Doin' Work

I arrived to Peru with very little of a plan as far as work is concerned. I came here with an organization called Peru 109 which I knew would have some small projects to keep me occupied for a little while. My plan was to search for larger scale projects once I arrived as I found it very difficult to find projects that interested me from the states and were in Cusco, did not charge ridiculous fees, and were in the area of sustainable development.

After arriving in Peru, as I mentioned a few posts ago I still had trouble finding a good organization to work with, which left me very frustrated. I came here to do volunteer work, was ready to start, but could not find a group that wanted my help and that I was interested in. After a long search I was loosing hope. There were many organizations that I encountered installing clean burning wood stoves in Peru to improve the health of their users and the energy efficiency of the stoves, but I couldn't find one to work with that wasn't charging ridiculous fees. What's more, when questioning these organizations to see if I might be able to see their designs in the fields, they all refused or did not respond to my request. One however did inform me that there may be some designs for these stoves online.

With this bit of advice, I started my research coming across a heap of information. I then decided that it might be possible to start my own project designing, constructing, and installing clean burning wood stoves. After a few days of investigation, I discover this project would be much more complex than I originally thought, but decided to press on as it was a project that really interested me and that I thought was worthwhile. I found full books on the topic of rural village stove design and construction. People actually devote their lives to this issue as the indoor smoke created by these stoves kills 1.6 million people each year, more than malaria! It is also the cause of a host of other eye and respiratory illnesses. It's a much bigger problem worldwide than I ever realized.

Now after a few weeks of investigation I have prepared a document, partly informational, partly as a guidebook for me while constructing the stoves. If you're interested in learning a bit more about what I'll be doing over the next few months click on the title of this post "Doin' Work" to go to a website to download this document. It's a bit long, so I suggest just scanning it if you're interested. There are lots of pictures :)

Until next time, keep livin' the dream!