Ups and Downs and Solar Kebabs

It's been a week of  both sadness and happiness. We felt very far away grieving this week the sudden death of Karen in the UK, mum of Tawney and Heather who are friends of Amisadai and Louisa. And at the same time we celebrated with George and Rachel the birth of their first baby, also in the UK. And in the midst of our thoughts being in England, life goes on here. We had to say goodbye to Kate who has been working on her PhD here, living with Andy and Angela, and is now heading back to the UK. But on a happy note, we have enjoyed some useful science fun, a good time in Magozi and our first oranges (yum!).



The Cone Cookers with Bananas stuffed

with chocolate!



Cooking eggs

Our solar experimentation has been good fun. The girls have been learning about energy from the sun and we have been able to do some solar cone cooking eggs (first attempt failed as we didn't leave them long enough and they were a bit raw!) and chocolate bananas (delicious! But we left them too long and melted the cups!)



Oops! Melted cups



We tried fruity kebabs on parabola cookers and we are drying chilis and mangos in the awesome solar dryer Tim built. The solar dryer in particular is something we would like to work on as part of our stove project and encourage its use as a means of food preservation, supply of nutritious food and also possibly as a small local business idea. So it's been very useful science work!

Parabola Cooker Kebabs

Solar Dryer

Today we were in Magozi and had a good and encouraging time with the church there. It was very hot and dry there, and quite unbelievable how quickly the land has gone from lush green to dusty brown. Tim preached very well in Swahili with very impressive improvement to the last time he did this - always encouraging. We feel we are getting to know people and also realized a large number of people are wanting to join the group we will soon be starting to work on the stoves, so again, it is encouraging! This week, they will be digging the three large pits we will use to store and prepare the clay for the stoves.

Learning to weave in Magozi





A Rice Cooking Competition!

We are back home now after our Easter in Dar-es-Salaam. It was sad to say goodbye to my parents after our fun two weeks which passed all too quickly, but we went from the airport to have a night at the beach in Bagamoyo with Huruma and Joyce and family, which was a welcome and fun distraction! And we went on to stay with them and celebrated Easter and Louisa's birthday.

Louisa's Party! With Kenny, Jimmy and Joan and Edmund.

On the last Sunday that my parents were with us, we went to Magozi for our first jiko (stove) demonstration ... a Cooking Competition! Magozi is an hour and a half drive way - and it was a pretty bumpy ride at the end of the rainy season here! But we were pleased to make it after the car wouldn't start at home and then again wouldn't start again after filling up with diesel! But thanks to the vaseline in Mom's purse, a small pair of pliers and good friend Andy, we were soon fixed and on our way!

After the church service, we all went outside and two women volunteered, amid the cheers, to cook rice, one on the three-stone fire and the other on our jiko. We provided all they needed - equal amounts of water, oil, firewood and rice and at the signal, they got cooking! People really enjoyed watching the whole thing - I'm not sure where else such a crowd would stay for such a time watching water boil! But there were cheers for the jiko when the water boiled! We had done a series of tests beforehand comparing cooking on an open fire with a jiko; tests showed that the jiko really does use significantly less firewood and also produce less smoke. We were fervantly hoping all would go according to plan and the jiko would win! It did! It was good fun and the jiko definitely gained in popularity! We gave two as gifts to the pastor and the evangelist and have since heard they are using them and really like them!


Stout, our invaluable worker, measuring the temperature of the water on the three-stone fire



Weighing the remaining firewood (yes, my lovely Canadian kitchen scales are rather worse for wear now!)

Today we were really pleased to find the pastor of the Magozi church was in Iringa and able to come and have lunch with us. He and Tim along with other village leaders and Mr Duma (the government official responsible for development in the area) are meeting next Friday to officially initiate the project. Following that, a "jiko group" will be established, who we will work closely with to start the production and marketing of the stoves. We are really looking forward to working with this group; building relationships, making stoves together, studying the Bible, discussing business training, and the practice of efficient, healthy cooking. We plan to move to live in Magozi for the summer as this groups gets going.

And so we are busy getting ready for the project, (including making more stoves, which has hiccuped a bit as we try to get the Magozi clay to stop cracking!). I am having a Tanzanian cooking morning next week with Mama Kiri to practice cooking on the jiko and try out nutritious local recipes. The girls and I are pushing ahead to try and finish the schoolyear a bit early. This is involving some late nights as I prepare for the end of this year and also try to plan out Year 1 and 3 for September to see what resources we need to get here before then! Tim is preparing to teach at a Pastors Conference in Mwanza next month and preparing some sermons in English and Swahili for the next few weeks. And that is "what's cookin' in Tanzania"!