The Some Birds
The title is in honor of my good friends and the great times visiting them, and even helping them with a work event. The tequila and movie-going were fantastic, but I also had a good time working at the city park where they were assigned and trying to wrangle group after group of teenagers to […]
Take the good with the smoky
And other lessons being learned in the stove project. We are in the monitoring and evaluation phase doing a final round of surveys to try to quantify fuel savings after a few months with the efficient wood-burning stoves. Since the families typically only buy wood once or twice a year, we switched to measuring wood […]
That’s quite a view you have there
Nothing like an active volcano to really make the workday more interesting, that, and getting to work outside for a day.
Don’t forget me.
One more soccer ball distribution trip. One more soccer ball distribution trip! Whew. The end is in sight. Actually, I will probably be more sad than glad that the project is coming to a close. It has been a lot of fun traveling around and visiting all the different Volunteer sites to cause chaos (with […]
2 days of flowers and work
I mean work and flowers. Definitely in that order. To work on the super-secret, super-awesome soccer ball project, I got to tag along on the practicum visit of a couple of trainees in the natural resource management program. The visit was to the Bosque La Primavera in Guadalajara, and it was definitely worth a second […]
My favorite type of day
Full of good people talking about good things over great food, and I have a new certificate of appreciation for the solar stove and efficient cookstove work.
How to build a combustion chamber
The trickiest portion of the efficient cookstove construction process is assembling the internal combustion chamber. It isn’t difficult, but requires a few sets of hands and understanding how the interior pieces fit together. Two women hold the pieces in place while a third filled in around them with the sand/gravel mixture. This was the fourth […]
Gotta get out more
Thank goodness I have secondary projects outside of the office so that I don’t miss when the wildflowers explode into bloom.
Before and After
The stove installations are actually almost all done. I saw 4 yesterday and 1 today, and I look forward to going back and taking all the “before” and “after” pictures. The installation is a quick process, except for configuring the chimney. The women typically have to drill holes in the walls of their kitchens or […]
Burning, burning wood
But now so much less wood. The first few efficient wood-burning stoves from our USAID Small Project Assistance grant have been installed. They seem awesome, and the woman are reporting excellent results. The reduction in wood usage is immediately apparent, but I will wait to take measurements until all the stoves are installed and they […]
Superhero or SNAFU?
You can either ignore the pile of dirty laundry in the background or see it as an indicator. I leave it to each of you individually to decide as you see the events of the week unfolding. Holy crap it’s only Tuesday. It better not start raining. I need to go for a run. There are […]
Power through it
If I can’t climb on the weekend, then I can at least power through some work.