Tuesday 3 June
We improved our customer service by Tuesday. Chair up on two benches so Susan didn't break her back, and I got to stand on the platform with the patient to hold the light. This was our longest day: Susan did over 60 extractions, I think. Whole families waited patiently for hours and hours.
Members of the agricultural cooperative made lunch for us in the church kitchen, a tiny wooden outbuilding across the road. This meal was extravagantly good: everything very fresh, hot off the stove, and delicious. Piping hot tortillas with fresh honey; a wonderful soup with potatos, platanos, squash, and chicken; and a hot drink made from crushed rasperries.
The stove they are using (the white plastered platform) is an eco-stove, a technology fostered by Heifer and now in use throughout its Latin American networks. This stove uses a fraction of the fuel needed by a traditional hogar (beehive oven), so it reduces deforestation, and labor - the women have to cut and haul all of the fuel -- and it heats better and is less dangerous than the traditional stoves, too.
Heifer is an amazing organization, projects and collaborations springing up everywhere. It really is driven from the bottom up. Its all about listening BEFORE asking questions. They don't walk into a place and "Identify The Need," they just show up and hang out, and listen. And people tell them what is needed. And Heifer helps them figure out how to do it.
Incidentally, I turned 44 on Tuesday. My colleagues gave me a package of chewable vitamins as a birthday present, so the "Old Lady" can keep her strength up.
