stoves are less than ideal, but they are unaware of their options for improved stoves. A glance around the tinsmith's area revealed why; there were dozens of completed Mbaulas on hand, but nothing to indicate that the smiths could make any other stove designs.
A bit of questioning revealed that the smiths actually knew how to make several improved stove designs, but they hadn't been successful in marketing them. Even folks working in the same market were unaware of what they could do!
Muyunda explaining how the stove works
Once we had the stoves in hand, we headed out to Kantolomba.
When we arrived at Kantolomba, there were again many children waiting for us. This time they were on hand to work with Michael on an art project. Initially the plan was to have 30 children draw cards, but so many kids wanted to participate that we were "forced" to round up paper and crayons for all of them!
What a welcome!
Michael explaining the project
Rounding the kids up for some pictures
Muyunda had many pictures to take!
Michael and Charles checking the names of all of the children
While Michael et al worked with the kids on the cards, Francis and Peter were overhead working on the electrical wiring. The guys are making swift progress and hope to be finished before we leave.
The guys in the rafters
At the same time, more of the guys were hard at work putting the final touches on the plumbing fixtures. We learned an interesting fact about Zambian style plumbing: rather than bolt the toilet to the floor they put down a layer of concrete that fixes the toilet in place! The finished product looked quite nice.
Christopher putting the finishing touches on the bathroom floor
The completed floor
Meanwhile, Brian and Dave introduced the Pulumusa stove to the coop ladies. It was a big hit! Estella had previously used one a friend brought from Lusaka, and she had nothing but praise for it. It was quickly decided to fire one up and try it by cooking a small pot of beans. Seeing the stove in action created quite a stir: the ladies could not agree whether they wanted two each or three!
A test run with a pot of beans. Muyunda graciously volunteered to test the beans.
Theresa asked who wanted a Pulumusa. We sense a hit on our hands.
A few questions turned up the fact that the ladies spend, on average, about 80,000 kwatcha a month on charcoal. A Pulumusa stove is supposed to reduce fuel consumption by about 40% - 32,000 kwatcha per month for a household that adopts it. The stoves we bought in Masala cost us 35,000 kwatcha each, so they could potentially pay themselves off in just over a month. After that they would free up quite a bit of income for folks; for the relatively well off families in the coop it would amount to 10-15% of their total household budget free to spend on other necessities. We sense that a microloan program for the stoves could be a tremendous opportunity here to bring about a change in the economics of Kantolomba!
While we were testing the stoves, Theresa asked Eugenia to get her husband Lingson, who is also a tinsmith. He took one of the stoves home with him and hoped to have a sample stove ready for us by tomorrow morning. We are hopeful that he will be able to produce the stoves in Kantolomba, and possibly train members of the coop to produce them. We hope that once the coop families have adopted the stoves, their neighbors will be eager to get on board. According to the organization that designed them, there are about 12,000 Pulumusas in all of Zambia. We could be getting in on the ground floor of something big!
Lingson and Friday investigate the stove's design.
As we were tinkering with the stoves, coop member Beatrice brought her new baby, Delight, for a visit. She was looking quite cute decked out head to toe in baby clothes knitted by Rose's girls program!
Baby Delight
As the conversation turned to babies, we got a bit of exciting news: Josephine recenty went in for a sonogram and discovered she is having twins! The girls will have quite a lot of knitting to do!
While we were chatting, the potter arrived with the finished bowls we had ordered. They are quite lovely!
Soon it was lunch time, and we again sat in with the coop to take our meal.
After lunch we checked in with Rose, who was conducting medical exams for community members. It has been very exciting for us to see folks have access to routine medical care.
Doing some tests
Checking on Beauty's son - he fell on his arm a few days before
Next, we visited the sewing room to have a look at some samples of two new projects the cooperative is working on: Chitenge book covers and pencil holders. These were an idea from a supporter in the United States, and they turned out quite lovely. We hope to see them on Sangha Market soon!
A journal cover
Pencil/Pen holders
Aprons packed up to come to the United States
After checking in on the sewing, Brian and Dave decided it would be a good time to try making a compressed earth block. W're hopeful that these blocks could be an affordable, water resistant building material for homes in Kantolomba. Currently most of the buildings are made from mud bricks; each rainy season dozens of homes collapse.
Friday and Dave had rented a form used to make mud bricks, and we were hopeful we could convert it for compressed blocks. Since the soil tests were inconclusive, we decided to try two different stabilizers: portland cement and lime. We only had cement on hand, so we mixed up a batch and gave it a go. The results were less than stellar, but as we say at the monastery, "Well now we know one more way NOT to do that!". We spoke to some of the carpenters about making some special equipment for us, and tomorrow we will work on revision two, stabilized with lime!
Improvised compression technique 1.0
Lifting out the block
Pascal getting started on our new compression tools
After our brick experiments, we headed accross the river to Twapia to see how Friday was coming along with the hammermill door. The road to Twapia used to be dangerous, but recently it has been greatly improved. This trip was our first opportunity to see the river that folks in Kantolomba used to come to for water!
Confering about the door
Putting it all together
After our meeting with Friday in Twapia, we dashed back over to Masala market for one last chore - ordering an institutional sized Pulumusa stove! The home use stoves were so popular with the ladies that we felt it would be worth trying out a big Pulumusa for the feeding program. We hope they'll like it just as much as the smaller ones.
Getting a sense of how big the stove will be
At the end of the day, it was very gratifying to see so many things coming together at once. There is a tremendous amount of energy in the project, and we feel like we are building up momentum on many fronts: The plumbing in the building is done; electricity is soon to follow; the hammermill building will be secured and wired soon; the sewing coop is doing great work; Rose's health programs are making a great difference for folks; the girls program is taking off; and we feel we are close to breakthroughs in allowing the coop to generate revenue in a way that benefits their local community.
This is all on top of the project's ongoing successes: fresh clean water for the community of Kantolomba; 400+ vulnerable children fed daily; and educational programs that help kids get ready for school, stay in school, and excell in school. It is impossible to express how greatful we are to be able to participate in this wonderful work!
Bonus cute face:
