We just made headway in the War on Cold. I talked to two different stove vendors, and one of them (in a suprise move) knocked 25% off of the price of the stove, since he felt that our work with the Peace Corps is a worthwhile cause. It’s pretty moving when people show that kind of charity and support, especially since we didn’t even ask him to. So, if you ever need to buy a canvas tent or a woodburning stove, please visit Rich and consider buying from his store: http://www.walltentshop.com/. His prices were already the lowest, but he helped us out a lot. Though, shipping is still the most expensive part, and I can’t expect him to discount that since it’s direct cost to him.

By third world development standards, we’ve done a horrible thing. One of the Prime Directives of helping improve conditions in underdeveloped countries is the concept of “capacity building.” You teach them how to do things for themselves, and to avoid dependence on outside resources, technology, and money. In this way, sustainable development can continue when the aid workers leave. It’s the old adage, “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” But by getting our stove through the mail using American money from an American vendor and shipping it here? Totally contrapurpose. We struggled with this for a while, but were able to rationalize it with the following:

• We’re cold. Really cold. Can’t feel-my-fingers-to-type-my-reports kind of cold. Several days of each week. It affects quality of life as well as job performance.
• The only stoves available here are the ones we (and they, after we train them) make ourselves. They are masonry and too heavy for our structure.
• Propane and electric heating are REALLY expensive, and are a poor environmental case.
• An open fire (what they would do in our place, all else being the same) is a serious fire hazard in a wooden house, and we’re spending a LOT of time trying to teach them the dangers of daily smoke exposure.
• The stove is for us, not for locals, or even to demonstrate to locals. Like our laptops and outrageous vaccination sequences, sometimes as Americans we just have better stuff than they do. That’s life. We try to keep it on the down-low.

Likewise, we had to do some rationalizing to convince ourselves we could afford it. The $500 total cost is about a month’s combined wages for us (yikes). But, we were already considering doing a house improvement for the landlord, since he is not charging us rent. If we amortize the cost of the stove over 12 months, it works out to about 300q… more or less what some of our friends are paying in rent in other locations. So, the stove will be our present to Nas Palas when we leave in 2010. Again, unustainable from a development perspective. But what else are we going to do? We’re so cold.