Yesterday I spent the day touring villages to look at improved cookstoves. We visited four different villages and groups of women who make the improved cookstoves out of clay. Improved cookstoves are a valuable tool for agroforestry and embraced by many women because if constructed correctly they economise greatly on wood. Everyone in villages and in cities cooks with wood, which is cut en brousse. The mountain behind my house is one place where people in surrounding villages go to cut down wood, not only for personal consumption, but to sell on the side of the road to people going into the city. However with deforestation and desertification, as well a population increases, wood is becoming more and more scarce. Thus any agroforestry volunteer could do well promoting the use of improved cookstoves, which conserve wood and also add to the health of a household by cutting down on smoke inhaled from the fire as well as protecting children from falling into an open fire. While many people do use some form of improved cookstoves, many still cook balancing a pot over three stones, which means that a lot of heat escapes and is not used. In addition, the fire is open to wind which can cause it wood to burn quickly and the heat, once more to escape without being used. Of the improved cookstoves that exist, many can be improved, either by making a model that is more efficient through it's structure and design or the composition of the clay and materials used. I am hoping to start working with two local potters in my village who are sisters and make caneries (the big terra cotta jars that store water) in developing a good prototype for an improved cookstove to use in village, but also to sell on the side of the road along with wood. Oumarou is the animator who promotes improved cookstoves with the ONG GED and he took me on his moto to visit some people he has trained in the fabrication of the stoves. One group, a GIC (legalized group) of women has been fashioning them for a year now. They sell them right next to the bundles of wood on the side of the road. One project, therefore goes towards environmental protection, economic gain and the empowerment of the women who create the stoves. The day was a long one, but wonderful and we spent a good three to four hours with the one group who work in GIC, getting together once a week to make the stoves (quite a nice social activity) and then sell them together splitting the money amongst themselves. (This GIC also does agriculture, and started out doing that.) I also got to try my hand at making one, a very small mini-version. Below are some pictures of the process, followed by some other pictures of various types of improved cookstoves.
While I don't really love the idea of guard dogs and our Golden Retriever in the States proved more likely to lick a burgler's hand than bite it, and I'm assuming Leila might turn out the same, I think it will be good to have her here at the house, as a security element, as many people here are fairly frightened of dogs. It certainly won't hurt! I'm also hoping that she will like to run and can become my running partner for those early morning runs. 
Villagers have noticed the difference in the cotton harvest in the past few years, watching as they collect fewer and fewer bundles. Cotton is a plant that is very rough on the soil, consuming all the nutrients and year after year the soil is degraded. Because of this, the failure of their crop, many farmers in my village are choosing to stop planting cotton.
portable version without a bottom
portable version with bottom/base
non-portable fixed in place version
