Stove Construction Sta. Maria Chiquimula!

The Giant truck we used to transport all of the materials

Loading 1,440 bricks onto the truck

Doors, chimneas and hats for the stoves

The community, Tasabalquiej, waiting for their materials

The 30 women of Tasabalquiej all standing behind their soon-to-be stoves. I definitely was teary-eyed when I took this picture. The women were all so happy!

The community of Chiaj helping to unload some of the materials

A few women carrying a stove top

The 16 women of Chiaj stranding behind their materials.

Santiago (I like to secretly call him Frankenstein because he has gold teeth, no neck and slicks his hair back), the "1st Sindico" (which is like 'vice-mayor), who has ben helping me out tremendously with this project (although he can be very difficult to work with), is talking to the families about how great everyone has come together to make this project work and how it is important to have an organized community and they are setting a great standard and example for Santa Maria Chiquimula.

The community, Chuwiq'ichinal, helping unload materials

The community treated us to lunch. I thought this photo was great because we literally had lunch in the middle of nowhere, in the forest, on the dirt floor - but it was delicious.

The view from one of the homes we were building a stove in - this picture does not give credit to how beautiful this community is.

This is what the kitchen looked like before we built this family a stove.

Starting the first layer of brick.

The women helping to cement the bricks together

The first day completed - the base of the stove.

The stove was then filled with white sand and here we are building the "fire box" with brick and placing a "brown sugar/clay" mixture to hold the brick together.

The fire box almost completed.

The stove once we placed the stove top on

Building the bridge over the door to fill in the gap between the stove top and the door with pieces of iron.

The finished product :) This is Ana with her husband Baltazar and their daughter Marilena.

This is me and my buddy Miguel. I taught him how to "high-five" and "thumbs - up" , to which every 5 minutes he would ask me to high-give or thumbs up - so we made a hand shake out of it. A high-five straight into a thumbs-up but touching our thumbs together making it into a thumb print - Miguel thought of that one :) Such a cute boy!!

My improved wood-burning stove project officially started this past Monday! However, the week before I was completely stressing out. The bank account to deposite the USAID check had not been opened nor had any of the materials arrived to any of the communities. I knew I had to start the stove demonstrations Monday, if not, I knew this project would not be completed before I went home. Well, since I've been here I have come to expect the unexpected and take into account that there will definitely be setbacks. I found out Weds. we were able to deposite the check and the Muni told me they were starting to deliver the materials Friday! On Saturday afternoon when we had delivered (mostly) all the of the materials I went back home, sat on my porch and told Tuk "did that really just happen?". It was almost too good to be true. So within a matter of 4 days we were able to accomplish everything I was freaking out about. So gracias a Dios, we were able to start construction, as planned, on Monday! So far we have built 6 stoves and are building 3 more this coming Tuesday and Wednesday. The 9 stoves that are being built are "stove demonstrations" for each of the 3 communities. Each community will have 3 stoves built and the women living in that community are divided into 3 groups where they will have to watch how the stove is built. Once they have watched the 2 day process, within each group, the women have to build their own stove as well as help the other women in their group build their own stove as well. I have given them 2 weeks to build their stoves and after the 2 weeks I will be coming around to each community making sure all the stoves have been built. If not - I will be forced to take out my wooden spatula :) (aka threatening to take away their stoves) If I don't give the women a time period, they will not finish the stoves and they may even sell some of the materials, so this is my way to holding everyone accountable.

Well, it has been a loooonng week, but I am so happy with how everything is going. We had a few setbacks with the first demonstration we had due to over measuring, but we were able to fix the problem and the stoves look fantastic. I would like to thank everyone who has donated to this project - without your donations, none of this would be possible. I hope with these pictures you are able to see directly how you impacted the lives of these families with your donations. You are directly improving the health conditions in these families lives - you are saving them! If you are interested in donating please check out my website: http://www.healthyhomesguatemala.webs.com/ and click on the link "how to donate". I will be starting another stove project next year and will need all the help I can get! Thank you all so much!