Development Dynamics

          Back in February I attended a meeting with an NGO that has been building improved cookstoves in Peru for the last 10 years. Improved cookstoves are considered the best replacement for open fire cooking which is the traditional cooking method. They use less fuel, they have chimneys so the kitchen doesn’t fill with smoke, and they reduce the amount of respiration diseases significantly. This NGO was set up by an American and is based out of Lima. They provide the engineer to build the cookstove, as long as the family provides the bricks, ash, mud, and half a bag of cement. The idea being that if the family that is receiving the cookstove puts in work and a little money to build it, they will more likely take better care if and actually use the cookstove more. Along with the stove they also provide a hand washing station, a bucket to hold boiled water, and vegetable seeds to plant in a house garden. They came to Levanto 8 years ago and built a handful of cookstoves, which are now falling apart and so they are back, in full force promising a cookstove to just about everyone that wants one. The meeting in February was an initial interest meeting with the officials in town (me included!). This was back when I was desperate to go to any and every meeting that I was invited to, and show my face to as many people I could. I sat through the meeting smiling, and thinking how great an organization is here to build cookstoves, because everything I’ve heard from volunteers, is that while they are incredibly important and help families out tremendously, it is a beast of a project to take on. Getting materials to site, and funding to do them, often leads to one disaster after another, and its better to leave it to NGOs or governmental organizations with money and cars to come in and get it done.

Well four months flew by and before I knew it I was again being invited to another cookstove meeting with the NGO, which was this time open to the community.  The town nurse promised to go with me, and I left my host dad to make his own way to the meeting as I banged on the nurse’s door proud that I had a friend to go with. Embarrassingly as I was pounding away she was already at the meeting talking away with my host dad who had already made it ahead of me. About 20 women from the community showed up, along with some town officials, such as the president of the local security force, the town governor, and the vice mayor (who I thought was the actual mayor for the first four months of my service, but that’s besides the point).  The NGO’s representative talked through the program, the benefits, and the plan of action. They have the town elect 9 local representatives to visit the houses that are receiving that cookstoves to make sure that they are buying the bricks, and are ready for when the engineer comes to actually install it. The engineer stated that they prefer the representatives to be women, as they seem more committed to getting a cookstove into their houses, but anyone in the community will do. This is when he handed the floor over to the governor who has been the main representative for the project. The governor gave a few words of appreciation and then the important people at the meeting also gave some words of thanks. It took a while to go through everyone and conveniently my host dad slipped out of the room right, as it was his time to speak. I unfortunately was not so smooth and as the nurse finished up her statement fear rushed through me as I realized what this might entail. Much to my relief the governor cut in for me, and gave a very unexpected but flattering speech about how I have become part of the community, and this led him right into volunteering me to be the first representative of the cookstoves. I had no words so I nodded and smiled instead, and there it was I had some how gotten myself into a cookstove project. The other representatives were chosen in a very mysterious form, which included my host dad also becoming a representative, and me and the nurse ended up being the only two of three women volunteered for the position, but so it goes. That night at dinner my host dad went over his plans for the new cookstove. It was decided that we would put white plaster on the kitchen walls, and maybe go as far as designing our cookstove. I suggested that maybe a large painting of my face would look nice, but they seem to be going a different direction with the design. The NGO was also offering up prizes for the best painted cookstove and with some good effort we might potentially win.

            Up until now in my story all seems to be going smoothly. I’m impressed by the organization, and the fact that they make people contribute to their own cookstoves. This also happens to be the Peace Corps model of how to do cookstoves, perhaps an American way of development. However the very next day after the NGO meeting, a man and woman came cursing into town on their motorcycle. They are dressed in official vests, which in Peru means business. I forgot to mention as part of being a representative for the NGO we all received a fancy black shoulder bag, a professional vest with the NGOs name all over it, and a hat which also promotes the NGO. Not gonna lie it was one of the main attractions to being a representative. Anyways in come these two young professionals (a rare site in my town) with ‘Cocinas Peru’ advertised on their fancy work vests. Turns out Cocinas Peru is a national government program that comes into rural towns and builds cookstoves. They sign up as many people as they have money for, go in the very next day providing all the materials, build them right then and there, shake the hands of town officials and get out of there. They are smooth, quick, and well funded. The other main difference was that the national government was providing clay bricks, which were more expensive and durable than mud bricks, which were the type of bricks most families would buy if they had to provide the bricks for the project

            News spread quickly of the two competing programs in town. The NGO tried to make it clear that they were not competing with any program; their goal was to get as many people as possible a cookstove with the only rule being no one family could have two cookstoves. Town gossip was on fire! Sitting one day in the municipality working on the computer I witnessed three women come in huffing and puffing about who was getting what cookstove, and how the government program was providing everything for free, where as the NGO you had to buy your own bricks. They complained that the people getting the free cookstoves did not deserve them, and it was the secretary’s fault for all of this. The governor was also to blame for the injustice, and they proclaimed that he should not have allowed two programs to enter at once.  This became focus of everyone’s conversations as some tried to defend the NGO pointing out it provided seeds, hand washing stations, and prizes where as the national government just provided a cookstove and one cooking pot.

The next evening my host dad was running his hands over our old falling apart cookstove in a pensive manner as my host mom prepared dinner, and I sat on the small bank trying to warm myself by the heat of the stove. Interrupting the silence he proclaimed that the next day he was going to enroll in the national government program. He said that another town over did not want the national government’s cookstoves, and thus they had more to give out then they originally thought, and they provided everything for free you can’t argue with that. Forgetting about any excitement in design it became clear that he could get his cookstove quicker with the national government. I pointed out that he still had to represent the NGO. He recognized this, he would just have to sell the NGOs cookstoves, while he was rocking the government cookstove in his own house. I’m not sure how I am going to handle a situation where a family is complaining about having to lay down their hard owned bricks, while the neighbors next door got their whole cookstove plus a cooking pot provided for free and installed in one morning. Perhaps the governor shouldn’t have allowed two organizations in at once, but at the end of the day anyone that wants an improved cookstove is going to get one, they just may never speak to their neighbor or governor again. A competition a do gooders, is certainly mixing up the pot and making enemies in towns across Peru.