[Stoves] Maasai and cultural nostalgia

Dick Gallien dickgallien at gmail.com
Thu Jan 24 09:40:29 CST 2013


Hey Bob--aren't these Maasai's the winners of the Boston Marathon and
Olympic Gold?  If so and they are national heroes, as they would be
here, maybe they could help promote your efforts, unless surviving in
all that smoke gives them an unfair advantage.


On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 7:20 AM,  <rbtvl at aol.com> wrote:
> Dear Alex and all,
>
> You ask if there is not nostalgia among the Maasai.  The Maasai, like all
> people, are diverse.  There are the cautious and the risk takers.  There are
> those with a high stake in how things are now, and those needing things to
> be different.   There are things that change easily and things that will
> change slowly if at all.  It is a complex culture like all cultures; complex
> like mine here in Cambridge Massachusetts.
>
> Most of them, if they build a new house, even with very different
> rectangular walls and with a metal roof, still don't put in windows.  They
> are not going to be cooking outdoors even though often the weather is nice
> enough.   I carried some Envirofit rocket stoves to Tanzania and they tried
> them out and they weren't interested.  "We could make tea on this."   They
> want something strong and permanent for their five hours per day of indoor
> cooking.  Yes, something with some of the attributes of "three stones".
>
> The point is, though, that there is nothing about being a Maasai that
> requires that your little unventilated house be full of smoke, you walls
> sooty, your clothes smelly, your eyes running, and you and your kids
> coughing.    No nostalgia there.  And there is nothing that says you are not
> really a Maasai woman if you carry 65 pounds of wood a mile or two on your
> back only once a week instead of four times a week.  We interested in stoves
> are lucky here.  As long as we design the stove along with the women, try
> out the prototypes in their homes and are patient, we are bringing changes
> to which there is no resistance.
>
> The very first time I met with the Maasai men and women, four years ago in
> the village of Eluwai, I introduced solar panels and lights, and I said "we
> are going to get the smoke out of your house."  (I had no idea yet how to
> design a stove, but I made the statement anyway.)   All the people there,
> men and women, broke into applause as soon as it was translated to them.
>
> If I had said we were going to stop mutilating the genitals of your
> daughters I would maybe have received a few private looks of approval but no
> applause.  If I had said we are going to change all their taboos about
> gender and behavior, I would have been forgotten  immediately.   Lots of
> those things will change over the years and decades.  Young people are
> exposed to so much these days.   But change will not be because someone like
> me comes to town.
>
> Saving menial labor for women and making their small, unventilated houses
> more pleasant and healthier are not controversial and undermine nothing of
> importance in the Maasai culture I have seen.
>
> Bob Lange
> Maasai Stoves and Solar Project
>
>
>
>
>
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