Smokeless Stoves: Elida Crecia

Elida Crecia’s small kitchen is carefully kept and impeccably clean. Every tin cup, condiment, and utensil has its place, whether it is tucked carefully between the slats in the bamboo walls or balanced delicately on a wooden shelf. In the middle of her kitchen, the very axis of the meal preparation, she has built her smokeless stove.

“We borrowed our last stove,” she quietly tells us, shifting her two-year-old son, Clinton, on her hip. “It was never ours. But this stove, this is something we can call our own. My husband constructed the bricks, and he also helped build the stove. It took about half a day.”

Although Elida is shy, it is clear that the stove brings her a new joy. She reveals that smoke no longer fills her kitchen, making breathing a lot easier for her and Clinton. They also need not worry about the quantity of firewood, which her husband must go out and search for. “Before, he would leave multiple times a week,” Elida says. “Now, it’s just once a week.”

Elida has fond memories of the team that came to help build her stove and is grateful for their dedication. She describes them has very friendly and hardworking.  More than anything, she wants them to know the following: “May they keep fighting for people like us.”