Anatomy of a Project (Vol. 4) - The Problemática

The title for this volume of the Anatomy of a Project series is “The Problemática.”  It felt natural to use the Spanish word problemática because there is no single word in the English language (that I can think of) that describes the concept quite as well.  A problemática (used as a noun instead of an adjective) is the collection, series, or totality of interrelated problems and consequences that surround an issue.  What a great word!  So, let’s take a closer look at the problemática of traditional cooking methods in the communities.

The prevailing cooking method in the communities of Los Álvarez and El Llanito is over an open wood fire.  Some families use three large stones or bricks, balance their pots on top, and then simply light the fire underneath, but many families have built (or have received by donation) stove-like structures formed out of concrete.

I call these structures “stove-like” in order to differentiate them from real stoves that actually make burning wood more efficient instead of just looking nicer.  The fact is, the stove-like abominations that most families use are no more efficient than lighting a fire between a few rocks.

Traditional cooking methods...this is a classic "stove-like abomination"

Two Fundamental Issues

Here's a slide from a presentation I made for a community workshop

There are two fundamental issues with traditional cooking methods:

Firstly, these cooking fires produce un cachimbo (a slightly vulgar way to say “a lot”) of smoke that becomes trapped in the home.  Some stove-like structures do have chimneys, but they’re really only for show.  Instead of going up the chimney, the smoke rises right out of the burners and collects in the kitchen to be breathed by women and children, just as if there was no chimney.

Most kitchens have their walls and ceilings burned black with soot.  When we had families keep track of how much wood they were consuming in a week, we gave them a nice white sheet of paper with a table for them to fill in, and when we got them back they were stained a disgusting sickly yellow.

The soot is pretty gross

Secondly, cooking with traditional methods consumes an obscene amount of firewood.  We’ve calculated that an average family (about five people) consumes about fifteen pieces of wood per day.  That’s 105 in a week, 450 in a month, and 5,475 pieces of wood in a year.  Multiply that by the number of families in the community (134 in Los Álvarez for example), and we’re talking about an estimate of 733,650 pieces of firewood consumed in one year in one small community in the smallest municipality of one of the least populated provinces of Nicaragua.  Clearly there is an astronomical amount of firewood consumed as a result of traditional cooking methods.

A casual wood pile

So, the two fundamental issues with traditional cooking methods (smoke in the house and high firewood consumption) lead to consequences for the community in four general areas: Health, Safety, Economy, and Environment.

Health and Safety

Traditional cooking methods lead to both health and safety consequences in the communities.  The health consequences are a direct result of the issue of wood smoke in the home.  The high levels of wood smoke inhalation lead to respiratory problems (one of the leading reasons among women to seek medical attention in rural Nicaragua) including chronic obstruction of the lungs with tar and phlegm, tuberculosis, asthma, and lung cancer.  The wood smoke gets into the eyes as well and affects vision, leading to additional health consequences such as cataracts and blindness.  The smoke also has an effect on the skin, causing more rapid aging, wrinkles, and a leathery texture.  When all is said and done, the daily exposure to wood smoke in the home reduces the life expectancy of women in these rural communities by about twenty years.


Along with the consequences of the noxious smoke produced by traditional cooking methods, the open flame itself leads to a slew of safety hazards, especially for children.  Both the women doing the cooking and the children who play around the cooking fire are subject to burns and other cooking accidents.  There have also been many cases of house fires (especially in the dry season) resulting from the precarious nature of open-flame cooking fires.

Part of the doctor's presentation at a community workshop

Economy

The issue of high firewood consumption has a large impact on the economy of families and by extension the communities where they live.  Family members can either go out to search for and cut down their own firewood (which is an investment of time and energy, not mention often illegal), or they can buy it.  On average in Santa Lucía, one piece of firewood costs two córdobas.  A family who consumes an average of fifteen pieces of wood a day with traditional cooking methods spends about 10,950 córdobas in a year just for firewood.  That’s $472.  Considering that the average Nicaraguan makes $2,000 a year, $472 is a very significant amount just to buy wood for cooking…nearly a quarter of one person’s annual earnings.

This amount of firewood might last a couple days

Environment

Last but certainly not least, the issue of high firewood consumption in traditional cooking methods leads to a great many environmental consequences.  The most pervasive consequence of high firewood consumption is, obviously, the problem of deforestation.  Trees are being cut down in the hundreds and thousands so that rural families can cook their daily meals, not just in the communities of Los Álvarez and El Llanito, but in all of Nicaragua.

We’ve actually calculated (with the help of a local expert who works for the Ministry of Agroforestry) how many trees are being consumed for firewood in the communities each year.  Each piece of firewood is about thirty-three inches long and three inches wide, which means that the average piece of firewood has a volume of 297 cubic inches.  Assuming one family consumes fifteen pieces of firewood a day, that same family consumes about 1,626,075 cubic inches of firewood every year.  This translates to 26.65 cubic meters of wood per year.

Average firewood size

If an average small tree has 3.5 cubic meters of volume, then the average family consumes about seven and a half trees each year in firewood.  We can then estimate that the community of Los Álvarez (134 families) consumes 1,005 trees each year, and the community of El Llanito (380 families) consumes 2,850 trees each year.  Assuming that one acre of forested land in Nicaragua holds about 96 trees, we can say that just between Los Álvarez and El Llanito, deforestation as a direct result of firewood consumption is advancing at a rate of forty acres per year.

Here's another piece of wood

And how does deforestation affect the environment you ask?  Well the ecological effects of deforestation are quite far-reaching.  For one, trees function as the earth’s air filtration system.  Through the processes of respiration and photosynthesis, trees process the CO2 in the air and produce oxygen, which we breathe.  As trees disappear, the oxygen levels and the general quality of the air goes down.

Trees also serve an important function with regard to the earth’s soil.  Tree roots hold soil in place and prevent erosion.  Erosion and landslides are a huge problem in Santa Lucía since the town is surrounded by cliffs. Most communities, Los Álvarez and El Llanito included, are located on the sides of the hills leading up to those cliffs.  Trees also provide important substances to the soil that keep it healthy and fertile.  With less trees, the amount of landslides goes up and the fertility of the soil goes down.

Another important function of trees is in their relationship with water, plants and animals.  Trees make up an important part of the riparian zones of streams and rivers, meaning that their roots prevent stream banks from falling into the water and polluting it, and their leaves provide the necessary shade that keeps water temperatures at the correct level.  The process of transpiration also has a huge effect on rainfall levels, which in turn affects the growing and harvesting cycles of crops.  Trees also provide important habitats for animals and plant species.  So as trees are cut down, we see water pollution go up, rainfall become erratic, and plant and animal species leave or die.

Let's conserve trees! Let's consume less wood!

These four areas of consequence: Health, Safety, Economy, and Environment come as a direct result of the issues of smoke and firewood consumption that surround traditional cooking methods.  The consequences are the problems that exist within the community, and they are the things that we want to change and improve upon in the economical stove project.  As we will see in volume five, The Stove Design, the economical stove provides a solution to each one of these problems in the four areas of consequence.

Looking towards El Llanito from Los Álvarez

    • (Vol. 1) – Intro to Economical Stoves
    • (Vol. 2) – Community Development…The Goal
    • (Vol. 3.1) – The Key Players
           (Vol. 3.2) - The Designers/Facilitators
           (Vol. 3.3) - The Community
    • (Vol. 4) – The Problemática ***
    • (Vol. 5.1) – The Stove Design
           (Vol. 5.2) - Materials and Design Elements

           (Vol. 5.3) - The Stovetops

           (Vol. 5.4) - The Table

           (Vol. 5.5) - The Stove Itself

           (Vol. 5.6) - The Chimney

    • (Vol. 6) – Community Workshops
    • (Vol. 7) – The Budget and Funding
    • (Vol. 8) – Designing for Sustainability


Next up, The Stove Design.  I'm going to release a neat little video with that one!  Stay tuned.