María Tzoy Tiu (32) and her family live at the bottom of a hill in a small community outside Santa Lucía Utatlán in a cluster of houses dotting the countryside. The sprawl of her relatives is endless; María herself cannot count the number of aunts, uncles, in-laws, and parents that make up her family.

“We are many people,” she says. We stand outside her kitchen, and her two-and-a-half-year-old son, Gustavo, clings to her skirt, shyly peeping up from beneath the wide rim of his little straw hat. “So you know, cooking is a challenge.”

María came to know Habitat for Humanity Guatemala in a unique way. “For a long while, we have cooked on a Habitat Guatemala smokeless stove that my in-laws built,” she says. “We loved the design and how well it worked, so we applied for our own.” She also recognized that having two effective cooking stoves rather than one would guarantee that every mouth was fed.

María is also grateful that working with Habitat Guatemala smokeless stoves has proven beneficial in other ways. “We’re fortunate not to have had long-term health problems,” she tells us. “No smoke, no coughing, no colds.”

For the past year, María says that she has been pleased to have a good, functioning stove and that she has enjoyed using it. She recollects that her family and a group of Habitat Guatemala volunteers built the stove. Together, they cut blocks, mix mortar, and arrange it. “They came to build the stove, and they worked very hard. They were friendly, too.” She smiles. “Thanks to them, we can cook more efficiently.”

Isabel de León de Tay’s happiness is contagious. She has lived in Santa Lucía Utatlán, Sololá, for over thirty years with her husband, Eduardo (59), and their three children, Josue, Cecia, and Elia. Entering the community, it is easy to spot Isabel, who waves furiously to someone she may (or may not) recognize.

For this reason, when a group of Habitat for Humanity volunteers came to help her family build their first stove, Isabel says that she was over the moon. “Five people came to construct the stove. It took about fifteen days to cut the blocks. Then about half a day to put them together.” She grins at the memory. “They chatted a lot and played with my children. They were so happy.”

For over thirty-two years, Isabel (50) prepared meals in the ground. Speaking K’iche, an indigenous language to the area, she recounts that her old way of cooking was a nightmare. “I used to cook in the earth before, with no grill atop.” She draws block shapes in the air as she speaks for emphasis. “It was a few bricks stacked on top of one another, then lined with a piece of iron, and that way, I cooked my tortillas.”

She feared for her health and her children. “The stove bothered my eyes tremendously. It cost me so much to cook—my health, my work. Everything took so much more time. I couldn’t leave my children for a single moment, because they would always grab at the pieces.” She giggles, cutting the story short. “Now, they still try to touch the stove, which I let them do, because I’m no longer afraid that they will burn themselves!”

The new stove has made an enormous difference. Isabel holds her arms out as if she were about to embrace a large person. “When I cooked in the ground, I needed this much wood every single day. I had to buy it.” She notes that although the new stove still needs wood as fuel, it uses so little that she no longer has to purchase it. Instead, she only has to look for wood once a week. With the extra money she saves, Isabel can buy maize. “So much more maize!” she beams.

We ask if she has something that she would like to say on the experience. She claps her hands together in appreciation. “I don’t have many words to say in Spanish, but in K’iche, I thank you for your hard work. I’m so happy with the stove. When are you all going to come back to visit me?”

At sixteen years old, Modesta Maricela Jitatz Gui Gui is in charge of the family meals. Her mother, Liliana, just gave birth to her ninth child, leaving Modesta with the challenge of cooking for up to twenty family members, which includes her siblings, parents, cousins, and more when they return from harvesting their strawberry crop.

Despite what seems like a daunting task, Modesta embraces that challenge. She is particularly grateful for the family’s Habitat for Humanity Guatemala smokeless stove. Because of its efficiency and clean burning, the stove allows her to prepare more food for more people in a shorter period of time. Modesta says that she is thrilled that the metal surface heats up quickly to make large quantities of tortillas. Also, she only has to go out to look for firewood once a week.

Modesta says that she doesn’t miss the old stove, which is a complete contrast to her current one. She remembers that there was always a lot of smoke in her kitchen and that the old stove would eat up copious amounts of firewood. “It was two blocks with a grill stacked on top of it,” she explains, putting her hands out for emphasis. “There was all smoke and no fire. And we have to cook for so many people, so it was hard.”

The new stove only took about a day to construct. Modesta recalls that her father helped shape the blocks and that soon after, a group of international volunteers used them to help build the stove. “They spent the whole day working, until the afternoon,” she reflects. “We are so grateful to all that they have done, and we suffer no longer because of their work.”