[Stoves] THE BIG DESIGN QUESTIONS: IS TECH APPROPRIATE IF IT VIOLATES CULTURAL NORMS

[rbtvl at aol.com]

Cooking is obviously acentral cultural practice.  And we intendto help change this cultural practice.  Idon’t know if we should call it “changing cultural norms” or not, but weobviously want to change culture.
 
The important thing is tochange it WITH the women. In our work in Tanzania we find all, yes all, Maasaiwomen want to change this aspect of their culture once they know it ispossible.   Not one woman we have encounteredin the present 11 Maasai villages where we work prefers to keep her threestones rather than get one of our chimney-based, smoke-reducing, house-cleaning,work-saving  stoves.   We have 100 percent sustained adoption.  
 
Our problem is not changing women’sattitudes to their culture.  They can beconservative with respect to some aspects of culture, of course.   But they immediately see the benefits of changingfrom a cooking culture that makes them and their children sick, their eyes hurt,and the menial labor in wood gather so demanding.   We find women want to change this miserablepart of their culture.  Their problem isgetting their husbands to sell a goat or two to get them a stove because theirculture is plagued in general by way too much indifference on the part of mento the living conditions and health of their wives and children.  That is a not a stove problem. That ischanging too, slowly, but because of all sorts of interactions not just aboutcooking.
 
We sweeten the stove deal byselling solar lighting and cell phone charging systems to men who buy stovesfor their wives.    This, I suppose, ischange in cultural norms too.  All Maasaimen and women want this electrification. Every last one.
 
Our analysis of public healthstatistics convinces us that the deaths from lung disease of between 20 and 25children per 1000 before the age of five are prevented by our stove.  We also  measured Carbon Monoxide 24 average levels inMaasai homes cooking with three stones and it is a few percent points belowwhat the WHO specifies as the SYMPTOMATIC level for CO poisoning.  This is particularly disturbing since theMaasai keep new mothers and newborn indoors for a couple of months after birth.  Our stove brings this CO level down to ahealthy level way  below the WHOstandards.
 
Why are Maasai women to readyfor this change of culture?
 
First, we designed the stoveover a year and a half in collaboration with the women, trying out prototypesin their homes.    And women do the brick work and install thestove.   It is not  just a retail commodity.  It is an aspect of women’s work and empowerment.
 
And what so many of us forgetis that three stones is a good way to cook for some purposes.   It isgreat for long term simmering in large pots, like corn and bean stews.  And it is easy to control fireintensity.  And you don’t have to tendthe fire all the time and can do other things. So If our stoves make such cooking inconvenient for women they go back tothree stones at least some of the time.  It is not because they love the culture of smoky inefficient three stones.They are not clinging to a cultural norm.   It is that they are cooking sevendays a week for from maybe five to ten people, and need convenience.   Our stove works for these cooking challengesas well as other types of cooking.  Sothey never go back to three stones.   
 
Yes, rural African women havecultures.   We all do.   They are basically over-worked women whoneed change.  And if we work collaborativelywith them, we can find the changes that they want.
 
Bob Lange
Maasai Stoves and Solar
www.internationalcollaborative.org
+1 508 735 9176

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